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.
Dementia Joe and his coterie of enablers have embarked on a foreign policy that is likely to result in a new war that will
endanger America and further a growing perception that the United States is weak and divided. There are three troublesome
flashpoints (Ukraine, China and Iran) that could explode at any time and catapult our nation into a costly, deadly military
confrontation. Topping the list is the Ukraine.
The corrupt dealings in Ukraine over the last four years by Joe and Hunter Biden leaves them completely compromised and
subject to coercion, even blackmail. With this as a backdrop the decade long effort by the United States to weaken Russia's
influence in eastern Ukraine has been revived with Biden's arrival in the White House.
Let me first introduce you to some essential facts:
Larry Johnson,
If the Ukraine blows so will Syria! Then the situation might transition from nemesis to tisis in short order. Here is a
strangely appropriate analysis with just one word blanked out.
In the
years ahead, _____________ will assuredly find itself in new international crises involving nations or groups that have
powerful leaders. In some cases, these leaders may have a special, dangerous mindset that is the result of a
"hubris-nemesis complex." This complex involves a combination of hubris (a pretension toward an arrogant form of
godliness) and nemesis (a vengeful desire to confront, defeat, humiliate, and punish an adversary, especially one that
can be accused of hubris). The combination has strange dynamics that may lead to destructive, high-risk behavior.
Attempts to deter, compel, or negotiate with a leader who has a hubris-nemesis complex can be ineffectual or even
disastrously counterproductive when those attempts are based on concepts better suited to dealing with more normal
leaders.
https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monograph_reports/2005/MR461.pdf
We, too, pray for sanity.
Ishmael Zechariah
Reply
Larry, I unfortunately agree with your observations and conclusion.
I would add that in my opinion, the Russians are a lot more determined, as are the Chinese and Iranians, then the
generally self absorbed younger generations in the West. "Woke" culture has no answer to sunken warships, downed
aircraft and body bags. Do the SJWs want to die for LBGTIQ rights in Russia or another of their pet obsessions de jour?
I don't think so.
My concern for President Biden and America is that, if Ukraine attacks, unless President Putin succeeds in delivering a
very short, sharp and successful lesson to Ukraine there is not going to be a clear path forward to a negotiated
armistice. If that doesn't happen through bad luck, the fog of war, etc. Then I don't think Biden has the intelligence
to get us out of the mess.
If you add to that the possibility that Zelensky may demand American support "or else" when he starts to lose then we
are in very very dangerous territory. If I were the Chinese, I would just stand back and watch. Taiwanese independence
is a meaningless concept without American military backing and I'm sure the Taiwanese know it.
The wild card to me is what is Israel's attitude? Is it possible that they might be a moderating influence for a change?
Reply
Oh, yeah .!!!!!! The country that shoots women and children who get too close to the fence they have constructed in
PALESTINE on other people"s land will be the moderating party. Or maybe Mad Dog Bolton.
Try getting real, and come up with real world situations. Not some fantasy of killers acting like kittens. The
Russians seem more balanced in responding to such provocations than the U.S. & it's gang of follower- puppets. How
long would any of the these follower-puppets be able to go toe to toe with Russia in all-out-war situation. I'd bet
less than 24 hours, probably far less. Or as a Chinese General once asked: would you want to give up Los Angeles to
save Tiwan? The U.S. doesn't seem to have any sort of reliable anti-missile defence system. Would Ole Uncle Joe
really like to get into such pissing contest so early on in his term of presidency? Maybe I am wrong, but from what I
have seen so far, he just seems to be throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks. In this game, if one
blunders, the walls vanish, an the lights go out.
Reply
Russia moves cannon boats and amphibious vessels from Caspian Sea to the Black Sea, but in reality these combatants are
perfect for operations in shallow waters and that means Azov Sea and Ukraine's South-Western flank. These ships can form
both a surface group capable of dispatching anything Ukraine may have on Azov Sea, plus form excellent tactical
amphibious group which can land a battalion or two of marines and support them with fire from the sea, both artillery
and MLRS. Of course, there are other forces Russia has there but it is a good way to give Caspian Flotilla a chance for
yet another combat deployment, after its missile ships spearheaded first salvos of 3M14 cruise missiles at ISIS targets
in Syria in 2015. Here are some of those ships:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ce/Caspian_Corvette_Astrakhan_2.jpg
Russia has an overwhelming firepower in the Black Sea proper and whatever the US is sending there is primarily for ISR
purposes in case Ukies go bananas and decide to attack Donbass in death by cop scenario. The US will not interfere in
any meaningful way other than supplying Ukies with recon data.
Reply
It is bigger than Biden or even the Military Industrial Complex. The establishment foreign policy apparatus transcends
political parties and has a continuity that survives changes in administrations. It is obsessed with Russia. It opposed
not just communism but Russia itself so when the Berlin wall fell for it the Cold War never ended and it successfully
pursued the the break up and looting of the Russian Empire and the relentless eastward march of NATO. Putin pushed back
on this resulting in him being demonized by the orchestrated Western media. Trump for all his faults had at least a
halfway rational view of these matters but now the Borg is back and spoiling for a fight. I never cease to be amazed by
the stupidity of these people, their apparent lack of understanding of the importance of Ukraine and Sevastopol in
Russian history and their inability to read a map or know the basics of military operations to see the obvious
indefensibility of Ukraine's eastern border. The danger now is that Ukraine's leaders will overestimate the support they
think they have from the United States and start something they can't stop. This has the feel of 1914.
Reply
Or the Georgian/Russian of 2008 when Georgia attacked on Russian territory. President Bush was talking tough, saying
he would send aid to Georgia on warships. But the rules governing ships entering the Bosferus proscribed such stuff,
aND Bush ended doing nothing. The Russians quickly neutralized the Georgian forces and pushed deeper into Georgia
where they currently remain. The odiot who started the mess was forced out of Georgia & was afterwards appointed a
governor or some such in Ukraine. But I think that too went bad. Such is the level of governance in Ukraine.
Reply
The last 5 Ukros killed were killed by mines. The contact line has many zones where minefields are employed by both
sides. It appears some were killed in their own minefield according to local reports. Civilians in the LPR and DPR have
been killed by incoming fire, most recently a 5 year old boy. Of course OSCE is worthless except as a "bean counter";
who fired what and where is too much to record..
Reply
US defence attache with a group was up at the front yesterday as well as the comic.
Ukraine really has its back up against the wall financially. This year with big interest payments due and no way to get
the funds as the IMF seems to hit its limit on their 'we're never getting it back' budget. Their only steady source of
funds is ironically Russia with the gas transit fees guaranteed at $7B total over the next four years, much of which
will go to the EU and IMF as interest payments. After that the gas fees will drop to zero as the gas transits move to
TurkStream and NS2. With nothing to pay Russia, apart from the little mentioned oil transit fees, Russia may stop
shipping gas/coal/electricity for local consumption as well. At that point either Ukraine crashes or someone else has to
pick up the bill.
Although Kiev will lose dramatically there are very good reasons why Kiev would push the button. Will they ever again
have this PR opportunity to play the innocent victim?
Reply
Earlier this morning I saw a pic of Zelenskiy visiting the front, behind him was a makeshift field tent with a sign on
it, the sign is in Ukrainian but translates as "Vietnam". Is Biden serious about backing Zelenskiy, I guess we'll find
out soon enough.
Reply
wondering if anyone can point me to a fairly, anyway, reliable, (assuming one exists) 'war games scenario' document on
an attempted invasion of Taiwan by China. Intuitively, it would seem a difficult challenge, especially given China's
lack of any appreciable experience in seaborne invasion. Thanks in advance for any help anyone can provide, and my
apologies upfront LJ if you deem this offtopic.
Reply
Not meaning to be a smart-alec about it, but why assume that an invasion has to be "seaborne"?
In WW2 the Royal Navy had total control of the waters around Crete. So the Germans simply went over the top of them
and invaded the island from the air.
It was very definitely touch and go for a while until German paratroopers managed to capture an airfield, and from
that point it was all over.
No idea how well defended Taiwanese airfields are, but the PLA would only need to capture one and, again, the final
result will not be in doubt.
Reply
well, the quick answer to your question would be 'fine, alter my initial question to include war games scenarios
on airborne attacks on Taiwan. The glib answer might be, Taiwan is not Crete. And the Chinese PLA are not the
Wehrmacht. Who, by the time of the Crete attack had built up a record that included many successful airborne
attacks. I see no such history with the PLA. That, by no means rules it out. But, in any event, I can't imagine
the PLA would role the dice, SOLELY, on an airborne attack. They would have to have a seaborne plan of attack, in
case Plan A failed. So, in any event, I would be still be in search of that war games scenario.
Reply
Absent any new evidence, I am going to continue to assume that this is really about Nordstream II. The Biden Junta are
probably planning on having their Ukrainian cat's paw make a lunge at DNR/LNR, forcing the Russians to intervene
directly. Ukraine, of course, is not actually a full NATO member, so no Article 5 will be triggered. Instead, Washington
just self-righteously hollers 'Russian aggression!' and demands that Merkel immediately shut down Nordstream II -- the
Russian pipeline into Germany -- just before it's ready to go online.
And then, as a lush reward for their undying loyalty, the Germans get to import frack-gas and oil all the way from the
US at four or five times the market rate. Problem solved!
Reply
you are correct – the Ukraine state does not really want the return of the Donbass region let alone Crimea as it
would result in a complete change in the balance of power in the Ukraine with the Russian-speaking population being
able to form the government, as it had done pre 2014. They really want to push the Germans into stopping Nord Stream
2 by provoking Russia
Reply
Struggling to understand how a Ukraine with such supposedly strong ties to National Socialists of a century ago managed
to end up with a Jewish comedian as President.
Reply
Here's the viewpoint of Ukraine Army's snipers who are primarily composed of volunteer housewives. While to D.C. and
Moscow, it's part of their sphere of political chess, however to those on the front lines, it is survival and protection
of their loved ones.
Almost half a century ago, I took a course in the German language as a refresher during the summer session at my local
junior college. The woman who taught the course was a native Ukrainian. She told the class a little about her
background.
When the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union, she was in her mid- to late-teens. She had an intense dislike (hatred) of the
Russians and took a job working for the German military government of occupation as an interpreter. She said they had
welcomed the Germans as liberators from the oppression of the Soviet Communists.
Later, when the Red Army juggernaut was rolling west through Ukraine, she realized that it would not be good for her
long-term prospects to remain at home. She chose to move west with the retreating German army. Subsequent to the end of
the war in Europe, she rattled around for awhile in displaced person camps, and ultimately made her way to the United
States.
I have no reason to doubt the veracity of her story. This was my first introduction to the enmity between the Russians
and the Ukrainians.
Reply
Biden is a tin-hat emperor moving tin soldiers in his bathtub at play time. Surrounded by self-selected idiots who make
him dangerous as hell. This is what his "return to decency" looks like? May he be struck down deaf and dumb.
Reply
Two front war – Russia moving into Ukraine at the same time China moves on Taiwan. They put their wet fingers up to the
wind to see which way the Biden operation blows.
And they could not escape the conclusion this was the time to strike if there is any fortuitous time to strike. Biden
and his new team muddle deeply into reckless ineptitude. And Kamala Harris doesn't have anything to wear.
Reply
An odd thesis. The Russians are signally very, very strongly that they do not want the Ukraine to start a war by
attacking the rebels in Donbass.
They could not be more explicit if they sent a hypersonic cruise missile through Zelensky's office window with a sign
on it that reads "Don't start something you won't even live to regret".
They very clearly do not think that this is "the time to strike", nor even that they think there is a "fortuitous
time" for them to go to war with Ukraine.
If Ukraine strikes first then, sure, they'll strike back. But I fail to see how anyone can come to the conclusion
that the Russians are provoking this when it is very clearly the Ukies and their promoters in the White House who are
pushing these buttons.
Similarly with Taiwan.
The Chinese are not provoking this. They made their red lines clear to everyone as far back as Nixon's trip to China
i.e. if the USA sticks to a one-China-policy then the mainland will refrain from using force against Taiwan.
But the USA is not sticking to the one-China-policy. Recent US diplomatic moves look exactly like what it is:
maneuverings to prepare for when the Taipei government declares independence.
Which is crazy.
But in both cases the USA may well provoke a conflict and then dump their patsies like a discarded toy.
Which would be beyond crazy. It would be an outcome so loopy that there isn't even a word to describe it.
Reply
Thank you for setting it straight.. it seems pretty evident Russia does not want a war but is sure as hell ready
to finish this business if a war is pushed on to them and pushed on to them by the Americans. Ukraine has been
armed by the U.S , funded by the IMF, and cheered by NATO. They will not do a single thing without their owners
permission.
Reply
Back in December 2020 Putin had an expanded meeting with his Defense Ministry Board. In it he laid out several items and
agendas to be carried out by the Military Staff.
http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/64684
March 24th saw Ukraine's Zelensky virtually declaring war against the Russian Federation. One can not rule out Zelensky
using the trade deals with Doha and use the direct flights between Kiev and Doha to smuggle in Jihad's from Syria and
Libya to fight in Donbas. Zelensky on March 3rd in a joint press conference with the European Council President in Kiev
stated that the retaking of Crimea from Russia was now Ukraine Official Policy.
https://asiatimes.com/2021/04/ukraine-redux-war-russophobia-and-pipelineistan/
Reply
Speaking of 'foreign policy', question is who will win out -- D.C. or Tel Aviv?
'The model' is headed to D.C. to try and convince our IC's head-cheeses that the Iran JCPOA isn't such a good deal, and
Tel Aviv is trying to get him an audience with his high-arsed the 'King', China Joe. If D.C. swallows 'the model's'
spiel, then they're bigger suckers than they already appear to be.
Assume this Mossad meeting will take place between Kackling Kamala who will be channeling Obama-Jarrett; or will it
be Stinking Liar Susan Rose channeling Obama-Jarrett? But the Big Guy will be out to lunch.
Reply
We should stop seeing capitalism as this unmovable, eternal and indestructible
system ...
Yes, in fact USA has adjusted capitalism as needed/wanted with socialism (the "welfare
state") and neoliberalism (crony-capitalism).
= ... capitalism and the USA are historically specific phenomena, and they will - 100%
certainty - collapse and disappear eventually.
Still, a collapse can take many forms and affect the world's people in different ways. We
can't just expect that capitalism will die of natural causes and the world will inevitably be
a better place for it. We are right to be wary of the worst outcomes.
= ... you just need to last longer than your political enemy. The fact that USA outlived
the USSR gave it almost 17 years of incontestable supremacy ...
You make "outlasting" seem like a random thing. USSR didn't just lose the roll of the
dice.
= No one takes neoliberalism seriously anymore, even among the high echelons of the
economics priesthood.
Examples?
= It is in this world that the Ukraine chose to align with the American Empire. To put it
simply, it chose the wrong side at the wrong time: it chose the West in an era that's
shifting to the East.
But their "choice" wasn't a free and knowledgeable one, was it? The West was pushing for
that change for 10 years and Nuland bragged of spending $5 billion to achieve it.
And the "choice" was for the entirety of Ukraine to move into the West. Ukraine
suffers greatly from not having Crimea and Donbas. For example, the West had planned gas
fracking in eastern Ukraine (by Burisma). That, of course, never happened.
= The euphoria of the fall of socialism masked the degeneration of capitalism that was
started at the same time and it particularly impacted the Warsaw Pact (Comecon) and the
Western ex-USSR nations.
Ukraine was already an oligarchic nightmare when Maidan happened.
= Nazism is not a system, it is just crazy liberalism, and I hope the white supremacists
and traditionalists in the West take note of that - if they don't want to be
crushed.
Nazism lives on in the form of the combination of: neoliberalism, neoconservativism, and
neocolonialism (aka Zionism). And those who adhere to these ideologies don't seem to have any
concern about being crushed. AFAICT the beatings will continue until morale improves
.
It's hard to track neoliberalism because the neoliberals don't consider themselves
"neoliberal": they're just "normal" or simply "liberal". They are the Hadean ideology par
excellence, the ideology that disguise itself as a-ideological, the invisible ideology.
But we can infer the death of neoliberalism as codified in the Washington Consensus list
from 2008 onward by the set of policies enforced in the USA, the UK, Japan and other
developed European countries (where neoliberalism are expected to be hegemonic), and here I'm
specifically asking you to focus on the so-called "austerity" (which is a more regressive
form of neoliberalism, but is not technically neoliberalism) and the rise of MMT through
money printing or, in the case of Japan, more T-bond issuance, in a complete disregard to
national (sovereign) debt after the pandemic (and, in the USA's case, even before that). Also
pay attention to the list of Economy "Nobel" (Riksbank) Prize winners post-2008 - none of
them being neoliberals in the academic sense of the word, nor having a neoliberal past
(apparently).
The only place left where neoliberalism is still alive and well, albeit weakened, is in
Latin America and the so-called "emerging economies" (Turkey, South Africa and Russia). But
those are not the dominant part of the world in the capitalist sense, it would be akin to the
Roman Empire surviving only as a remnant in pieces of Hispania or Gallia.
The World Health Organization recently published its report on the
origin of the SARS-CoV-2 virus which has caused the Covid-19 pandemic. Most scientist agree
that the virus is of zoonotic origin and not a human construct or an accidental laboratory
escape. But the U.S. wants to put pressure on China and advised the Director General of the
WHO, Tedros Adhanom, to keep the focus on China potential culpability. He acted accordingly
when he
remarked on his agency's report:
Although the team has concluded that a laboratory leak is the least likely hypothesis, this
requires further investigation, potentially with additional missions involving specialist
experts, which I am ready to deploy.
The Governments of Australia, Canada, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Israel, Japan, Latvia,
Lithuania, Norway, the Republic of Korea, Slovenia, the United Kingdom, and the United
States of America remain steadfast in our commitment to working with the World Health
Organization (WHO), international experts who have a vital mission, and the global
community to understand the origins of this pandemic in order to improve our collective
global health security and response. Together, we support a transparent and independent
analysis and evaluation, free from interference and undue influence, of the origins of the
COVID-19 pandemic. In this regard, we join in expressing shared concerns regarding the
recent WHO-convened study in China, while at the same time reinforcing the importance of
working together toward the development and use of a swift, effective, transparent,
science-based, and independent process for international evaluations of such outbreaks of
unknown origin in the future.
The most interesting with the above statement is the list of U.S. allied countries which
declined to support it,
Most core EU countries, especially France, Spain, Italy and Germany, are missing from it.
As is the Five-Eyes member New Zealand. India, a U.S. ally in the anti-Chinese Quad
initiative, also did not sign. This list of signatories of the Joint Statement is an
astonishingly meager result for a U.S. 'joint' initiative. It is unprecedented. It is a sign
that something has cracked and that the world will never be the same.
The first months of he Biden administration saw a rupture in the global system. First
Russia admonished the EU for its hypocritical criticism of internal Russian issues. Biden
followed up by calling Putin a 'killer'. Then the Chinese foreign minister told the Biden
administration
to shut the fuck up about internal Chinese issues. Soon thereafter Russia's and China's
foreign ministers met and agreed to deepen their alliance and to shun the U.S. dollar. Then
China's foreign minister went on a wider Middle East tour. There he reminded U.S. allies of
their
sovereignty :
Wang said that expected goals had been achieved with regard to a five-point initiative on
achieving security and stability in the Middle East, which was proposed during the visit.
"China supports countries in the region to stay impervious to external pressure and
interference, to independently explore development paths suited to its regional realities
," Wang said, adding that the countries should " break free from the shadows of big-power
geopolitical rivalry and resolve regional conflicts and differences as masters of the
region ."
Suffice to say, the China-Iran pact deeply is embedded within a new matrix Beijing hopes to
create with the Arab states of the Persian Gulf and Iran. The pact forms part of a new
narrative on regional security and stability.
Countries in Asia and further afield are closely watching the development of this
alternative international order, led by Moscow and Beijing. And they can also recognise the
signs of increasing US economic and political decline.
It is a new kind of Cold War, but not one based on ideology like the first incarnation.
It is a war for international legitimacy, a struggle for hearts and minds and money in the
very large part of the world not aligned to the US or NATO.
The US and its allies will continue to operate under their narrative, while Russia and
China will push their competing narrative. This was made crystal clear over these past few
dramatic days of major power diplomacy.
The global balance of power is shifting, and for many nations, the smart money might be
on Russia and China now.
The obvious U.S. countermove to the Russian-Chinese initiative is to unite its allies in a
new Cold War against Russia and China. But as the Joint Statement above shows most of those
allies do not want to follow that path. China is a too good customer to be shunned. Talk of
human rights in other countries might play well with the local electorate but what counts in
the end is the business.
Even some U.S. companies can see that the hostile path the Biden administration has
followed will only be to their detriment. Some are asking the Biden gang to
tone it down :
[Boeing] Chief Executive Dave Calhoun told an online business forum he believed a major
aircraft subsidy dispute with Europe could be resolved after 16 years of wrangling at the
World Trade Organization, but contrasted this with the outlook on China.
"I think politically (China) is more difficult for this administration and it was for
the last administration. But we still have to trade with our largest partner in the world:
China," he told the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Aviation Summit.
Noting multiple disputes, he added: " I am hoping we can sort of separate intellectual
property, human rights and other things from trade and continue to encourage a free trade
environment between these two economic juggernauts. ... We cannot afford to be locked out
of that market. Our competitor will jump right in."
Before its 737 MAX debacle Boeing was the biggest U.S. exporter and China was its biggest
customer. The MAX has yet to be re-certified in China. If Washington keeps the hostile tone
against China Boeing will lose out and Europe's Airbus will make a killing.
Biden announced that "America is back" only to be told that it is no longer needed in the
oversized role that it played before. Should Washington not be able to accept that it can no
play 'unilateral' but will have to follow the real rules of international law we might be in
for some
interesting times :
Question: Finally, are you concerned that deteriorating international tensions could lead
to war?
Glenn Diesen: Yes, we should all be concerned. Tensions keep escalating and there are
increasing conflicts that could spark a major war. A war could break out over Syria,
Ukraine, the Black Sea, the Arctic, the South China Sea and other regions.
What makes all of these conflicts dangerous is that they are informed by a
winner-takes-all logic. Wishful thinking or active push towards a collapse of Russia,
China, the EU or the U.S. is also an indication of the winner-takes-all mentality. Under
these conditions, the large powers are more prepared to accept greater risks at a time when
the international system is transforming . The rhetoric of upholding liberal democratic
values also has clear zero-sum undertones as it implies that Russia and China must accept
the moral authority of the West and commit to unilateral concessions.
The rapidly shifting international distribution of power creates problems that can only
be resolved with real diplomacy. The great powers must recognize competing national
interests, followed by efforts to reach compromises and find common solutions.
Russia's president Vladimir Putin has repeatedly asked
for a summit of leaders of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council:
Putin argued that the countries that created a new global order after World War II should
cooperate to solve today's problems.
"The founder countries of the United Nations, the five states that hold special
responsibility to save civilisation, can and must be an example," he said at the sombre
memorial ceremony.
The meeting would "play a great role in searching for collective answers to modern
challenges and threats," Putin said, adding that Russia was "ready for such a serious
conversation."
Such a summit would be a chance to work on a new global system that avoids unilateralism
and block mentality. As the U.S. is now learning that its allies are not willing to follow
its anti-China and anti-Russia policies it might be willing to negotiate over a new
international system.
But as long as Washington is unable to recognize its own decline a violent attempt to
solve the issue once and for all will become more likely.
Posted by b on April 1, 2021 at 17:52 UTC |
Permalink
Very thought provoking b, I wish time off brought me back firing on all cylinders like
this!
No doubt vk will chime in here better than I but it surely cannot be a matter of "if
America decides". There are historical forces at work in this financialized phase of late
capitalism that are not grasped by the US leadership, let alone factored into intelligent
policy debates. Biden is an arch-lobbyist for the vested interests which compel the US's
unilateral and interventionist foreign policy. I'm quite sure he is incapable of 'deciding'
anything (not just mentally but institutionally). But the underlying dynamic of
world-historical change is beyond him and his whole country. The die was cast long ago when
the Soviet Union fell and the US couldn't help themselves. Junkies for unilateralism since
1989, they will keep shooting up until they OD (Boeing notwithstanding...). I suspect they
will end up like the schizoid UK, psychologically unable to accept increasing and humiliating
losses of empire until it hits the bottom of the dustbin of History.
The rules at issue in the case, initially adopted between 1964 and 1975, had been meant "to
promote competition, localism and viewpoint diversity by ensuring that a small number of
entities do not dominate a particular media market," Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh wrote for the
court. But the rules, he added, were a relic of a different era -- "an early-cable and
pre-internet age when media sources were more limited." "By the 1990s, however, the market for
news and entertainment had changed dramatically," Justice Kavanaugh wrote. "Technological
advances led to a massive increase in alternative media options, such as cable television and
the internet. Those technological advances challenged the traditional dominance of daily print
newspapers, local radio stations and local television stations."
The case, Federal Communications Commission v. Prometheus Radio Project, No. 19-1231,
concerned three rules. One barred a single entity from owning a radio or television station and
a daily print newspaper in the same market, the second limited the number of radio and
television stations an entity can own in a single market, and the third restricted the number
of local television stations an entity could own in the same market.
In 2017, the commission concluded that the three rules no longer served their original
purposes of promoting competition and the like. The vote was 3 to 2 along party lines, with the
commission's Republican members in the majority.
They were not deciding if media consolidation was OK. They were deciding if the FCC had the
regulatory authority to make such a change. The court decided, unanimously, that they did.
If they had decided otherwise, it would open up any such regulatory changes to lawsuits
against the change. This includes further tightening media ownership rules, or changing rules
on pollution, or regulations on corporate governance.
Is they have should have gone for the throat and said FCC, SEC, FTC, FEC, etc. rule-making
is unconstitutional per se because all legislative and pseudo-legislative activity must be
enacted explicitly by only the Congress.
It would have utterly horrified and enraged progressives and big corporation-loving
republicans, but it would have been considered a judicial Gettysburg for the forces of populism
on both sides because it would have gutted the power of the administrative state to render the
people's assembly a vestigial organ.
The US-China meeting in Anchorage took place 75 years almost to the day of the Winston
Iron Curtain speech in Fulton, Missouri. Just as the latter signalled a break point in the
uneasy, war forced cohabit of the West with the communist Soviet Union, so too the Anchorage
will enter the history as the break point in the US hegemony threatening collaboration of the
West and China.
Since WW2, no other nation, not even Russia, has confronted the US so firmly and so
publicly as did Yang Jiechi, one of the ruling member of the Chinese Politburo when he said
that "the United States does not have the qualification to speak to China from a position of
strength'.
That was a slap in the face the Americans will have to respond to, and it's in the nature
of the response one will find whether the American Governing elite is prepared to share power
or go for a confrontation.
The real question is not about his neocon delusions, which are pretty predictable, but about
the ability for the USA project global dominance in the decade to come.
Blinken is a marionette. And pretty much second rate even in that.
Notable quotes:
"... Let's consider this headline for a moment: "Blinken Accuses China of Trying to Undermine US-Dominated World Order." Blinken provides us with a definition of that "world order" in his own words cited in the article: "'... preserve the rules-based international order, in which we have all invested so much over the past 75 years , and which has served our interests and values well'." [My Emphasis] ..."
Let's consider
this headline for a moment: "Blinken Accuses China of Trying to Undermine US-Dominated
World Order." Blinken provides us with a definition of that "world order" in his own words
cited in the article: "'... preserve the rules-based international order, in which we have
all invested so much over the past 75 years , and which has served our interests and
values well'." [My Emphasis]
Clearly, he's referring to the rules put in place by the UN Charter. But as we at this bar
all know, it's the Outlaw US Empire for whom Blinken works that's the #1 criminal when it
comes to violating the UN Charter which is why it's "served our interests and values
well."
Now when we turn to reality, it become very clear that China seeks to uphold the UN
Charter--it's one of the foundational members of the newly established Friends of the UN
Charter Group that the Outlaw US Empire will certainly snub because of the reality of its
actual relations to that Act and Organization .
Indeed, what is being said by the very formation of that Group is a big NO!! to the
Outlaw US Empire's attempt to say it abides by the system it's continuously violated for the
past 75+ years. Yet, it's also clear that NO!! isn't being shouted out by global media
enough, particularly when Outlaw US Empire officials give such an excellent opportunity to be
rebuffed and ridiculed for their lies.
We have many good writers here who could take Blinken's words and turn them into an
indictment of himself and the nation he represents. That implies that writers for global
publications are just as good but need to examine the framing of their articles. Peace won't
come to our planet unless the Outlaw Bully Nation is daily accused for what it is and
does.
NATO is a distinct minority yet it holds the world captive in a terroristic manner. It's
well past time to stop groveling and kow-towing and to stand-up and call out the bullshitters
for what they are since being nice isn't getting us anywhere.
To go back to a previous BTL discussion on Patrick Cockburns recent article in
Counterpunch, Bidens missteps so early on are a very worrying indicator that his foreign
policy team is worse than just being malign. They are incompetent. Thats a very dangerous
combination.
I don't think the Russians, Chinese, or most other major countries (apart from Europe) had
a fundamental problem with Trumps approach. They understood him, and were quite happy to
ignore his bombast and threats and focus instead on what was happening in the real world. But
things are different for someone like Biden, and I'm very surprised nobody in his team seem
to realise this. When he talks on the record, its assumed that it is a reflection of a real
policy. At first, I thought maybe he was just doing the usual new guy in power thing of
talking tough to set the ground for later compromises (the opposite of Obama, who appeared
very weak to other leaders, and then just looked indecisive when his policies turned more
hardline). But that does not seem to be the case so far.
I've no idea what the final outcome will be, but I do think that this is one of those
points in history where things take a very sharp and irreparable change in direction.
Obviously, things have been brewing for years, but the ineptness of US foreign policy seems
to have created a strategic Russian/China alliance which will force many countries to make
some very hard choices about which side of the fence they are on.
On a related note, I woke up this morning to find that a speech by Lawrence P. Wilkerson,
who is associated with the conservative paleoconservatives is getting very wide circulation
in China (you know this has to be officially approved otherwise it disappears very rapidly on
WeChat. He makes a claim that the CIA back in the early '00's intended to use the Uigurs as a
sort of proxy army to destabilise China. For all sorts of reasons, I would doubt that, but it
is now widely believed among Chinese people, even those who have no liking for the CCP. The
notion that the Uigurs are a sort of third force within China, and as such need to be
destroyed now seems to be very deeply embedded in Chinese thinking, and the interference by
'official' western NGO's are undoubtedly making things much worse for them.
"[Wilkerson] makes a claim that the CIA back in the early '00's intended to use the Uigurs
as a sort of proxy army to destabilise China. For all sorts of reasons, I would doubt that,
but it is now widely believed among Chinese people, even those who have no liking for the
CCP."
Just curious as to what your reasons would be for doubting this. The CIA has been doing
precisely this all over the world for over 70 years. There is a clear pipeline between the
Uighurs in China and the CIA-supported "rebels" in Syria. The expatriate Uighur organizations
that are integral to the Western propaganda apparatus is supported and amplified by the NED
and other CIA fronts, as your last sentence implies. This is not to deny the historical
Uighur desire for autonomy in Western China, nor to defend Chinese policies toward them.
Rather, it is to acknowledge the CIA's use of ethnic tensions to sow chaos and division in
non-conforming nations *everywhere*.
1. The US has had little to no success in its many attempts to establish an intelligence
foothold in China. There is zero evidence, direct or indirect, that it has had any successful
contact with Uigur groups directly, although contacts via others, such as the Pakistani or
Turkish intelligence agencies are possible. If there was even the tiniest amount of evidence
of such a link, the Chinese would be broadcasting it from the skies, and not just
re-messaging out tired CT stuff. Chinese intelligence is far ahead of the US in that region,
so they would certainly know if something like that was happening.
2. Uigur groups in general such as we know about them tend to be as virulently anti
Western as anti Han Chinese. All evidence suggests that the brand of Islam that has been
belatedly introduced into those regions is essentially second hand Wahhabism (traditionally,
they were never all that religious).
3. Any such attempt could be easily countered by China – simply by dumping Uigur
radicals into Afghanistan to bolster the Taliban, or anywhere else that would create trouble.
The fact that they haven't done this strongly suggests that the Chinese themselves see no
link.
4. US military intelligence is often a misnomer, but even the CIA can't be stupid enough
to think that fostering another islamic state on the borders of Afghanistan is anything but a
terrible idea.
Of course, no doubt some mid ranking CIA officer may have circulated some report saying
more or less 'hey, maybe we can use those Uighurs or whatever they are called'. But thats an
entirely different thing from suggesting that there have been active links and a strategy for
using them to destabilise the borders of China. The reality is that the US has been entirely
unsuccessful in any attempts (when they've been made) to undermine China via internal Chinese
ethnic or religious groups.
Incidentally, the reliability of Wilkerson (who I actually quite like and who says some
interesting things), on that topic can be measured by his statement that the invasion of
Afghanistan was motivated by an attempt to stop the Belt and Road Initiative. It's quite
impressive intelligence if that was the case as the invasion predated the Belt and Road
Initiative by more than a decade.
Yes, I think the important point is your last one. It's not out of the question that on a
rainy afternoon in Virginia some junior CIA analyst amused himself by sketching out such an
idea, and one day the product may leak and be presented as "proof." But for the reasons you
give, the political leaders who would have to approve the scheme would turn it down, even if
it were physically possible. I doubt it would be, actually: from what little information is
publicly available, the US seems to be having little or no luck penetrating that area.
Thanks for the systematic reply. I appreciate each of your points, and pretty much agree
with the first one – including your comment about Turkish intelligence. But regarding
the others, the fact that we are talking about anti-Western Wahabist radicals does not mean
the CIA (or elements of the CIA or other military/intelligence operations) would hesitate to
weaponize them if possible. We did this in Afghanistan, Bosina, Kosovo, Iraq, Syria, Libya,
Chechnya etc. Indeed, we seemed to *welcome* the fostering of an Islamic State in Eastern
Syria, because the various jihadists were a means to destroy the Syrian government. When the
goal is to foster chaos and destruction in order to *undermine* an existing state, the
calculus of unleashing the head-choppers is different than if we were actually interested in
fostering stability in the region. I admit that such a strategy might sound insane to *us*,
but Einstein's definition of insanity seems to rule our National Security Establishment.
Not PK, but I would suggest these cases are not only different from each other, but also
different from the Uigurs. Essentially, there was a war going on in all of these cases, and
the US (and they were scarcely the only ones) decided to try to get a bit of influence by
arming one or more of the factions. This is a tactic which is as old as arms themselves, and
has a pretty spotty record of success, if that. Its advantage is that it is low-key and
doesn't require a massive presence (the classic case is the Soviet Union and the Chinese
flooding Africa with AK-47s and copies in the 1960s and 1970s). But the cases you mention are
very disparate. In Bosnia there do seem to have been some (illegal) CIA deliveries to the
Muslims in violation of the embargo, but these were very small scale and in any event the
Muslims were one of the major parties to the conflict, as well as constituting the de facto
government in Sarajevo, because the other ethnicities had withdrawn. Likewise, and in spite
of preening memoirs and films, the US influence in Afghanistan was quite small : the
mujahideen were already forming in the 1970s, and the only contribution the US really made
was to supply anti-aircraft missiles, which complicated the Russians' existence quite a bit.
But actually fomenting and arming an insurgency next to one of the three or four major powers
on the planet, with highly skilled intelligence services? There is stupidity and there's
downright insanity.
I the 1950s, the CIA and MI6 trained and armed the "Forest Brothers" in the Baltics.
Neutral Sweden and Finland were across hundreds of km of water. Land access was through
Soviet territory or satellites. There was no significant international trade or commerce in
the area at the time. Yet they had tens of thousands of well supplied (for that era)
resistance fighters that took a decade for the USSR to stomp out.
To suggest that today's CIA is incapable of stirring things up in a well-connected
Xinjiang when thousands of foreigners travel there, tons of business shipments and
international flights and road transport is a mystifying statement. Particularly after CIA's
decades of experience managing jihadis all across North Africa, Mideast and Central Asia,
more than a few being Uigurs.
And suggesting that the only thing the US supplied the Afghan jihadis were Stinger
missiles is far off the mark. It was a multi-billion dollar per year operation conducted by
the US with collaboration of the ISI and Saudis. All those tens of thousands of jihadis
didn't arrive by camels and make slingshots.
I agree "There is stupidity and there's downright insanity" in fomenting troubles in
Xinjiang. The US has already passed that test. Many times.
We are three generations past the 1950s. Not a relevant example.
The US is not even remotely as good as you'd have to believe to accept this theory. For
starters, we don't begin to have enough people with native level language competence, much
the less willing to live there long enough to be trusted. They'll take our arms, but our
directives?
It is in the interest of the CIA to take credit for all sorts of things where their role
was non-existent to marginal because funding.
I can't claim any great knowledge or insight into the region, but the notion that the
Uighurs were part of a grand CIA strategy, or that they have had sufficient influence in the
region to manipulate them into opposing China, just doesn't pass the smell test.
Unfortunately, like the notion that Covid is spread on frozen food, so far as I can tell it
is now considered 'a fact' by most Chinese, inside and outside the country. As a result, even
Chinese who strongly dislike their government are not at all bothered by reports coming out
of the region.
For what its worth, I knew an English guy who lived for a few years in Urumqi with his
Chinese wife about 15 years ago. He was virulently anti-muslim and didn't much like the
non-Chinese locals he met, but I remember at the time that said that what he saw around him
convinced him that things were going to end very badly for the Uighurs, the Chinese were just
waiting for the opportunity to wipe them out. I was in Tibet at that period (I was fortunate
to get a visa on the last year solo traveller were allowed in) and witnessed the way Tibetans
were openly abused on the street by Chinese soldiers. Even Tibetans said that the Uighurs got
it worse.
The US government and privately motivated US citizens have no credibility on this issue.
That means if anyone is going to raise it, it will have to be someone other than America or
Americans.
That doesn't change the fact of Great Han Lebensraum genocide-policy against the Uighurs
on the part of the Chinese Communazi Party. And Chinese statements about their Lebensraum
genocide against Uighuria are just as much hasbara as Israeli statements about
antiPalestinianitic persecution in the Occupied West Bank.
And if that purely-private opinion of a mere U S citizen makes any Great Han hasbarists (
or might I say . . . Hansbarists) on this thread mad, then that makes me happy.
Your friend was English; I have not seen this attitude on the part of Chinese friends or
Chinese I've talked with. I was traveling on a domestic flight in China a number of years ago
and found myself sitting on a plane next to a random Chinese soldier -- a memorably tall,
handsome young man. He spoke English well enough to have a discussion (the relaxed atmosphere
and the need to pass the time does wonders when it comes to breaking down language barriers).
Major Uighur terror attacks and unrest had been in the news (around 2009), so I asked him
what he thought about it. He said that he grew up in Xinjiang. His parents were Han Chinese
who had first come to Xinjiang during the cultural revolution to build some local
infrastructure/improvement project (he described it to me but I don't remember the details).
They saw their goal as improving conditions in the region. Of course, the government wanted
to solidify Chinese presence in that region of their country, but I heard no hint of anger or
derision toward the Uighur. He said he was very concerned that the Uighur people were happy
and he hoped China could find a way to mend the relationship. He said that growing up, there
were many mixed Chinese/Han marriages and that "people say" that mixed Han/Uighur marriages
produced the most physically beautiful children. I didn't see any evidence of the malignant
racism you describe on the part of your English friend.
Strong central governments vs violent separatist movements tend to create lasting
problems. Growing up in a border state over 100 years after our own civil war, I grew up with
the fact that many people had still not let go of that resentment. Southerners still
maintained a sense of grievance back then. The Maryland state song that I learned as a child
is only now being decommissioned by the state legislature. One stanza refers to the "Northern
scum".
This week's WaPo headline: "Maryland poised to say goodbye to state song that celebrates
the Confederacy".
If your Han Chinese interlocutor's feelings are widely shared among the ruled-over rather
than ruling-over ordinary majority of Han citizens, then it would appear that it is the
MonoParty RegimeGovernment ruling over China which is Communazi, not the people as such.
Regardless, it will be up to countrygovs which have moral standing in this area to comment
or not, not the US anymore. At least for now.
Probably the Uighurs have it even worse than Tibetans because Uighuria is very inhabitable
by Han settlers whereas Tibet is high and dry enough that ( I have read), that
lowland-adapted Hans have trouble physically coping over time with the lower oxygen levels at
Tibet altitude.
If that is so, then the High Tibetan Plateau at least would not provide Lebensraum for
millions of Han Settlers in any case, so why clear the Tibetans off the plateau and out of
existence? Not so much need, in Tibet's case.
@PlutoniumKun
I have no knowledge about points 1 to 3, but totally disagree with point 4.
The hubris and desire of the US alphabet agencies to meddle is remarkable. A current example
is the CIA support of jihadis in Syria that the US military itself is fighting against.
Interesting caution re Wilkerson – do you have a link?
Here is a link to an article talking about that talk PK. Having a coupla thousand Uygurs
in Syria gaining combat experience for use later who knows where was probably proof enough
for China of western intentions. Just think of the other Jihadists who have been used in
places like Libya and the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war and the Chinese would be drawing their
own conclusions-
The Russian government is
responding angrily to Biden's derisive comments about Putin:
The Kremlin has reacted angrily to US President Joe Biden's remarks that Russian leader
Vladimir Putin is "a killer," calling the comment unprecedented and describing the
relationship between the two countries as "very bad."
U.S.-Russian relations have been deteriorating steadily over the last ten years, and it
always seemed unlikely that Biden would improve them. Now there will be even less of a chance
that Biden can work constructively with his Russian counterpart. The president's blunt answer
to a rather silly question from George Stephanopoulos has further damaged the relationship to
neither country's benefit. Anatol Lieven
observed recently that this is a "completely unnecessary confrontation with Russia" at a
time when the U.S. needs Russian cooperation on some important issues. Lieven cites U.S.
reentry into the JCPOA and extricating U.S. forces from Afghanistan as his examples of issues
where Russian cooperation could be very valuable, but he could have added new negotiations on
future arms control agreements as well. Making progress on any one of these becomes much more
challenging when our president is gratuitously insulting theirs. For an administration that
prides itself on practicing diplomacy, they have a funny way of showing it.
The Joseph Biden administration has named Richard Nephew as its deputy Iran envoy. As the
former principal deputy coordinator of sanctions policy for Barack Obama's State Department,
Nephew took personal credit for depriving Iranians of food, sabotaging their automobile
industry, and driving up unemployment rates.
Nephew has described the destruction of Iran's economy as "a tremendous success," and
lamented during a visit to Russia that food was still plentiful in the country's capital
despite mounting US sanctions.
Nephew's appointment to a senior diplomatic post suggests that rather than immediately
returning to the JCPOA nuclear deal, the Biden administration will finesse sanctions
illegally imposed by Trump to pressure Iran into an onerous, reworked agreement that Tehran
is unlikely to join.
Nephew's "simple framework" for "sanctions to perform their expected function" reads like
a torturer's manual (replace "target state" with "prisoner"):
- identify objectives for the imposition of pain and define the minimum necessary remedial
steps that the target state must take for pain to be removed
- understand as much as possible the nature of the target, including its vulnerabilities,
interests, commitment to whatever it did to prompt sanctions, and readiness to absorb
pain
-develop a strategy to carefully, methodically, and efficiently increase pain on those
areas that are vulnerabilities while avoiding those that are not
-monitor the execution of the strategy and continuously recalibrate its initial assumption
of target state resolve, the efficacy of the pain applied in shattering that resolve, and how
best to improve the strategy
Combatting malign influences in the Americas: OGA (Office of Global Affairs) used
diplomatic relations in the Americas region to mitigate efforts by states, including Cuba,
Venezuela, and Russia, who are working to increase their influence in the region to the
detriment of US safety and security. OGA coordinated with other U.S. government agencies to
strengthen diplomatic ties and offer technical and humanitarian assistance to dissuade
countries in the region from accepting aid from these ill intentioned states. Examples
include using OGA's Health Attaché office to persuade Brazil to reject the Russian
COVID-19 vaccine, and offering CDC technical assistance in lieu of Panama accepting an offer
of Cuban doctors.
Blinken, like his boss, is a complete moron. He blew it with his patronising threatening
'rules based order' drivel because he has no expertise. Blinken has been doing this for a
decade or two: Syria, Libya, Turkey, Afghanistan, Iran, and on and on. He has the form of a
killer, the mind of a killer and the intentions of a mass murderer. He has proven the latter
and is the type of global ambassadorial psychopath that one should meet with once and then
never meet again.
The USA has lost its mind and every day that passes proves that point.
This bar deserves broader analysis of other quarters of the planet and no more references
to the Guardian or NYT.
Biden under pressure to tap fewer political ambassadors than Trump, Obama
Donors are growing impatient as Biden delays naming coveted ambassador posts.
I know that the United States and its leaders are determined to maintain certain relations
with us, but on matters that are of interest to the United States and on its terms. Even
though they believe we are just like them, we are different. We have a different genetic,
cultural and moral code. But we know how to uphold our interests. We will work with the
United States, but in the areas that we are interested in and on terms that we believe are
beneficial to us. They will have to reckon with it despite their attempts to stop our
development, despite the sanctions and insults. They will have to reckon with this.
The author provides basic but essential definition of conflict resolution. The USians either
don't understand or defy it.
Your link to statement by Blinken & Sullivan is propaganda as you say. It is also an
expression of how deeply limited and very stupid these two are. They have no idea what just
hit them.
"America is back" claimed Joe Biden to no ones amusement. But the world has changed
after four years of Trump and after a pandemic upset the world. The U.S. position in this
world and its role in it have thereby also changed. To just claim one is back without
adopting to the new situation promises failure.
As candidate Joe Biden promised that there would be no changes.
Former Vice President Joe Biden assured rich donors at a ritzy New York fundraiser that
"nothing would fundamentally change" if he is elected.
Biden told donors at an event at the Carlyle Hotel in Manhattan on Tuesday evening
that he would not "demonize" the rich and promised that " no one's standard of living
will change, nothing would fundamentally change ," Bloomberg News reported.
That Biden statement destroyed the illusion of those who had hoped that he would lift
the standard of living for the average Amercian.
Biden stayed true to his words at the fundraiser. There will be no rise in the minimum
wage. The $2,000 checks he promised to all voters will now be only $1,400 checks. They will
also be
heavily means tested . Those who made more than $80,000 in 2019 but lost their income
in 2020 will get no check at all.
Even as they hold the White House and the House and Senate majorities the Democrats are
unable or unwilling to deliver basic progress. This will likely cost them their House
majority in 2022 and the presidency in 2024.
Biden's "nothing will fundamentally change" attitude extends into foreign policy.
Secretary Pompeo @SecPompeo - 0:29 UTC · Dec 21,
2019
Today, the #ICC prosecutor raised serious questions about the ICC's jurisdiction to
investigate #Israel. Israel is not a state party to the ICC. We firmly oppose this
unjustified inquiry that unfairly targets Israel . The path to lasting peace is through
direct negotiations.
---
Secretary Antony Blinken @SecBlinken - 1:34 UTC · Mar 4,
2021
The United States firmly opposes an @IntlCrimCourt investigation into the Palestinian
Situation. We will continue to uphold our strong commitment to Israel and its security,
including by opposing actions that seek to target Israel unfairly.
That nothing will change is also expressed in two policy papers the Biden administration
released yesterday. The early emphasis on human rights, which distinguished it from the
Trump administration, is already gone.
The common theme is now 'democracy' as if that were not just a form of government but a
value in itself.
The White House published an Interim National
Security Strategic Guidance (pdf). The paper is dripping with ideological LGBTQWERTY
librulism. Its central claim is that 'democracy' is under threat:
At a time when the need for American engagement and international cooperation is greater
than ever, however, democracies across the globe, including our own, are increasingly
under siege . Free societies have been challenged from within by corruption, inequality,
polarization, populism, and illiberal threats to the rule of law. Nationalist and
nativist trends – accelerated by the COVID-19 crisis – produce an
every-country-for-itself mentality that leaves us all more isolated, less prosperous, and
less safe. Democratic nations are also increasingly challenged from outside by
antagonistic authoritarian powers. Anti-democratic forces use misinformation,
disinformation, and weaponized corruption to exploit perceived weaknesses and sow
division within and among free nations, erode existing international rules, and promote
alternative models of authoritarian governance. Reversing these trends is essential to
our national security .
It then singles out China:
We must also contend with the reality that the distribution of power across the world is
changing, creating new threats. China , in particular, has rapidly become more assertive.
It is the only competitor potentially capable of combining its economic, diplomatic,
military, and technological power to mount a sustained challenge to a stable and open
international system. Russia remains determined to enhance its global influence and play
a disruptive role on the world stage. Both Beijing and Moscow have invested heavily in
efforts meant to check U.S. strengths and prevent us from defending our interests and
allies around the world. Regional actors like Iran and North Korea continue to pursue
game-changing capabilities and technologies, while threatening U.S. allies and partners
and challenging regional stability. We also face challenges within countries whose
governance is fragile, and from influential non-state actors that have the ability to
disrupt American interests.
To fight China the U.S. will (ab)use its allies:
We can do none of this work alone. For that reason, we will reinvigorate and modernize
our alliances and partnerships around the world. For decades, our allies have stood by
our side against common threats and adversaries, and worked hand-in-hand to advance our
shared interests and values. They are a tremendous source of strength and a unique
American advantage, helping to shoulder the responsibilities required to keep our nation
safe and our people prosperous. Our democratic alliances enable us to present a common
front, produce a unified vision, and pool our strength to promote high standards,
establish effective international rules, and hold countries like China to account.
Good luck with that. Neither the European U.S. allies, nor the Asian ones, have any
interest in following the U.S. into a confrontation with China. It is their greatest
trading partner and they do not perceive it as an ideological or security threat.
The more we and other democracies can show the world that we can deliver, not only for
our people, but also for each other, the more we can refute the lie that authoritarian
countries love to tell, that theirs is the better way to meet people's fundamental needs
and hopes. It's on us to prove them wrong.
So the question isn't if we will support democracy around the world, but how.
We will use the power of our example. We will encourage others to make key reforms,
overturn bad laws, fight corruption, and stop unjust practices. We will incentivize
democratic behavior.
But we will not promote democracy through costly military interventions or by
attempting to overthrow authoritarian regimes by force. We have tried these tactics in
the past. However well intentioned, they haven't worked. They've given democracy
promotion a bad name, and they've lost the confidence of the American people. We will do
things differently.
The "lie that authoritarian countries love to tell, that their's is the better way to
meet people's fundamental needs and hopes" is targeted at China. But that China did and
does much better than the U.S. to meet its people's needs and hope is not a lie. The
pandemic has again demonstrated that.
The last quoted paragraph has seen some positive attention on social media. But it is
based on a falsehood. The U.S. has not once used military means to 'promote democracy'. Not
ever. It has used war to gain markets and power, to destroy its competition. The
neo-conservatives have claimed to be motivated by 'democracy promotion'. But that was
always just a pretext to hide the real reasons for waging war. Iraq became democratic not
because the U.S. wanted it to be that. In fact, after invading Iraq the the U.S. pro-consul
Paul Bremer tried to prevent universal elections in Iraq. Only the insistence of Ayatollah
Sistani on a universal vote led to a somewhat democratic system in Iraq.
Blinken is, just like Pompeo before him, focused on China:
And eighth, we will manage the biggest geopolitical test of the 21st century: our
relationship with China.
Several countries present us with serious challenges, including Russia, Iran, North
Korea. And there are serious crises we have to deal with, including in Yemen, Ethiopia,
and Burma.
But the challenge posed by China is different. China is the only country with the
economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to seriously challenge the stable
and open international system – all the rules, values, and relationships that make
the world work the way we want it to , because it ultimately serves the interests and
reflects the values of the American people.
That there is no change from the Trump to the Biden administration in hostility to China
is disappointing only for those who had expected some:
Pang Zhongying, a specialist in international relations at Ocean University of China,
said Beijing would be disappointed with the Biden administration's approach to "continue
and even elevate" the tough policies of the Trump era and to strengthen alliances to deal
with China.
"There does not seem to be any change yet in the serious tensions in China-US
relations," he said. "I think there may be some frustration in Beijing that after more
than 40 days [of the new administration] they have not seen any change but there is
actually more pressure from the US."
Beijing will manage the conflict and it is likely to see it as a chance.
The U.S. failure to adopt to new circumstances will accelerate its demise. The U.S.
empire was a historical abnormality and its twilight is near
:
[The Realist professors of International Relations David Blagden and Patrick Porter]
observe America's "position as 'global leader' is premised on a set of impermanent and
atypical conditions from an earlier post-war era", but " the days of incontestable
unipolarity are over, and cannot be wished back ". The result is that "overextension
abroad, exhaustion and fiscal strain at home, and political disorder feed off one another
in a downward spiral, cumulatively threatening the survival of the republic".
The US empire is, then, at an impasse. Its moral and political justification of
overseeing a global order of universal liberal democracy -- the closest real-world
equivalent to the Kantian perpetual peace that has both motivated and eluded liberal
idealists for the past two centuries -- is now beyond its capabilities to maintain.
...
How does this end for America? Biden and the presidents after him will be forced to make
a hard choice: whether to retrench to a smaller and more manageable empire, or to risk a
far greater and more dramatic collapse in defence of global hegemony.
Biden has made his choice. Nothing will fundamentally change under him. He is thereby
likely to repeat all of Trump's foreign policy failures. There will be no new JCPOA with
Iran nor will there be any win for the U.S. in the Middle East. North Korea will continue
to test bombs and missiles. The U.S. will continue to be stuck in Afghanistan. The
Chinese-Russian alliance will strengthen. U.S. allies will further distance themselves from
it.
We can not yet know what, at what point will cause the collapse of U.S. hegemony. But we
are coming more near to it.
Posted by b on March 4, 2021 at 18:04 UTC |
Permalink
Frankly, Biden's speech to the grand poobahs sounded more like a plea for understanding
than a promise, and if you take what the policy paper says at face value it suggests that
"Biden" understands that we have to change to compete. It is also an admission that they
have presided over a period of decline in Uncle Sugar land, so of course they don't want to
dwell on that. I think Biden is worried the "owners" wom't let him do anything.
And it is totally appropriate that Biden is the guy up there trying to deal with this
mess, because he as one of the prime intigators or the present situation, going back 40
years.
Patrick Porter's book, The False Promise of Liberal Order, is good.
But, his realist critique of vulgar liberal propaganda for US imperialism doesn't locate
the source or material roots of US grand strategy.
Realist theory understands power, hegemony and balancing only in terms of military
power. That is the only currency of power in realist thinking, because realism rests on a
state centricity which insists on the autonomy of the state from any social or economic
factors. Military power is thus all that remains.
This theory obviously fails to explain the real history of US foreign policy, which has
used militarism and other tools in support of strategic economic interests on a global
scale, primarily in the South. The military balance of power is by and large only an
expression of the economic balance of power and the class interests of ruling classes
derived from it.
Porter and other realists point out the contradictions of liberal theory and practice
but fail to provide a scientific explanation for consistent US policies.
There is a partnership currently but it's not yet an alliance. The rationale for one is
very strong. Russia needs China or it will be overwhelmed by a hostile US and fairly
hostile Europe. China needs Russia to save it from a resource embargo by US and allies.
Together they will form a huge power bloc in Eurasia combining their respective territories
with joint influence over Central Asia. Other countries in Asia like South Korea, Vietnam
and India will see bloc and decide to stay neutral or side with the China-Russia bloc.
As compelling as this vision is it hasn't happened yet. It takes time sure but there
must be reluctance from within the countries and other challenges. Which side is dragging
its feet more? It would be interesting to understand why things aren't moving faster.
As compelling as this vision is it hasn't happened yet. It takes time sure but there
must be reluctance from within the countries and other challenges. Which side is dragging
its feet more? It would be interesting to understand why things aren't moving
faster.
Posted by: dsfco | Mar 4 2021 18:54 utc | 4
A guess: PRC having vastly greater economic power thinks its share of influence should
be greater. Russia having vastly superior military power & technology, disagrees. For
example the Chinese government might like access to the most advanced Russian military
technology; the Russians having been invaded many times from both East & West, probably
take the long view.
This week the Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a confirmation hearing for Wendy Sherman, nominated by the Biden
White House to serve as deputy secretary of state.
The career diplomat answered the usual questions on how she views United States posture toward American rivals and official
enemies like Russia, China, and Iran. Once again it was Sen. Rand Paul who had the most direct pushback and biting
criticism against an administration that seems bent on returning to the foreign adventurism and unilateral military
interventionism of the Obama and Bush years.
"We've gone to a liberal form of John Bolton,"
Paul said of President Biden
during his turn to question Sherman. Paul is especially outraged over Biden's Syria strike without consulting Congress last
week.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/8HanUqh_-CE
During the above exchange with Wendy Sherman, Paul in his concluding remarks had blasted away at Biden's vision of the
world, citing past failed Democratic-led military interventions in places like Libya, Yemen, and Syria.
"I think we've gone to a liberal form of John Bolton with your new boss and that's
something I'm really concerned with,"
Paul said.
"All I will say is that
we're bombing now again in Syria without Congressional
approval and we're sending more convoys in there without Congressional approval
. It's a messy war - it's been
going on forever, there's nothing good that's going to come out of our involvement," Paul explained in his statement.
"People say
'well US lives are at risk'
...
yeah
because we put'em there
. We put them in the middle of a civil war that's largely over but can continue if we
keep putting troops into there... to put our troops as a 'trip wire' to get involved in a further escalation of this war."
And that's when the Republican Senator from Kentucky blasted President Biden on his Syria stance and general
interventionist foreign policy:
"I hope that we'll be sane voices and I hope that you'll be one of those," he said addressing Sherman.
"But I don't have a great deal of confidence that we've actually gone away from John Bolton,
I've
think we've gone to a liberal form of John Bolton with your new boss, and that's something I'm very concerned with
."
Sherman in response had tried to claim that the Biden admin is not trying to get more deeply involved in the Syria
conflict, but maintained the 'countering ISIS' stance that the Pentagon has used for years to argue it must continue the
occupation of the northeast portion of the country.
Biden has been a major disappointment for those who hoped that he'd change course
regarding America's pathological involvement in overseas conflicts
Who hoped that? He didn't run on such a platform. "Engagement with the world" and a
"restoration of the pre-Trump era" was his platform. Don't ask me why but this made him
more popular. He was literally the VP in the most interventionist Presidency in US
history.
... People like Giraldi sometimes seem like plants put in place to discredit
anti-interventionism by trying to make it synonymous with anti-semitism.
In the late 1980s, Rannie Amiri, an independent commentator on political affairs, challenged
then-Senator Joe Biden on his stance toward the Israel-Palestine conflict following a campus
speech that Biden gave, asking him:
Rather than succumb to the influence of various lobbying groups in Washington, such as
AIPAC [American Israel Public Affairs Committee -- which promotes the views of Israel's
right-wing Likud Party], and the untold amount of money they use to dictate policy,
wouldn't it be more prudent to examine the real effects that collective punishment, daily
humiliation, and countless civilian casualties inflicted by the Israelis have on an
occupied population, and use that understanding to formulate a more rational approach
toward the Palestinians?
Here is Biden response to that:
At the end of the exchange, Biden turned, put his arm around Amiri's shoulder, and
addressed the audience.
If this was not such a fine, articulate, and sincere young man, and he implied that my
vote had been bought, I would give him a swift kick in the ass.
The audience roared in applause, and Amiri sat back down to his chair defeated.
However, a friend rose up to defend him, telling Biden: "If my father heard you say such a
thing, I believe he would have done the same to you first."
The tribal stupidity of the people who support Israel first is beyond words. Who would
think in the 20th and the 21th century we would be led by primitive thinking of tribal
fantasies from thousands of year ago?
Most of the us in the west did not know that this has been going on for so long since we
have been deluded with the term "free press" to describe our press in the west. We are slowly
waking up to reality with some "freedom" here and there on the internet like this site.
So, Biden has been a major disappointment for those who expected that he might change
course regarding America's pathological involvement in overseas conflicts while also having
the good sense and courage to make relations with countries like Iran and Israel responsive
to actual U.S. interests.
You're giving the morons way too much credit, Sir. It's doubtful even 5% of voters know or
care about geopolitics, and probably less than 1% who voted based on fraudsident biden's
foreign policies.
For 5 years it was nonstop Trump-hatred from the ((( lügenpresse ))) even as Trump
did weasel jared's bidding. Stevie Fking Wonder could see the election was rigged.
The USA is kaput, the supreme joke spineless
The ((( Underminers ))) are a c ** t-hair away from total control.
The Free United States must part ways with the devils in DC. Texas, Florida,
Oklahoma, the Dakotas and Montana for starters.
"Oh say, can you see! By Dawn's early light; a pro-dollar trade; that puts the bears to
flight?" Bloomberg Daybreak this morning boldly states "American exceptionalism is back"
(baby). Apparently better-than-expected data and corporate earnings and the prospects of fiscal
stimulus show the USA is still the global standout after all. As a result, bearish USD trades
touted for the first month of the year need to suddenly be unwound: EUR is now back below 1.20,
AUD is clinging to 0.76, and JPY is past 105.50, while as an EM proxy, MXN is back to 20.38 at
time of writing vs. 19.55 on January 21.
... ... ...
President Biden has called on the military in Myanmar to relinquish power after their recent
coup. What happens when they refuse? A signature criticism of the Obama foreign policy team was
its refusal to match US rhetoric (e.g., "pivot to Asia") with any substantive action (e.g., in
the South China Sea or Syria). The new team gave interviews before assuming office saying they
had learned these lessons. So what options with teeth does the US have for the generals in
Naypidaw to back their demand? Sanctions are meaningless for a group who rarely travel abroad
and whom can look to China for support if needed, despite their coolness towards Beijing to
date.
This underlines the need for any top dog (or cat) to build up a pack (or clowder). Here
again we see problems. Many articles have been written about the new US administration's call
for the EU to stand alongside it to create new global frameworks favourable to the West (and by
extension for USD) and not China (and CNY); and about how the EU is not willing to step up to
that plate because of French exceptionalism and German Merkel-cantilism. Macron now says
the EU should not gang up on China with the US : " This kind of common front against China
risks pushing Beijing to lower its cooperation on issues like combatting climate change, and
exacerbating its aggressive behaviour in Asia, including in the South China Sea, " he says. So
will the US response then have to be Trumpian and EUR negative, like last time? If not, then
what exactly?
Of course, the previous administration had been building bridges to India, which has its own
issues with China. However, this relationship is still in its early stages, and India has
traditionally looked to Russia for muscle, a role Moscow would be happy to play again. In that
regard, the White House backing large anti-government protests in New Delhi against an
agricultural reform programme ostensibly to the US's liking, and criticizing the government for
cutting off the internet to try to disrupt them, is unlikely to help build bridges: indeed,
India has already drawn comparisons to the events of 6 January in the US Capitol, showing the
US is not as exceptional as it likes to project it is. These kind of shifts can matter, even if
this is just one small step on a much longer journey (and USD trend channel).
Meanwhile, the Aussie government (which has also never and will never target house prices,
"just land, bricks, mortar, etc.") might be wondering what the US will help do about a report
that
a Chinese company is planning to build a new city on a Papua New Guinea island near Australia's
northern border . 'New Daru City' allegedly includes an industrial zone, seaport, business
and commercial zone, along with a resort and residential area. Will Canberra regard this as a
market-driven response to the well-known Chinese demand for lifestyle residences in the vibrant
cultural hub that is the PNG hinterland, or as a Bond-villain project to develop a port just
200km from their Northern Territory? The PNG Prime Minister himself says he is "unaware" of
this proposal(!) Yes, this may well not come to pass; but one can again see the paving stones
being prepared for alternative paths for currencies like AUD, USD, and CNY (to say nothing of
PNG's Kina) to travel over the course of the 2020s.
Meanwhile, the US can at least rely on the UK, as usual, where yesterday saw regulators ban
China's CGTN TV news service, and the Telegraph also reports that three Chinese spies posing as
journalists have just been expelled from the country. Somehow, along with the whole BNO
passports issue, this is not likely to help ensure the "golden era" of Sino-British relations
promised under previous UK leadership.
But will it ensure a golden era of Bido-BoJo relations? That is another path as yet
untrod.
Happy Friday! "We love it so much, I think you do too."
On Thursday afternoon President Biden gave a much anticipated and wide-ranging speech laying
out his foreign policy agenda during a visit to the State Department. As expected much of it
was a repudiation of Trump's "America First" vision - though without mentioning Donald Trump by
name. His address to State Department diplomats and staff was centered around the theme of his
words: "America is back. Diplomacy is back at the center of our foreign policy."
Alarming for anyone who has called for an end to the vision which sees Washington as
essentially acting the like to 'global police force' - which unfortunately became a
(disastrous) reality starting in the Bush years and under the neocons, Biden vowed that as
commander-in-chief he would "defend democracy globally" .
He urged for the US to rebuild "the muscles of democratic alliances that have atrophied from
four years of neglect and abuse." He emphasized that "We can't do it alone."
Of course, the big question is what will that look like, with many expecting a return to the
kind of 'humanitarian interventionism' abroad and liberal internationalism that defined the
Obama years . This often took the form of covert wars (with the foremost example being Syria)
and military interventions under the guise international coalitions (such as NATO's war on
Libya) aimed at regime change.
"We must meet this new moment of accelerating global challenges – from a pandemic to
the climate crisis to nuclear proliferation – that will only be solved by nations working
together in common cause," Biden said in the afternoon address. "That must start with
diplomacy, rooted in America's most cherished democratic values: defending freedom, championing
opportunity, upholding universal rights, respecting the rule of law, treating every person with
dignity."
Here are some of the highlights and significant foreign policy changes in US posture...
Russia
Biden said that "we will not hesitate to raise the costs on Russia." At a moment Russian
opposition leaders are lobbying Washington for the targeted use of Magnitsky sanctions on
Putin's inner circle, Biden actually mentioned the imprisoned opposition activist Alexey
Navalny by name.
He called on the Kremlin to release Navalny "immediately and without condition" while
expressing that authorities had targeted him for "exposing corruption" of Putin and top Kremlin
leadership. And
further :
He said that he "made it clear to President Putin, in a manner very different from my
predecessor, that the days the United States rolling over in the face of Russia's aggressive
action" – pointing to cyber attacks from the SolarWinds breach and the poisoning of
opposition figure Alexei Navalny – "are over."
On January 19th, the US Senate held confirmation hearings for Joe Biden's Secretary of State
nominee Antony Blinken. Blinken has a reputation on both sides of the aisle for being
exceptionally qualified for the job of America's top diplomat, which is surprising considering
he was on the wrong side of every major foreign policy blunder of the last 20 years ;
Iraq, Libya, and Syria .
When Senator Rand Paul
asked Antony Blinken what lessons he has learned from his disastrous foreign policy record
in Libya and Syria, Blinken replied that after "some hard thinking" he's proud that he has done
"everything we possibly can to make sure that diplomacy is the first answer, not the last
answer, and that war and conflict is our last resort."
Of course war is the last resort. Even the most hawkish war criminals would agree that war
is the last resort. But the question is, war is the last resort to accomplish what? If war is
the last resort to get a country to fully capitulate to Washington's demands then eventually
the US will be at war with everyone. To Blinken, war as the last resort can only be understood
in the same way a mugger considers shooting his victim as a last resort to stealing their
wallet.
Blinken displayed his hubris a few minutes later when he said, "The door should remain open"
for Georgia to join NATO under the justification of curbing Russian aggression .
Rand Paul informed Blinken, "This would be adding Georgia, that's occupied [by Russia], to
NATO. Under Article 5, then we would go to war ."
Senator Paul is right. According to Washington, Russia has been
occupying 20 percent of Georgia since 2008. Under the principle of collective defense in
Article 5 of NATO, the US would be obligated to treat Russia's occupation of the country of
Georgia the same way the US would treat a Russian occupation of the US state of Georgia. That
sounds like a recipe for war. But don't worry, peaceniks, Antony Blinken has assured us that
war is the last resort!
Blinken's framing of the issue exposes his disingenuous approach. Russian aggression is a
term used by Washington insiders to describe a Russian reaction to western aggression. Blinken
knows that the 2008 war between Russia and Georgia was not Russian aggression, he calls it that
because it suits his agenda and the American press is dependably ignorant enough to not ask
questions.
In the 2008 war, Georgia
was the aggressor against the South Ossetians, a people who are ethnically distinct from Georgians, and
who have never --
not even for one day -- considered themselves a part of Georgia. The Ossetians have a
history of Russian
partiality ; they were among the first ethnic groups in the region to join the Russian
Empire in the 19th century and the USSR in the 1920s. Today, ethnic Ossetians straddle both
sides of the current Russian border, and they are more aligned with the Russian government than with the
Georgian government.
When Georgia gained sovereignty from the former Soviet Union in 1991, South Ossetia declared
its independence. In response, Georgian forces invaded South Ossetia, initiating an armed
conflict that killed more than
2,000 people . In 1992, a ceasefire agreement was signed in Sochi between Georgia, Russia
and South Ossetia, which created a
tripartite peacekeeping force led by Russia. Although the international community never
acknowledged South Ossetia's independence, they have enjoyed political autonomy since the 1992
Sochi agreement.
The Sochi agreement held up until Georgia's ultra-nationalist President Mikheil Saakashvili
came to power in the 2003 western-backed
bloodless " Rose
Revolution " coup-d'etat. The pro-western President Saakashvili advocated joining the EU
and NATO, and insisted on asserting Georgian rule over South
Ossetia. U.S. President George Bush
supported the new Georgian president's effort to bring Georgia into NATO, which for Russia
would mean bringing a hostile military up to its border. In 2006, President Saakashvili offered
South Ossetia autonomy in exchange for a political settlement with Georgia. A
referendum was held, and the South Ossetian people overwhelmingly reaffirmed their desire for
independence from Georgia.
In August, 2008, After exchanging artillery fire with South Ossetia,
Georgia invaded South Ossetia's capital city of Tskhinvali, killing
1,400 civilians and
18 Russian peacekeepers . Georgia's attack triggered a Russian invasion into South Ossetia
and Abkhazia (another breakaway region) to restore stability and protect peacekeeping
forces.
Russia is by no means innocent -- they used
disproportionate force attacking targets inside Georgia -- but only a Russophobic shill
would conclude that this war was somehow caused by Russian aggression. The idea that Russia had
no business intervening is laughable. Under the
1992 Sochi agreement , Russia took charge of a peacekeeping coalition to help prevent
exactly the scenario that happened in the summer of 2008.
If George Bush had succeeded in bringing Georgia into NATO, the United States may have been
dragged into war with Russia in 2008. Antony Blinken claims that NATO membership deters Russian
aggression, but does he really believe that Russia would have been deterred from intervening to
protect its own peacekeeping force? Does Blinken believe that Georgia -- backed by the U.S.
military -- would have acted more cautiously in South Ossetia, or is it more likely they would
have been bolder?
It's undeniable that it is in Russia's best interest to have pro-Russian countries on its
borders. But pretending as if Russia is going to march into Tbilisi and reabsorb the entire
country of Georgia into Russia is a level of paranoia that should disqualify anyone from having
an opinion on the subject. The military conflict in Georgia is about the two breakaway regions
and their right to self determination. Russia's self interest happens to align with the wishes
of the people in South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
By supporting Georgia, America -- the champion of democracy and self determination -- has
adopted the position that South Ossetians didn't really mean to repeatedly choose independence
when given the option. This is a situation where America's professed values are diametrically
opposed to its policy of countering Russian influence everywhere on the map.
Antony Blinken should pause to consider if America's policy objectives are worth fighting a
war for. Is it worth confronting Russia in South Ossetia? Was it worth confronting Russia over
Crimea and the Donbas in
Ukraine ? Is it a good idea to withdraw from the INF
Nuclear Treaty and the
Open Skies Treaty ? Should we have spent the last 30 years marching NATO -- a military
alliance hostile to Russia -- right up to the doorsteps of
Russia ? Is any of this really making us safer?
Blinken has bought into his own propaganda. To Blinken, regardless of the stubborn details
of history, every conflict on Russia's border is simply Russian aggression. Washington's
solution is the expansion of NATO, which Russia describes as "
NATO encirclement. " This is an unacceptable military threat to Russia, who has
a deep distrust of western intentions due to a long history of western invasions into Russia.
Antony Blinken still lives in a bipolar world in which the United States and Russia are
existential threats to each other's existence. Every conflict and every alliance is only viewed
through the lens of the New Cold War crusade against Russia. This maniacal crusade could thrust
America in the unthinkable abyss of nuclear war.
Rand Paul got his answer, Antony Blinken learned nothing from all his mistakes! The danger
isn't merely resorting to war too early, the danger is in sticking our noses in conflicts that
we have no business being in. War should be the last resort to defending America's people and
it's homeland from foreign invasion; it should not be the last resort to enforcing America's
utopian vision on the world, and it certainly shouldn't be the last resort to prevent an ethnic
group in the South Caucasus -- that almost no American has ever heard of -- from the right to
self-determination.
Kenny MacDonald is a former Navy SEAL and Afghanistan War veteran. He is currently pursuing
a bachelor's degree in history. Youtube Channel . Medium . Facebook .
6 Warning Signs from Biden's First Week in Office The "progressive" candidate praised as
a "woke bloke" seems to be carrying on where all his authoritarian Imperialist predecessors
left off Kit Knightly
What do these orders, or any of his other moves, tell us about the future plans of the
recently "elected" administration? Nothing good, unfortunately.
1. VACCINATION
PASSPORTS
I still remember people claiming the introduction of vaccination passports (or immunity
passes or the like) was just a "conspiracy theory", the paranoid fantasy of fringe "covidiots".
All the way back in December, when they were
getting fact-checked by tabloid journalists who can't do basic maths .
International Certificates of Vaccination or Prophylaxis. Consistent with applicable law,
the Secretary of State, the Secretary of HHS, and the Secretary of Homeland Security
(including through the Administrator of the TSA), in coordination with any relevant
international organizations, shall assess the feasibility of linking COVID-19 vaccination to
International Certificates of Vaccination or Prophylaxis (ICVP) and producing electronic
versions of ICVPs.
2. CABINET APPOINTMENTS
Biden's cabinet is praised as the "most diverse" in history, but will hiring a few non-white
people really change the decades-old policies of US Imperialism? It certainly doesn't look like
it.
His pick for Under Secretary of State is Victoria Nuland , a neocon warmonger and
one of the masterminds of the Maidan coup in Ukraine in 2014. She is married to Robert Kagan , another neocon
warmonger, co-founder of the Project for a New American Century and senior fellow at the
Brookings Institute and one of the masterminds behind the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
The incoming Secretary of State, Antony Blinken , is also an inveterate US
Imperialist, arguing for every US military intervention since the 1990s, and criticised Trump's
decision to withdraw from Syria.
Biden's pick for Defence Secretary is the first African-American ever appointed to this
role, but former General Lloyd Austin is hardly going be some kind of "progressive" voice int
his cabinet. He's a career soldier who retired from the military in 2016 to join the
board of Raytheon Technologies , an arms manufacturer and military contractor.
As "diverse" as this cabinet may be in skin colour or gender there is most certainly no
"diversity" of opinion or policy. There are very few new faces and no new thoughts.
So, it looks like we can expect more of the same in terms of foreign policy. A fact that's
already been displayed in
3. IRAQ
Despite heavy resistance from the military and Deep State, Donald Trump wanted to end the
war in Iraq and pledged to pull American troops out of the country. This was one of Trump's
more popular policies, and during the campaign Biden made no mention of intending to reverse
that decision.
The Iraqi parliament has made it clear it wants the US to
take its military off their soil , so any American forces on Iraqi land are technically
there illegally in contravention of international law. But that never bothered them
before.
4. AFGHANISTAN
Turns out the US can't withdraw from Afghanistan either. Last February Trump signed a deal
with the Taliban that all US personnel would leave Afghanistan by May 2021.
Joe Biden has already committed to "reviewing"
this deal . Sec. Blinken was quoted as saying that Biden's admin wanted:
to end this so-called forever war [but also] retain some capacity to deal with any
resurgence of terrorism, which is what brought us there in the first place".
As a great man once
said , nothing someone says before the word "but" really counts. The US will not be
withdrawing from Afghanistan, and if there is any public pressure to do so, the government will
simply claim the Taliban broke their side of the deal first, or stage a few terrorist
attacks.
5. AND SYRIA
Far from simply continuing the on-going wars, there are already signs Biden's "diverse" team
will look to escalate, or even start, other conflicts.
Syria was another theatre of war from which Donald Trump wanted to extricate the United
States,
unilaterally ordering all US troops from the country in late 2019.
We now know the Pentagon ignored those orders. They lied to the
President , telling Trump they had followed his orders but not withdrawing a single man.
This organized mutiny against the Commander-in-Chief of the US Armed Forces was played for a
joke in the media when it was finally revealed.
There will be no need for any such duplicity now Biden is in the Oval Office, he was a
vocal critic of the decision to withdraw , claiming it gave ISIS a "new lease of life".
Indeed, within two days of his being sworn in a column of American military vehicles was
seen entering Syria from Iraq
.
6. DOMESTIC TERRORISM
We called this before the
inauguration . They made it just too obvious. Before the dirty footprints had been cleaned
from Nancy Pelosi's desk it was clear where it was all going.
Direct the Justice Department, FBI and National Security Council to execute a top-down
approach prioritizing domestic terrorism; pass new domestic terrorism legislation; or do a
bit of both as Democrats propose a crack down on social media giants like Facebook for
algorithms that promote conspiracy laden posts.
That last part is key. The "crack down on social media" part, because the anti-Domestic
Terrorism legislation will likely be very focused on communication and so-called
"misinformation".
Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez has publicly called for a congressional panel to
"rein in" the media :
We're going to have to figure out how we rein in our media environment so you can't just
spew disinformation and misinformation,"
And who will be the target of these crack downs and new legislations? Well, according John
Brennan (ex-head of the CIA and accomplished war criminal), practically anybody:
They're casting a wide net. Expect "extremist", "bigot" and "racist" to be just a few of the
words which have their meanings totally revised in the next few months. "Conspiracy theorist"
will be used a lot, too.
Further, they are moving closer and closer toward the "anyone who disagrees with us is
literally insane" model. With many articles actually talking about "de-programming" Trump
voters. The Atlantic suggests "mental
hygiene" would cure the MAGA problem.
Again AOC is on point here, clearly auditioning for the role of High Inquisitor, claiming
that the new Biden government needs to fund programs that "de-radicalise" "conspiracy
theorists" who are on the "spectrum
of radicalisation" .
*
As I said at the beginning, it's been a busy week for Joe Biden, but you can sum up his
biggest policy plans in one short sentence: More violence overseas, less tolerance of dissent
and strict clampdowns on "misinformation".
Blinken does not seem to have repented from his fundamentalist belief in American
imperial goodness, notwithstanding his appeal for "humility".
Barring an earthquake in Washington, Antony Blinken is set to become the new U.S. Secretary
of State and America's top diplomat. The youthful and telegenic Blinken (58) takes over from
Mike Pompeo who was America's representative to the world under the last Trump
administration.
The contrast could not be more stark. In place of Pompeo's thuggish, rough-edged style,
Blinken has the appearance of consummate diplomat. He's fluent in French owing to a European
education, he's urbane and sophisticated and comes from a family which has diplomacy in its
genes. His father was an ambassador to Hungary and an advisor to President John F Kennedy. An
uncle was ambassador to Belgium.
Blinken has Hungarian and Russian Jewish ancestry. His mother remarried a Polish-American
Jewish survivor of the Nazi holocaust. During his confirmation hearing in the Senate this week,
Blinken
told the story of how his stepfather escaped from a Nazi death march in Bavaria and was
eventually rescued by an American tank driven by an African-American officer.
That story has shaped Blinken's worldview of America's prestige and international role. He's
a proponent of U.S. military interventionism with a presumption of moral duty. He's an advocate
of America working with European allies and upholding the transatlantic alliance – in
contrast to Trump's boorish America First sloganeering. Understandably, Blinken is imbued with
an unshakable belief in "American exceptionalism" and "manifest destiny" as a world leader.
The Senators at his confirmation hearing this week
swooned as Blinken spoke. He's certain to be confirmed as the new Secretary of State in the
coming days. That's because he is seen to be perfect for the task of restoring America's
international image which has been so badly tarnished under Trump and his grumpy gofer Pompeo.
The Europeans will lap up Blinken and his transatlantic romanticism.
Blinken has said that America's foreign policy must be conducted with "humility and
confidence", which may sound refreshingly modest. But it's not. Underlying this "quiet
American" is the same old arrogance about U.S. imperial might-is-right and Washington's
presumed privilege of appointing itself as the "world's policeman".
If Blinken's record is anything to go on, his future role as America's top diplomat is
foreboding.
Previously, he was a senior member in the Obama administrations serving as national security
advisor to both the president and Joe Biden who was then vice-president. Blinken rose to become
deputy Secretary of State in the final years of the second Obama administration. In those roles
he was a key player in a series of foreign interventions which turned out to be utterly
disastrous.
He was a big proponent of U.S. military intervention in Libya in 2011 which led to the
toppling and murder of Muammar Gaddafi. That intervention along with other NATO powers has left
a ruinous legacy not only for Libya but for North Africa, the Mediterranean and Europe.
Blinken was also a point-man in Obama's intervention in Syria where the U.S. (and other NATO
powers) supplied weapons to anti-government militants. The so-called "rebels" were in fact
myriad terrorist groups affiliated with Al Qaeda and other extremist Islamists. Up to half a
million people have been killed in the decade-long Syrian war and much of that blood is on
America's hands from its de facto support for terror gangs. Maybe Blinken genuinely thought he
was supporting "pro-democracy rebels". But even if we give him the benefit of doubt, the upshot
is still a disaster of American interventionism.
Another catastrophic consequence of Blinken's policymaking is Yemen. Under his direction,
the Obama administration backed the Saudi war on its southern neighbor beginning in March 2015
and continuing to this day. Yemen has become the worst humanitarian crisis in the world with
millions facing starvation amid Saudi aerial bombardment carried out with U.S. warplanes and
logistics.
The new Biden administration has indicated it will withdraw military support for Saudi
Arabia in its war on Yemen. But that doesn't absolve the U.S., and Blinken in particular, for
having created the horrendous quagmire from which it is belatedly trying to extricate itself
from.
What's rather perplexing, however, is that Blinken does not seem to have repented from his
fundamentalist belief in American imperial goodness, notwithstanding his appeal for "humility".
During his Senate hearings, he
showed little regret about America's illegal bombing of Libya and its arming of jihadists
in Syria.
He described the world with the conventional brainwashed American ideology as being a place
where China, Russia, Iran and North Korea are enemies that must be confronted. He also
told Senators he was in favor of increasing supplies of lethal weaponry to the Ukraine and
its rabidly anti-Russian regime in Kiev. Recall that it was the Obama administration which
instigated a coup d'état in Kiev against an elected president in February 2014. The new
regime was and is dominated by far-right nationalists who laud past links to Nazi Germany. If
Blinken has his way the war against ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine will escalate and could
ignite a bigger confrontation between Russia and the U.S.
One of the hallmarks of the U.S.-backed regime in Kiev is its espousal of Neo-Nazi
traditions and in particular antisemitic hatred.
Given Antony Blinken's own Jewish ancestry and his own intimate connection to the Nazi
holocaust, you do have to question his competence if he becomes America's foreign policy
leader. His boss President Joe Biden has fondly lionized Blinken as a "superstar" of diplomacy.
Superficially perhaps, he has finesse and intelligence. But in much the same basic way of
adhering to American imperialism, Blinken is as crude and thuggish as his predecessor Pompeo.
He just projects a more plausible look and sound, which is most desirable as a moral cover for
America's criminal imperialism.
Blinken is
known to self-deprecate his "insatiable habit" for making up bad puns. For example, on one
occasion when he was addressing an audience on policy regarding the Arctic, he began by joking
he would be "breaking the ice". Given his ability to pursue destructive dead-end policies, he
might therefore appreciate the moniker "Secretary of State Tony Blinkered".
In a matter of hours, Biden's key national security people -- Antony Blinken as secretary of
state, Avril Haines as director of national intelligence, and Lloyd Austin as defense secretary
-- gave us a remarkably fulsome idea of what we are in for these next four years.
Haines and Austin, neither of whose records are to be admired, are at bottom functionaries
who were nominated and swiftly confirmed because they do what they are told and do not think
too much -- always a career-advancer in Washington.
It is instead Blinken, who is said to enjoy some kind of
"mind-meld" with Biden, that we must consider carefully. (Such a meld must be odd
terrain.)
Blinken's Senate
testimony last Tuesday sprawled over four hours. It is best to scrutinize his remarks while
seated in a chair with sturdy armrests, ideally to calm one's nerves with a pot of chamomile
tea.
Seen or read as a whole, those four hours gave us an extraordinary display of how empire
works and how it prolongs itself. One by one, Blinken's senatorial interlocutors told him in so
many words, "Son, this is what you need to say if you want our confirmation. We want you to
endorse our commitment to aggression, to unlawful interventions, to 'regime change' ops, to
merciless sanctions, and altogether to the empire. But you must make it look nice. Make it look
thoughtful and complicated and considered."
July 14, 2016: Vice President Joe Biden, right, and Deputy Secretary of State Antony
Blinken. (Air Force, Christopher Hubenthal)
I am convinced, having endured the entire C–Span recording, that what I watched was
sheer ritual. Blinken won the Senate's support and now succeeds the shockingly bovine Mike
Pompeo at State. He will do so, however, with the élan and faux sophistication
our nakedly bankrupt foreign policy now requires if the American pantomime is to be sustained
another four years.
Among Blinken's many rather sad-to-witness "Yes sirs," two standout: his finely chiseled
endorsement of Pompeo's reckless assassination a year ago of Qassem Soleimani, Iran's revered
military commander ("Taking him out was the right thing to do"), and his approval of the Trump
administration's decision to send lethal arms to the manically corrupt regime in Kiev
("Senator, I support providing that lethal defensive assistance to Ukraine," when the Obama
administration, from which he comes, did not.)
Late last year, Blinken
appeared on "Intelligence Matters," the podcast run by Michael Morrell, the coup-mongering
former deputy director at the Central Intelligence Agency and now -- of course -- a regular
commentator on the televisions news networks. In their exchange, the two took up the question
of our "forever wars" and Biden's well-advertised commitment to ending them. Here is a snippet
from Blinken's remarks:
"As for ending the forever wars, large-scale deployment of large, standing U.S. forces in
conflict zones with no clear strategy should and will end under his [Biden's] watch. But we
also need to distinguish between, for example, these endless wars with large-scale,
open-ended deployment of U.S. forces with [sic], for example, discreet, small-scale
sustainable operations, maybe led by special forces to support local actors. In ending the
endless wars we have to be careful not to paint with too broad a brushstroke."
This is what we are in for these coming years, the hyper-rational irrationality of the
middling technocrat. There will be adjustments at the margin, reconsiderations of method. There
will be no consideration whatsoever of America's hegemonic objectives -- of the imperial
project.
Blinken's testimony reflected these bitter truths start to finish.
Changes to the Iran Deal
July 14, 2015: President Barack Obama, with Vice President Joe Biden, announcing the signing
of the Iran-nuclear agreement. (White House)
Of the various questions the new secretary of state took up during his confirmation
hearings, Iran is the most pressing. Senator Bob Menendez, Blinken's interlocutor in this case,
insisted that yes, the U.S. wants to rejoin the 2015 accord governing Iran's nuclear programs,
but only if this includes prohibitions against Tehran's "destabilizing activities" and a
missile program that Iran justly considers essential to its security.
An honest, clear-eyed diplomat who wanted to get somewhere with Tehran would have rejected
the very frame of Menendez's line of inquiry, with its references to "support for terrorism"
and "funding and feeding its proxies." But Blinken read his cues and tucked right in:
"The president-elect believes that if Iran comes back into compliance we would, too, but
we would use that as a platform to seek a longer, stronger agreement and also, as you have
pointed out, to capture these other issues, particularly with regard to missiles and Iran's
destabilizing activities. This would be the objective."
This is sheer charade. Blinken knows as well as anyone else that the added conditions the
Biden regime will require before rejoining the agreement -- an end to Iran's ballistic missile
programs and its support for the Syrian government against Islamists and the illegal U.S.
incursion -- effectively cancel all chances that the U.S. will rejoin the accord.
I
predicted in this space shortly after Biden was elected that he and his foreign policy
people only pretended to be serious about reviving the nuclear agreement with Iran. Blinken's
testimony confirms this.
Over the weekend The Times of Israel , citing Channel 12 television,
reported that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is sending Yossi Cohen, chief of Mossad and
a close confidant, to Washington to "set out terms" for any revival of the nuclear deal. Israel
purports to "set out terms," and Biden will receive this spook? This is getting completely
unserious. Completely.
On China, Russia, and Venezuela: Blinken was putty in the hands of the Foreign Relations
Committee's across-the-board hawks. A two-fronted new Cold War across both oceans -- Sinophobia
and Russophobia all at once -- is to be our reality these next four years.
Over the weekend, to be noted, the American Embassy in Moscow had the gall to broadcast
routes protesters could take to demonstrations in various Russian cities to dispute Alexei
Navlany's arrest . A good start.
Marco Rubio, the coup-loving senator from Florida, wanted to know if Blinken thought the
U.S. should continue backing Juan Guaidó, the buffoon Rubio and Pompeo puffed up as
Venezuela's "interim leader" as part of a failed coup operation a couple of years ago.
Blinken:
"I very much agree with you, senator, first of all with regard to a number of the steps
that were taken toward Venezuela in recent years, including recognizing Mr. Guaidó and
seeking to increase pressure on the regime . We need an effective policy that can restore
Venezuela to democracy, and how can we best advance that ball? Maybe we need to look at how
we more effectively target the sanctions that we have ."
Grim, grim times lie ahead if Blinken runs State as he promised the Senate he would.
There are those among us who look for shafts of light. People I greatly respect (some,
anyway) thought it was good news when Biden named William Burns, a career foreign service
officer, to head the CIA. At last diplomacy, not unlawful interventions!
Over the weekend, there were reports
that Biden will review -- not more at this point -- the designation of Yemen's Houthis as
terrorists, a label Pompeo affixed as he emptied his desk last week. Finally, we will stop
supporting the Saudis' savagery!
People believe what they need to believe these days, I find, and belief overrides cognition
in many such cases. I caution these people. At bottom Blinken demonstrated for us that no one
who purports to alter our imperial course will ever be allowed to hold high office. For people
such as Blinken, it is merely a question of wielding influence without having any.
This is where Americans live -- in a crumbled republic no longer capable of changing.
Patrick Lawrence, a correspondent abroad for many years, chiefly for the International
Herald Tribune , is a columnist, essayist, author and lecturer. His most recent book is
Time No Longer: Americans After the American Century . Follow him on Twitter @thefloutist . His web site is Patrick Lawrence . Support his work via
his Patreon site .
John Allen aka Ol' Hippy , January 26, 2021 at 12:16
I'm 66, almost 67, and will, most likely, never see any real peace from the US government.
A big portion of the economy is based on imperialist actions and the manufacture of conflicts
around the globe mainly to keeps the arms makers in business. Or simply, war. And no, there
is no nation willing to risk the wrath of the US government by trying to halt this insane
posture of aggression, it's just too big and has a momentum all its own. Biden will continue
unabated this absurd, insanely expensive machine to its eventual implosion in the near
future. All the parts of the fall of the economy are in place, all that's needed is some ill
defined tipping point to be crossed. Perhaps, a war with Iran?
"Blinken has said that America's foreign policy must be conducted with 'humility and
confidence', which may sound refreshingly modest. But it's not. Underlying this 'quiet
American' is the same old arrogance about U.S. imperial might-is-right and Washington's
presumed privilege of appointing itself as the 'world's policeman'.
"If Blinken's record is anything to go on, his future role as America's top diplomat is
foreboding.
"Previously, he was a senior member in the Obama administrations serving as national
security advisor to both the president and Joe Biden who was then vice-president. Blinken
rose to become deputy Secretary of State in the final years of the second Obama
administration. In those roles he was a key player in a series of foreign interventions which
turned out to be utterly disastrous."
The once upon a time manufactured aura of Virtue projected by the Outlaw US Empire that
was swallowed by so many naïve nations has vanished with nothing other than its stark
ugliness as a replacement. Refusal to see that reality is what Xi just referred to again as
"arrogance" which puts Blinken into the same ideological camp as Pompeo. As Global Times notes
, if the Outlaw US Empire's attitude's not going to change, than why should China's as
Pompeo's constant lying is replaced by Psaki's:
"When White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki responded to a question Monday about US-China
relations, she said that 'China is growing more authoritarian at home and more assertive
abroad,' adding that China 'is engaged in conduct that hurts American workers, blunts [US]
technological edge, and threatens [US] alliances and [US] influence in international
organizations.' She also noted that Washington is 'starting from an approach of patience as
it relates to [its] relationship with China.'"
The editor's response to such inanity:
"Psaki's statement shows that the Biden administration's view and characterization of
China is virtually identical to those of the Trump administration. Psaki stressed that 'We're
in a serious competition with China. Strategic competition with China is a defining feature
of the 21st century,' reflecting that the Biden administration only cares about a "new
approach" to holding China accountable."
And Psaki's words are the same as Blinken's, which were the same as Pompeo's and Trump's.
In other words, the hole digging by the Outlaw US Empire in its relations with the rest of
the world will continue, which will cause further deterioration of its domestic Great
Depression 2.0. Yesterday I posted a comment that highlighted Putin's expounding on the
further enhancement of the educational component of Russia's Social Contract that is
impossible for Navalny's backers to match. On the previous thread, a good comparison was made
between the Yeltsin years and the ongoing drowning of the Outlaw US Empire. The Reset that's
in the works isn't the one envisioned by Global Neoliberals like Klaus Schwab of the
WEF/Davos crew. It's what Xi spoke of yesterday that I commented upon and Escobar reported on
today. The Winds of Change are blowing again, but there's a gaping hole in the USA's wind
sock so it can't see in which direction it's blowing.
blinken is bad news.. i think that is very obvious from a superficial read on him.. the usa
can't get out of the ditch it has made for itself.. nothing is gonna change...
'liberal interventionism' has always been the hallmark of the US Liberal Class and its
foreign policy Establishment, especially since at least Wilson's jumping into WWI.
Has the US ever not intervened in Latin America whenever it felt like it or thought its
"interests" were at stake?
I think Caitlan J. has a good grasp on what to expect from the Biden war mongering crowd
that has recently moved into DC once again:
"....Trump's base has been forcefully pushing the narrative that the previous president
didn't start any new wars, which while technically true ignores his murderous actions like
vetoing the bill to save Yemen from U.S.-backed genocide and actively blocking aid to its
people, murdering untold tens of thousands of Venezuelans with starvation sanctions, rolling
out many world-threatening Cold War escalations against Russia, engaging in insane
brinkmanship with Iran, greatly increasing the number of bombs dropped per day from the
previous administration, killing record numbers of civilians, and reducing military
accountability for those airstrikes....
....Rather than a throwback to "new wars" and the old-school ground invasions of the Bush
era, the warmongering we'll be seeing from the Biden administration is more likely to look
like this. More starvation sanctions. More proxy conflicts. More cold war. More coups. More
special ops. More drone strikes. More slow motion strangulation, less ham-fisted overt
warfare...."
---
Simply put, more small scale wars/ops mostly by proxy, more support for local wankers
(like Guaido in Venezuela, who has incredibly little popular support), and more of these
killing sanctions, which are especially pernicious to the civilian populations in vulnerable
countries like Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, Nicaragua and Venezuela, etc.
@Levtraro to travel. It
will be a perk for them – a reward for being good servants. I can even forsee that
airlines will refit their fleets, stripping out coach class altogether, as the people who buy
the cheap seats won't be flying anymore anyway. A lot of industries will down-size so as to
only serve the quality customers.
And rich people are buying up land – lots of it. They are becoming what they already
deem themselves to be: an aristocracy, and a hereditary one at that.
Neo-liberal GloboCap is morping into neo-feudalism. They'll own everthing, and they'll be
happy. You'll own nothing and you'll be happy (or else).
I disagree. Current GloboCap elites and elites thoughout history have needed large
populations to look down to and to harvest for all they can yield. It is not good enough to
have all that you want when all others also have all that they want.
It is not nice enough to travel in your own or rented Gulf Stream or First Class or
Business Class when economy seats are non-existent. It is not good enough that a machine
calls you Sir instead of a real lowly human.
Real respect, admiration and adulation, could never be replaced by programmed respect,
admiration and adulation.
McFaul cautions against what he refers to as "Putin's ideological project" as a
threat to the neoliberal international order. Yet he is reluctant to recognize that the
neoliberal international order is an American ideological project for the post-Cold War
era.
After the Cold War, neoliberal ideologues advanced what was seemingly a benign proposition
– suggesting that neoliberal democracy should be at the center of security strategies.
However, by linking neoliberal norms to US leadership, neoliberalism became both a
constitutional principle and an international hegemonic norm.
NATO is presented as a community of neoliberal values – without mentioning that its
second largest member, Turkey, is more conservative and authoritarian than Russia – and
Moscow does not, therefore, have any legitimate reasons to oppose expansionism unless it fears
democracy. If Russia reacts negatively to military encirclement, it is condemned as an enemy of
democracy, and NATO has a moral responsibility to revert to its original mission as a military
bloc containing Russia.
Case in point: there was nobody in Moscow advocating for the reunification with Crimea until
the West supported the coup in Ukraine. Yet, as Western "fact checkers" and McFaul
inform us, there was a "democratic revolution" and not a coup. Committed to his
ideological prism, McFaul suggests that Russia acted out of a fear of having a democracy on its
borders, as it would give hope to Russians and thus threaten the Kremlin. McFaul's ideological
lens masks conflicting national security interests, and it fails to explain why Russia does not
mind democratic neighbors in the east, such as South Korea and Japan, with whom it enjoys good
relations.
Defending the peoples
States aspiring for global hegemony have systemic incentives to embrace ideologies that
endow them with the right to defend other peoples. The French National Convention declared in
1792 that France would "come to the aid of all peoples who are seeking to recover their
liberty," and the Bolsheviks proclaimed in 1917 "the duty to render assistance, armed,
if necessary, to the fighting proletariat of the other countries."
The American neoliberal international order similarly aims to liberate the people of the
world with "democracy promotion" and "humanitarian interventionism" when it
conveniently advances US primacy. The American ideological project infers that democracy is
advanced by US interference in the domestic affairs of Russia, while democracy is under attack
if Russia interferes in the domestic affairs of US. The neoliberal international system is one
of sovereign inequality to advance global primacy.
McFaul does not consider himself a Russophobe, as believes his attacks against Russia are
merely motivated by the objective of liberating Russians from their government, which is why he
advocates that Biden "distinguish between Russia and Russians – between Putin and the
Russian people." This has been the modus operandi for regime change since the end of the
Cold War – the US supposedly does not attack countries to advance its interests, it only
altruistically assists foreign peoples in rival states against their leaders such as Slobodan
Milosevic, Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi, Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin etc.
McFaul and other neoliberal ideologues still refer to NATO as a "defensive alliance,"
which does not make much sense after the attacks on Yugoslavia in 1999 or Libya in 2011.
However, under the auspices of neoliberal internationalism, NATO is defensive, as it defends
the people of the world. Russia, therefore, doesn't have rational reasons for opposing the
neoliberal international order.
McFaul condemns alleged efforts by Russia to interfere in the domestic affairs of the US,
before outlining his strategies for interfering in the domestic affairs of Russia. McFaul
blames Russian paranoia for shutting down American "non-governmental organizations" that
are funded by the US government and staffed by people linked to the US security apparatus. He
goes on to explain that the US government must counter this by establishing new
"non-government organizations" to educate the Russian public about the evils of their
government.
The dangerous appeal of ideologues
Ideologues have always been dangerous to international security. Ideologies of human freedom
tend to promise perpetual peace. Yet, instead of transcending power politics, the ideals of
human freedom are linked directly to hegemonic power by the self-proclaimed defender of the
ideology. When ideologues firmly believe that the difference between the current volatile world
and utopia can be bridged by defeating its opponents, it legitimizes radical power
politics.
Consequently, there is no sense of irony among the McFauls of the world as US security
strategy is committed to global dominance, while berating Russia for "revisionism."
Raymond Aaron once wrote: "Idealistic diplomacy slips too often into fanaticism; it divides
states into good and evil, into peace-loving and bellicose. It envisions a permanent peace by
the punishment of the latter and the triumph of the former. The idealist, believing he has
broken with power politics, exaggerates its crimes."
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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.
Ghanima223 2 days ago 22 Jan, 2021 09:36 AM
In short, the tables have turned since the end of the Cold War. It is no longer communist
ideologues that try to export revolution and chaos while the western world would promote
stability and free markets. Now it's western ideologues that are trying to export revolutions
and chaos while clamping down on free markets with Russia, as ironically as it sounds, being
a force for stability and a strong proponent for the free exchange of goods and services
around the world. The west will lose just as the USSR has lost.
US_did_911 Ghanima223 1 day ago 23 Jan, 2021 01:01 AM
The Dollar is the only fake reason that still keeps US afloat. The moment that goes, it loss
will be a lot worse then of USSR.
US_did_911 Ghanima223 1 day ago 23 Jan, 2021 12:58 AM
That happened not exactly after the end of the cold war. It was about even for a decade after
that. The real u-turn happened after the 9/11 false flag disaster.
Amvet 2 days ago 22 Jan, 2021 10:00 AM
Foreign dangers are necessary to keep the attention of the American people away from the 20
ton elephant in the room--the fact that 9/11 was not a foreign attack. Should any of the main
stream media suddenly turn honest and report this in detail, things will get interesting.
King_Penda 2 days ago 22 Jan, 2021 09:11 AM
I wouldn't worry too much. At the same time Biden will be purging the US military of any men
of capability and replacing them trans and political appointments. The traditional areas
where the military recruited it's grunts are falling as they are waking up to the hostility
of the state to their culture and way of life. The US military will end up a rump of queerss,
off work due to stress or perceived persecution and fat doughballs sat in warehouses
performing drone strikes on goats.
Fjack1415 King_Penda 1 day ago 23 Jan, 2021 01:20 PM
Yes, you point to a paradox. While the globalists are using the US as their military arm for
global domination, they are at the same time destroying the country that supports that
military. Perhaps the US military will be maintained by dint of its being the only employer
for millions of unemployed young men in the American heartland, doughballs or not.
Ghanima223 King_Penda 2 days ago 22 Jan, 2021 09:39 AM
Ideologues will always be more concerned with having political reliable military leadership
as opposed to actually qualified leaders. It took the Russians 2 decades to purge their own
military of this filth of incompetent 'yes' men within their military.
UKCitizen 2 days ago 22 Jan, 2021 09:09 AM
'The Liberal International Order' - yes, that seems a fair description. Led by what might be
termed 'liberal fundamentalists'.
far_cough 1 day ago 23 Jan, 2021 07:01 AM
the military industrial complex and the various deep state agencies along with the major
corporations need russia as an adversary so that they can milk the american people and the
people of the western world of their money, rights, freedoms, etc etc...
roby007 2 days ago 22 Jan, 2021 09:54 AM
I'm sure Biden will pursue "peaceful, productive coexistence" just as his friend Obama did,
with drones and bombs.
Paul Citro 2 days ago 22 Jan, 2021 09:16 AM
I hope that Russian leaders fully realize that they are dealing with a country that is the
equivalent of psychotic.
Fjack1415 Paul Citro 1 day ago 23 Jan, 2021 01:26 PM
True, the ruling party and MSM mouthpieces and their readers and followers are now truly
INSANE. Beyond redemption. Staggering in the depth and power of the subversion of so many
people, including many with high IQs (like my ex girlfriend and housemate in the US).
Anastasia Deko 2 days ago 22 Jan, 2021 10:57 AM
US security strategy is committed to global dominance
Absolutely. Biden has filled up his admin with "progressive realists," which
when it comes to foreign policy, is just a euphuism for neocons and their lust for world
empire. So expect an unleashing of forces in the coming two years that will finally humble
America's war machine.
tyke2939 Anastasia Deko 2 days ago 22 Jan, 2021 01:07 PM
They are desperate for a war with someone but it must be someone they can beat convincingly.
It certainly will not be Russia or China and I suspect Iran will be a huge battle even with
Israel s backing. More than likely they will invade some country like Venezuela as Syria has
Russia covering its back. What a dilemma who to fight.
9/11 Truther Anastasia Deko 2 days ago 22 Jan, 2021 11:24 AM
The "American war machine" has been humbled from Saigon, Vietnam 1975 to Kabul, Afghanistan.
Salmigoni 2 days ago 22 Jan, 2021 09:25 AM
They are not really liberals. They are blood thirsty parasitic neoconservative fascist war
mongers working for the Pentagon contractors. General Eisenhower warned us about these evil
people. A lot of Americans still do not get it.
"... Not surprisingly, Blinken is a favorite of the AIPAC-bankrolled Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, which, as Phil Giraldi reported , Tweeted that Blinken would be part of a " superb national security team. The country will be very fortunate to have them in public service." ..."
"... We have Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) to thank for at least bringing up the fact that Blinken has blundered from foreign policy disaster to foreign policy disaster – which only gets you promoted in Washington DC. In Blinken's confirmation hearing, Paul reminded Blinken of his addiction to intervention in the Middle East and how that has worked out for everyone. ..."
"... Yes, Senator Paul is right. "Regime change" doesn't work. It kills or destroys the lives of the most vulnerable. The poor and the innocent. The US enemies may occasionally find themselves on the wrong end of a noose or a knife rape , but it is the civilians who always suffer when they are "liberated" by Washington. ..."
"... Buckle up, as incoming Senate Majority Leader Schumer advised, there's a whole lot of interventionism in the queue. There's a whole lot of death and destruction to be unleashed by Biden, Blinken, and their gang of " humanitarians ." ..."
While the saccharine continues to ooze from the mainstream media for the incoming Biden
Administration, the real iron fist of what will be the Biden foreign policy is starting to
materialize. As if on cue, major bombings in Baghdad – by ISIS remember them? –
have
opened the door for the Biden Administration to not only cancel President Trump's troop
drawdown from Iraq but to actually begin sending troops back into Iraq.
Is this to be Iraq War 4.0? 3.7? 5.0? Anybody's guess.
If Biden uses this sudden – and convenient – unrest in Iraq as a trigger to
return US troops (and bombs), it should not surprise anyone. As Professor Barbara Ransby points
out in this video , Biden did much
more to make the disastrous 2003 attack on Iraq happen than just vote "yes" on the
authorization to use force. As Professor Ransby reminds us, Biden used the full power of his
position as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to ensure the Senate approved
George W. Bush's lie-based war on Iraq. Biden prevented any experts who challenged the "Saddam
has WMDs and he's about to use them" narrative from being heard by Members of Congress,
guaranteeing that only the pro-war narrative was heard.
As much as Bush or Cheney, Biden owns the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, which killed a million
Iraqi civilians. And he may well be taking us back.
One figure in the Biden Administration who will play a pivotal role in returning the US to
its hyper-interventionism in the Middle East is Secretary of State nominee Anthony Blinken . As
a Biden Senate staffer in 2003, he helped the then-Foreign Relations Committee Chairman put
together a pro-war coalition in the Democratic Party to support President Bush's Republican
push for invasion.
Later on Blinken was Obama's Deputy National Security Advisor, where he successfully made
the case that destroying both Libya and Syria were fantastic ideas. Both countries drowned in
the Obama Administration's "liberation" bloodbath and neither country has recovered from the
"democracy" brought by Washington, but being a neocon foreign policy ideologue means never
having to say you're sorry.
And Blinken isn't.
Not surprisingly, Blinken is a favorite of the AIPAC-bankrolled Foundation for the Defense
of Democracies, which, as Phil Giraldi reported ,
Tweeted that Blinken would be part of a " superb national security team. The country will be
very fortunate to have them in public service."
We have Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) to thank for at least bringing up the fact that Blinken has
blundered from foreign policy disaster to foreign policy disaster – which only gets you
promoted in Washington DC. In Blinken's confirmation hearing, Paul reminded Blinken of his
addiction to intervention in the Middle East and how that has worked out for everyone.
Paul reminded the Secretary of State nominee that his only criticism of the Syria "regime
change" plan was that the US did not successfully overthrow Assad. But the US was using
jihadist proxies to overthrow the
secular Assad , so what does this say about Blinken's judgement?
"The lesson of these wars," said
Paul , is that 'regime change' doesn't work!"
Paul added:
Even after Libya you guys went on to Syria wanting to do the same thing again it's a
disaster.
You got rid of one 'bad guy' and another 'bad guy' got stronger.
Yes, Senator Paul is right. "Regime change" doesn't work. It kills or destroys the lives of
the most vulnerable. The poor and the innocent. The US enemies may occasionally find themselves
on the wrong end of a
noose or a
knife rape , but it is the civilians who always suffer when they are "liberated" by
Washington.
Buckle up, as incoming Senate Majority Leader Schumer advised, there's a whole lot of
interventionism in the queue. There's a whole lot of death and destruction to be unleashed by
Biden, Blinken, and their gang of " humanitarians ."
*
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Joe Biden will ram through warped liberal social experiments masquerading as credible,
time-tested programs designed to stabilize the nation.
It was a stark image never before seen in Washington, DC, and one that bodes ill for the
future prospects of the country. A locked down capital ringed in barbed wire, with 25,000
troops encompassing the Capitol building, provided a surreal backdrop to Joe Biden's
inauguration as the 46 th POTUS.
The excuse Democrats have provided for turning the 'citadel of democracy' into a maximum
security prison is not due to a growing distrust with the electoral process. Nor was it blamed
on the spectacle of the mainstream media and Big Tech silencing the voices of exactly one half
of the U.S. electorate – up to and including that of the now former president, Donald J.
Trump. No, to suggest such irrational things would attract howls of 'conspiracy theory' from
the liberal gallery.
Thankfully, we have Silicon Valley fact checkers and corporate media commentators to lead us
to the valley of truth, which informs us that all those Trump "insurgents" who invaded the
Capitol building on January 6 th were motivated by pure evil intentions rooted in
racism, sedition and white supremacist ideology. And as Hillary Clinton suggested during an
off-the-rails interview with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, Trump and his motley crew of
deplorables may have taken their marching orders from none other than Vladimir Putin himself.
Who needs fiction writers these days when we have the Democratic Party?
Conservatives need to come to grips with the realization that they are not dealing with
rational people who will be willing to engage in cool-headed discussion and debate. Despite a
full sweep of the political landscape, the left remains consumed by a collective fit of rage,
hysteria and raw emotion that shows no sign of abating. Why? Partly due to political immaturity
in the ranks, and partly because 'victory' for the left no longer means victory at the polls;
these fanatics, for that is really what they are, will not rest easy until the political
opposition is shorn of its voice and representation. In other words, when it is completely and
unequivocally obliterated. And given the political proclivities of Big Tech and Big Media,
those dreams are dangerously within reach. Unless the right is able to essentially build its
own internet architecture to bypass the left's censorship machine, they will eventually go the
way of the dinosaurs as a political force.
In the meantime, Joe Biden, or whoever will be pulling his strings, will ram through warped
liberal social experiments masquerading as credible, time-tested programs designed to stabilize
the nation. Of course they are nothing of the sort. These are globalist-backed policies –
such as defunding the police, opening the border, vilifying the right as 'racist,' and
sexualizing the minds of elementary-age children – designed to utterly destabilize the
nation and all of its core institutions, including not least of all the nuclear family. Anyone
who speaks out against these reckless initiatives will be struck down by the harshest cancel
culture cult ever known to man. In fact, 'domestic terrorism' legislation is already drafted
that, if passed by Congress, will go far at stifling any dissenting voices from the right.
The very first line of the proposed legislation , entitled
'Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act of 2020,' which was conveniently prepared just weeks before
the Capitol riots erupted, states that "White supremacists and other far-right-wing extremists
are the most significant domestic terrorism threat facing the United States " Buried deep in
the text is a single line devoted to Antifa, and nothing whatsoever about Black Lives Matter,
yet these groups were responsible for torching and looting a swath of destruction across the
United States following the death of George Floyd during an arrest by a while police
officer.
Days before Biden's ironclad inauguration, the media was out in full force propagating the
notion of a connection between right-wing Trump supporters and – wait for it –
terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda.
"I did see a similar dynamic in the evolution of al-Qaida in Iraq, where a whole
generation of angry Arab youth with very poor prospects followed a powerful leader who
promised to take them back in time to a better place, and he led them to embrace an ideology
that justified their violence," Retired Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the former head of
Joint Special Operations Command in Iraq and the commander of all U.S. and allied troops in
Afghanistan, said in an interview. "This is now happening in America." So there you have it,
straight from the horse's mouth: the 'deplorable' right in the United States is almost on par
with the same guys who carried out the terrorist attacks of 9/11.
Needless to say, with such outrageous comments making the rounds, there was little chance of
a balanced message from Joe Biden's inaugural
speech with regards to the myriad problems now stalking America. Indeed, the address was
top heavy with warmed-over clichés about "unity," as well as references to racism and
inequality.
After four years of groundless rhetoric about "racist Trump supporters" (yet no other
conservative president has been so successful at attracting members of the Black
and Latino community to the Republican standard than Donald Trump), it was only natural
that Biden would allude to "a rise in political extremism, white supremacy, domestic terrorism
that we must confront and we will defeat." Coming just days after the riots at the Capitol
building by Trump supporters, which the hapless mainstream media has been at great pains to
label a "racist" event, the message made it amply clear for whom the bell tolls.
Once again, at this dangerous crossroads in American history, any hope for a true bipartisan
breakthrough is doomed to failure, and more so now as the radical neoliberal wing of the
Democratic Party is demanding the most outrageous social, cultural and political overhaul the
nation has ever witnessed. No true conservative will ever abide by these changes.
At the same time, the voice and demonstrations of the right is not only being brutally
vanquished, it is actually being assimilated under the banner of "domestic terrorism." This
marks the widest chasm between the two primary political parties in the United States, which,
unless quickly bridged, will end in imminent disaster for the American experiment in
democracy.
"... Consequently, there is no sense of irony among the McFauls of the world as US security strategy is committed to global dominance, while berating Russia for "revisionism." ..."
ByGlenn Diesen, Professor at the University of South-Eastern Norway, and an editor at the Russia in Global
Affairs journal. Follow him on Twitter @glenndiesen
Donald Trump's efforts to reduce the ideologically driven base of US foreign policy fuelled great resentment among those who believed
it betrayed Washington's leadership position in the so-called "liberal international order."
Now that power has changed, will the pendulum swing in the opposite direction, with Joe Biden's administration applying a radical
ideological foreign policy?
A recent article by Michael McFaul, once Barack Obama's ambassador to Russia and a noted 'Russiagate' conspiracy theorist, indicates
what such an ideological foreign policy would look like. McFaul's article, 'How to Contain Putin's Russia', makes a case for a containment
policy.
Containment: learning from the past or living in the past?
To advance his argument, McFaul quotes George Kennan, the author of the Long Telegram and architect of erstwhile US containment
policy against the Soviet Union. McFaul suggests that Kennan's advocacy for a "patient but firm and vigilant containment"
against the revolutionary Bolshevik regime 75 years ago remains as valid as ever.
It would have made more sense to
quote Kennan when
he condemned NATO expansionism and predicted it would trigger another Cold War. As Kennan noted: "there was no reason for this
whatsoever. No one was threatening anybody else. This expansion would make the Founding Fathers of this country turn over in their
graves."
Kennan continued to express disbelief over the rhetoric by the misinformed US leadership, presenting "Russia as a country dying
to attack Western Europe. Don't people understand? Our differences in the Cold War were with the Soviet Communist regime. And now
we are turning our backs on the very people who mounted the greatest bloodless revolution in history to remove that Soviet regime."
Kennan then went on to correctly predict that, when Russia would eventually react to US provocations, the NATO expanders would wrongfully
blame Russia.
Ideologues often have nostalgia for the Cold War, when the bipolar power distribution was supported by a clear and comfortable
ideological divide. The Western bloc represented capitalism, Christianity, and democracy, while the Eastern bloc represented communism,
atheism, and authoritarianism. This ideological divide supported internal cohesion within the Western bloc and drew clear borders
with the adversary.
The liberal international order has attempted to recast the former capitalist-communist divide with a liberal-authoritarian divide.
However, the ideological incompatibility between American liberalism and Russian conservatism is less convincing. For example, McFaul
cautions against Putin's nefarious conservative ideology committed to "Christian, traditional family values" that threatens
the liberal international order.
The new ideological divide nonetheless advances neo-McCarthyism in the West. McFaul presents a list of European conservatives
and populists that should be treated as American conservatives, purged from political life as enemies of the liberal international
order and thus possible agents of Russia. Hillary Clinton even suggested that the Capitol Hill riots were possibly coordinated by
Trump and Putin – yes, Russiagate is here to stay. The solution, for McFaul, is for American tech oligarchs to manipulate algorithms
to protect populations from Russian-friendly media.
An American ideological project
McFaul cautions against what he refers to as "Putin's ideological project" as a threat to the liberal international order.
Yet he is reluctant to recognize that the liberal international order is an American ideological project for the post-Cold War era.
After the Cold War, liberal ideologues advanced what was seemingly a benign proposition – suggesting that liberal democracy should
be at the center of security strategies. However, by linking liberal norms to US leadership, liberalism became both a constitutional
principle and an international hegemonic norm.
NATO is presented as a community of liberal values – without mentioning that its second largest member, Turkey, is more conservative
and authoritarian than Russia – and Moscow does not, therefore, have any legitimate reasons to oppose expansionism unless it fears
democracy. If Russia reacts negatively to military encirclement, it is condemned as an enemy of democracy, and NATO has a moral responsibility
to revert to its original mission as a military bloc containing Russia.
Case in point: there was nobody in Moscow advocating for the reunification with Crimea until the West supported the coup in Ukraine.
Yet, as Western "fact checkers" and McFaul inform us, there was a "democratic revolution" and not a coup. Committed
to his ideological prism, McFaul suggests that Russia acted out of a fear of having a democracy on its borders, as it would give
hope to Russians and thus threaten the Kremlin. McFaul's ideological lens masks conflicting national security interests, and it fails
to explain why Russia does not mind democratic neighbors in the east, such as South Korea and Japan, with whom it enjoys good relations.
Defending the peoples
States aspiring for global hegemony have systemic incentives to embrace ideologies that endow them with the right to defend other
peoples. The French National Convention declared in 1792 that France would "come to the aid of all peoples who are seeking to
recover their liberty," and the Bolsheviks proclaimed in 1917 "the duty to render assistance, armed, if necessary, to the
fighting proletariat of the other countries."
The American liberal international order similarly aims to liberate the people of the world with "democracy promotion"
and "humanitarian interventionism" when it conveniently advances US primacy. The American ideological project infers that
democracy is advanced by US interference in the domestic affairs of Russia, while democracy is under attack if Russia interferes
in the domestic affairs of US. The liberal international system is one of sovereign inequality to advance global primacy.
McFaul does not consider himself a Russophobe, as believes his attacks against Russia are merely motivated by the objective of
liberating Russians from their government, which is why he advocates that Biden "distinguish between Russia and Russians – between
Putin and the Russian people." This has been the modus operandi for regime change since the end of the Cold War – the US supposedly
does not attack countries to advance its interests, it only altruistically assists foreign peoples in rival states against their
leaders such as Slobodan Milosevic, Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi, Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin etc.
McFaul and other liberal ideologues still refer to NATO as a "defensive alliance," which does not make much sense after
the attacks on Yugoslavia in 1999 or Libya in 2011. However, under the auspices of liberal internationalism, NATO is defensive, as
it defends the people of the world. Russia, therefore, doesn't have rational reasons for opposing the liberal international order.
McFaul condemns alleged efforts by Russia to interfere in the domestic affairs of the US, before outlining his strategies for
interfering in the domestic affairs of Russia. McFaul blames Russian paranoia for shutting down American "non-governmental organizations"
that are funded by the US government and staffed by people linked to the US security apparatus. He goes on to explain that the US
government must counter this by establishing new "non-government organizations" to educate the Russian public about the evils
of their government.
The dangerous appeal of ideologues
Ideologues have always been dangerous to international security. Ideologies of human freedom tend to promise perpetual peace.
Yet, instead of transcending power politics, the ideals of human freedom are linked directly to hegemonic power by the self-proclaimed
defender of the ideology. When ideologues firmly believe that the difference between the current volatile world and utopia can be
bridged by defeating its opponents, it legitimizes radical power politics.
Consequently, there is no sense of irony among the McFauls of the world as US security strategy is committed to global dominance,
while berating Russia for "revisionism."
Raymond Aaron once wrote: "Idealistic diplomacy slips too often into fanaticism; it divides states into good and evil, into
peace-loving and bellicose. It envisions a permanent peace by the punishment of the latter and the triumph of the former. The idealist,
believing he has broken with power politics, exaggerates its crimes."
If you 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.
"... "Blinken acknowledged that the US must set an example at home on what it preaches abroad. He also stressed the need for "humility". But he insisted nonetheless that the US' global leadership "still matters" since the world is incapable of organising itself "when we're not leading," as some other country may usurp America's lead role impacting "our interests and values", or, simply, chaos may follow! ..."
"... At any rate, Blinken has pledged to "revitalise American diplomacy" and address the challenges of "rising nationalism, reseeding democracy, growing rivalry from China, and Russia and other authoritarian states, mounting threats to a stable and open international system and a technological revolution that is reshaping every aspect of our lives, especially in cyberspace." ..."
I would not set too much store by Plato's political philosophy. For Plato, the political
ideal was a society of three layers: philosopher kings who rule, guardians (the military),
producers / workers.
Ideally philosopher kings would be trained from childhood, adolescence or young adulthood
onwards to be rational and to think in terms of what is best for society as a whole. They
would be trained to be selfless and to shun the pursuit of material wealth.
There are many criticisms that can be made of Plato's ideal society. One such criticism
among others is that philosopher kings / rulers may have a very narrow idea of what is best
for society as a whole and may lead their people into trouble with, erm, "noble lies" (in
whatever form the propaganda and the cultural conditioning take - and when does a "noble" lie
cease to be "noble" and become just plain outright manipulation and falsehood?) if they
confuse their own interests with the interests of society, when the reality is that their
interests as philosopher kings and the interests of the rest of society are far apart.
The irony I've just uncovered is that the present system of government that exists in the
US looks a little too much like Plato's ideal.
@ Jen | Jan 21 2021 0:50 utc | 114... thanks jen... i was waiting to find out from
juliania, but i appreciate your take on this which seems fairly informed... i know nothing
about all of it, but it was an interesting idea cross purposing bidens inaugurations speech
with platos idea of a or the noble lie... the problem with ideals, is they are hard to live
in reality, thus they remain ideals only.. it sems philosopher kings and political leaders
rely heavily on ideals to make a pitch to the public.. not everyone is receptive to them
though... thanks for your input!
"Blinken acknowledged that the US must set an example at home on what it preaches abroad.
He also stressed the need for "humility". But he insisted nonetheless that the US' global
leadership "still matters" since the world is incapable of organising itself "when we're not
leading," as some other country may usurp America's lead role impacting "our interests and
values", or, simply, chaos may follow!
Now, that's an extraordinary boast so soon after the Capitol Riots whose leitmotif was
Chaos in capital "C". Blinken made a laughable claim. But it also betrays delusional
thinking.
At any rate, Blinken has pledged to "revitalise American diplomacy" and address the
challenges of "rising nationalism, reseeding democracy, growing rivalry from China, and
Russia and other authoritarian states, mounting threats to a stable and open international
system and a technological revolution that is reshaping every aspect of our lives, especially
in cyberspace."
@follyofwar
hat Trump did not, and for which Trump deserves credit: NOT attacking Iran; NOT starting a
war in the Donbass region of Ukraine; and NOT escalating the attack on Syria to the point
where Syria collapses and Al-Nusra and ISIS terrorists take over (which is what Israel has
openly said they would prefer to Assad!) And I am NOT a 'Trumper', think he was a disgusting
zionist boot-licker, and that he didn't do diddly squat of what he promised to do for the
average American, but sure kissed Wall Street's bottom. The problem is, Bidet may be worse,
if his past is any indication.
Regardless, the next four years are gonna be ugly, really ugly, foreign policy-wise, I'm
afraid ..
I would not set too much store by Plato's political philosophy. For Plato, the political
ideal was a society of three layers: philosopher kings who rule, guardians (the military),
producers / workers.
Ideally philosopher kings would be trained from childhood, adolescence or young adulthood
onwards to be rational and to think in terms of what is best for society as a whole. They
would be trained to be selfless and to shun the pursuit of material wealth.
There are many criticisms that can be made of Plato's ideal society. One such criticism
among others is that philosopher kings / rulers may have a very narrow idea of what is best
for society as a whole and may lead their people into trouble with, erm, "noble lies" (in
whatever form the propaganda and the cultural conditioning take - and when does a "noble" lie
cease to be "noble" and become just plain outright manipulation and falsehood?) if they
confuse their own interests with the interests of society, when the reality is that their
interests as philosopher kings and the interests of the rest of society are far apart.
The irony I've just uncovered is that the present system of government that exists in the
US looks a little too much like Plato's ideal.
@ Jen | Jan 21 2021 0:50 utc | 114... thanks jen... i was waiting to find out from
juliania, but i appreciate your take on this which seems fairly informed... i know nothing
about all of it, but it was an interesting idea cross purposing bidens inaugurations speech
with platos idea of a or the noble lie... the problem with ideals, is they are hard to live
in reality, thus they remain ideals only.. it sems philosopher kings and political leaders
rely heavily on ideals to make a pitch to the public.. not everyone is receptive to them
though... thanks for your input!
"Blinken acknowledged that the US must set an example at home on what it preaches abroad.
He also stressed the need for "humility". But he insisted nonetheless that the US' global
leadership "still matters" since the world is incapable of organising itself "when we're not
leading," as some other country may usurp America's lead role impacting "our interests and
values", or, simply, chaos may follow!
Now, that's an extraordinary boast so soon after the Capitol Riots whose leitmotif was
Chaos in capital "C". Blinken made a laughable claim. But it also betrays delusional
thinking. At any rate, Blinken has pledged to "revitalise American diplomacy" and address the
challenges of "rising nationalism, reseeding democracy, growing rivalry from China, and
Russia and other authoritarian states, mounting threats to a stable and open international
system and a technological revolution that is reshaping every aspect of our lives, especially
in cyberspace."
Senator Rand Paul recently challenged the new Secretary of State nominee Anthony Blinken on
his history of pushing regime change in the Middle East and North Africa:
"Regime change in the Middle East has led to chaos, instability and more terrorism," Sen.
Paul argued.
"Like Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton you've been a supporter of military intervention in
the Middle East from the Iraq war to the Libyan war to the Syrian civil war..." he introduced
in his Tuesday questoning of Blinken.
Sen. Paul began his argument by questioning Blinken's role in the NATO intervention of Libya
in 2001 and his support for the US military invasion of Iraq in 2003, which the Kentucky
congressman said was a major disaster that paved the way for a stronger Iran.
The congressman argued that Blinken continued to push regime change in Syria, which he said
was a significant blunder, especially with the amount of money spent training "moderate rebel
forces" .
Sen. Paul said the administration of former President Barack Obama spent $250 million (USD)
on training 60 rebels [as part of the DoD side; the CIA program was much more expansive], which
he said was a waste of money.
He would go on to question why Blinken would support the Syrian opposition groups on the
ground, as he pointed out the most powerful fighters are those from the jihadist groups like
the Al-Nusra Front .
"Even after Libya you guys went on to Syria wanting to do the same thing again... it's a
disaster. The lesson of these wars is that regime change doesn't work!" Paul said.
"You got rid of one 'bad guy' and another 'bad guy' got stronger," Paul added while
lambasting the US strategy of going after Iran while Iraq is still weakened by Bush's regime
change war there.
"Maybe we shouldn't be 'choosing' governments in the Middle East," Paul continued.
Blinken claimed in response that he wasn't supportive of a full-scale 'Iraq-style' regime
change war in Syria while vaguely claiming that he's done "deep thinking" and reflection on the
issue . Blinken never repudiated the policy of regime change in the Middle East, however.
Sen. Paul then shifted his attention to NATO, which he said Blinken was trying to strengthen
for the purpose of combatting Russia. The senator said Blinken's policy on NATO would lead to
war with Russia, which the latter responded would have the opposite effect.
Paul concluded by saying that regime change needs to end because it is involving the US in
long wars that are costly to the military.
The Luftwaffe 8 hours ago
We will see a new major war started by this administration within two years
Cloud9.5 7 hours ago
We have to do something to reduce the population.
Leather-Dog 7 hours ago
You mean in addition to the 103.5% effective covid vaccine?
RiverRoad 7 hours ago
On duckduckgo.com search > "Med
Cram".
On You Tube: Dr. Seheult's med school video lecture "Vitamin D and Covid 19: The Evidence for
Prevention and " (5.3m views)
Vitamin D3 is sold over the counter.
Karma is coming for Covid.
eatapeach 7 hours ago
Hopefully it's also coming for the thieving liars who pushed this cheap PsyOp (Pompeo is
one, Fauci is another).
bigjim 3 hours ago
I guess Bibi mis-spelled Rand's email address on the memo.
boattrash 2 hours ago
103.5%... that sounds like the voter turnout in all the blue cities.
rastanarchocapitalist 7 hours ago
If one could take all the people in the world and cram them into a city as dense as Tokyo,
it would cover the area of Rhode Island.
BaNNeD oN THe RuN 5 hours ago
BS
Tokyo pop density=16121.8 /sq.mi.
Rhode Island = 1045 sq.mi.
At that density RI would hold 16.8 million people.
At the average annual population growth rate of the last century there will be 1 sq.m. of
land per person in only 750 years. That includes all mountains, frozen tundra, jungles and
deserts... now "get off my lawn".
bearwinkle 6 hours ago
Sure, that's why Xiden is allowing millions of immigrants to invade our borders.
aloha_snakbar 7 hours ago
I thought it might be like today...
Hatterasjohn 7 hours ago
Anyone crazy enough to join ,or be in the military , is out of his friggin mind.
BarnacleBill 7 hours ago
Or likes killing civilians. Don't overlook the psychopaths.
headslapper 7 hours ago
and that will be the end of the US.
RiverRoad 7 hours ago
How about the Regime Change just effected right HERE in the good old USA?
Im1ru12 4 hours ago
Exactly - "Maybe we shouldn't be 'choosing' governments in the Middle East," Paul
continued
That's what they do - they just did it here
starman99 7 hours ago
(((Anthony Blinken)))
USAllDay 7 hours ago
I'd take Assad over Biden.
9.1ontherichterscale 7 hours ago (Edited)
Assad has more integrity in his shoe than Biden has accumulated in the past 50 years.
Armed Resistance 7 hours ago
If the deep state hates Assad, then I know he must be legitimately a good guy deep down.
9.1ontherichterscale 7 hours ago
BINGO!
Brutlstrudl 6 hours ago
It seems that after each election, the USA becomes more of a contrarian indicator
SERReal1 7 hours ago
I agree. At least Assad puts his country first and gives the finger to the Deep State.
BaNNeD oN THe RuN 5 hours ago
Plus a secular government that respects the rights of all religious minorites. Sets a bad
example for all the intolerant apartheid states in the region.
Hopefully the "Assad Must Go" curse gets the entire Biden Administration sooner rather than
later.
aloha_snakbar 8 hours ago
Who cares...Uncle Scam lost the tiny bit of credibility he had on 01/20/2021. RIP
America....
eatapeach 7 hours ago
I care. Here's yet another Israel-first douchenozzle getting put in a very, very high
position. And acting like it'd be any different with Trump at the helm is severe folly.
(Pompeo)
FluTangClan 6 hours ago
Sorry bro but anyone with eyes hasn't thought the US credible for more than a century.
4Celts 7 hours ago
Paul concluded by saying that regime change needs to end because it is involving the US in
long wars that are costly to the military.
Pardon , but the " cost " to the military shouldn't be the top/only argument. What happened
to morally/ ethically wrong ?
SwmngwShrks 7 hours ago
"All wars are Bankers' wars." -Smedley Butler
white horse 7 hours ago
Moral is dead long ago, replaced by new fake moral called humanitarianism.
DonGenaro 7 hours ago
You're an astute observer - few detect such "tells"
Feck Weed 5 hours ago
Consider the audience
FringeDweller 5 hours ago
Fair point.
Lord JT 5 hours ago
He mentioned that it creates more terrorism, and that the incoming regime may be even worse
than the previous.
Unknown User 8 hours ago
Biden will start a war, or two, or three...
Why-Am-I-Banned 6 hours ago
Maybe the best thing that could happen to free us all finally is an all out war with
Russia, we aren't going to see a revolution to get rid of the corruption the population is
lazy and scared of doing without.
Maybe forced into mutual assured destruction is truly the only way to get rid of the deep
state...
Russia lost approx 250 million via communism over decades, maybe we need to just swallow
the poison pill and get it over with.
Not all of us will die, and definately no one is going to listen to the deep state leaders
after the dust clears...
FluTangClan 6 hours ago
Cho Bai Den fol peace!
wick7 5 hours ago
It's amazing how Democrats flipped overnight to being pro war once Obama started new wars.
They were mad when Trump was signing peace deals. Lol.
You_Cant_Quit_Me 8 hours ago
He's right. One disaster after another. Who has Assad attacked? If small countries want the
US to back off then they must develop nuclear weapons. When was the last time the US attacked a
country with nuclear capabilities?
JRobby 7 hours ago
Bust Blinken's balls until he quits like a little rat trying to naw through steel cables
gespiri 7 hours ago
The only way to stop these wars is to send the people (and their kids) who are pushing for
it in the first place to the front lines.
rastanarchocapitalist 7 hours ago
Or make the state obsolete by transitioning to a private law society.
RedDog1 7 hours ago
Remember how Gaddafi surrendered his nukeprogram to Bush, a few years later Obama/HRC
invaded...resulting in Gaddafi being lynched?
eatapeach 7 hours ago
Iran and NK and Syria remember, for sure. Wish we all remembered the USS Liberty when
shaping foreign policy.
LooseLee 4 hours ago
Remember Libya has no central bank?
Pandelis 3 hours ago (Edited)
you really believe that bs ... it is much more than that ... at the end is about the land
and the people ... money can be printed out of thin air and there is nothing libya (or iraq,
iran etc.) central bank can do about it ...
bring on dr. fraucistein to explain it all to us ... maga!!
roach clipper 6 hours ago
Assad placed his country too close to Is ra hell
manofthenorth 8 hours ago
Sorry guys but we have been played like a second hand fiddle.
I assume Paul has figured out by now that being a murderous psychopath is a job requirement
in DC. It's the first question in the job interview. "Do you enjoy death and destruction for
profit and personal power?"
littlewing 7 hours ago
Remember when Trump bombed Syria and all of a sudden everyone in DC loved him for 15
minutes.
Talk about the big reveal.
aloha_snakbar 7 hours ago
The same Rand Paul who was criticizing Trump in the eleventh hour? That one?? They are all
swamp creatures and seriously make me want to vomit...
pro·le·tar·i·at 7 hours ago
The apple rolled away from the tree.
Leather-Dog 7 hours ago
Paul, I like you, you seem to care a little bit. However, if they haven't cared in the last
forever, they are definitely not going to start now. They just regime changed ourselves with
almost no substantial resistance, you think they will care about Syria?
StanleyTheManly 5 hours ago
He puts on a show to care once in a while.
He didn't stand for the truth when it counted.
Goat of Steverino 7 hours ago
GREAT RAND, BUT WHERE WERE YOU ON BIG TECH CENSORSHIP AND ELECTION FRAUD?
Bank_sters 7 hours ago
He's cucked.
Ted Baker 6 hours ago
What is this obsession with Russia? Russia is a peaceful country who defends its people. How
difficult is that to understand?
ReadyForHillary 6 hours ago
Russia isn't down with the NWO.
Dinaric 7 hours ago
(((Blinkin))) is all you need to know.
9.1ontherichterscale 7 hours ago
Does anyone honestly believe that if Biden was honest and had any degree if integrity that
he would be president at this moment in U.S. history? That boy is a 50 year swamp critter A
thoroughly reliable member of the compromised fraternity. Same for Nancy.
freakscene 7 hours ago
Remember the video of younger Biden telling some voter that he graduated top of his class,
with honors????
None of which were true.
littlewing 7 hours ago
His degree is from University of Phoenix.
Now all colleges are that. haha
Invert This, Media Matters Monkeys 7 hours ago
Ironically, he wants to set up a comity for Integrity In Government.
freakscene 7 hours ago
Yeah. Thats hysterical!!
Saturday Night Live material - if they had any spine.
BarnacleBill 7 hours ago
Which they don't. Come on, man!
StanleyTheManly 5 hours ago
Yep. They needed someone with zero integrity.
yeketerina velikaya 7 hours ago
You know who's been right all along?
Tulsi Gabbard.
Right on big tech
Right on Kamala
Right on pardoning Assange and Snowden
Right on the uniparty and false flags in Syria
Right on Queen of Warmongers Hillary and DNC
Right on the MSM
Right on securing the elections/ballot harvesting
She's the real deal and would have delivered on these things but never had a shot.
Armed Resistance 7 hours ago
She was wrong on gun control. Very wrong! And that's a non-negotiable.
Why-Am-I-Banned 6 hours ago
Don't worry real gun control is coming and so much more you didn't ask for...
rastanarchocapitalist 7 hours ago
She should have been Trump's vp choice.
StanleyTheManly 5 hours ago
You know....I think you're right. I hadn't thought of that.
StanleyTheManly 5 hours ago
I like Tulsi. She seems like a genuine person with integrity that really cares about the
country. BUT I disagree with her on quite a few issues. Maybe she'll come around.
littlewing 7 hours ago
The steal was sealed when the Supreme Court refused to hear the Texas case.
Greasy John Roberts wrecked America.
Max21c 7 hours ago
The steal was sealed when the Supreme Court refused to hear the Texas case.
True.
Vichy John Roberts went full Quisling and brought back Jim Crow laws. The Supreme Court
endorsed election fraud, supported the coup d'etat, forced Trump from power, helped usher in a
new era for the banana republic of Jim Crow laws...
phillyla 7 hours ago
John Roberts is compromised 8 ways to Sunday. Trump should have had him impeached and
removed from the bench
El Chapo Read 7 hours ago
If you thought Trump was surrounded by Red Sea Pedestrians with an agenda, research the
ethno-religious background of Biden's cabinet picks.
Shalom!
SassyPants 7 hours ago
Every administration is. Trumps son in law and advisor is as well. Please see the entire
picture for a change.
snatchpounder PREMIUM 7 hours ago
How about closing all military bases overseas and dismantling the MIC and oh **** it an old
demented neocon is playing president for a few months, scratch that.
rastanarchocapitalist 7 hours ago
The crack up boom of the FRNs may force that one day
snatchpounder PREMIUM 7 hours ago
I think it'll happen sooner rather than later, the chances are good based on the demented
old pedophile being selected president and his retards at the fed.
rastanarchocapitalist 4 hours ago
In the long run, that might be a good thing if we return to honest money but you can be sure
they'll try to kick the can for another 50 years with some form of new fiat or erasing a couple
of zeroes of our current notes.
Hopefully the masses will just say know but I wouldn't put much faith in that.
RedNemesis 6 hours ago
Parents, do not let your smart, winning kids into the armed services. The MIC will grind
them out with PTSD, brain injuries, and lost limbs. There is no 'patriotism' or allegience to
the Deep State.
Why-Am-I-Banned 6 hours ago
Maybe the best thing that could happen to free us all finally is an all out war with Russia,
we aren't going to see a revolution to get rid of the corruption the population is lazy and
scared of doing without.
Maybe forced into mutual assured destruction is truly the only way to get rid of the deep
state...
Russia lost approx 250 million via communism over decades, maybe we need to just swallow the
poison pill and get it over with.
Not all of us will die, and definately no one is going to listen to the deep state leaders
after the dust clears...
Max21c 6 hours ago (Edited)
Maybe the best thing that could happen to free us all finally is an all out war with
Russia..
Maybe we should instead just launch a sneak attack on Alpha Centauri instead. Skip the small
fry like Russia and China. In a few generations we shall know whether our Earthling space
torpedoes hit Alpha Centauri. This of course should be debated by the people and approved by a
plebiscite per ballot referendums. Then the space war bill sent to the Earthlings Politburo for
their approval. It'll take around a decade or more to design and build the space torpedoes...
then 100 years plus for travel time and the same to get the data back from the
mothership...
Plus we can have both a Cold War and a Hot War with Alpha Centauri... under the leadership
of an Earthling appointed or elected by the Earthlings Council and elevated to the rank of Don
Quixote with the accompany title of Primal inter Pares
We just need more right thinking smart people to join the cult and become enlightened to the
prospects of a new 100 years war with other planets...and maybe some small wars with
planetoids...asteroids and comets...
We can establish of house of OverLords composed of only the best Astrologers to help pick
out which planets to attack & destroy...based upon whether they have offended our star
charts or the zodiac calls for war... In addition we can establish a lower house of UnderLords
composed of mad scientists and Generalissimos and crazy Spy Chiefs... and maybe some nutty
press types from the official media and puppet press to lead us in the Two Minutes Hate against
the Alpha Centauri folks, the space peoples, and the flying saucer people...
Maghreb2 5 hours ago
CIA already had plans for all this under the Stargate Program. After Ike's treaty with
various alien species the MIC began its descent into madness and universal conquest.
surroundedbyijits 6 hours ago
A war like that might "free" you, because the Russians will kick your ***.
balz 7 hours ago
Each time I see this "Office of the President Elect" picture thing, I get nauseous.
Fake office for a fake president who wasn't elected in the first place.
BLOTTO 8 hours ago
Like nothing happened back here at home.
Max21c 6 hours ago
Blinken may prove out to be more slick and savy than Dumbo Pompeo the flying cartoon
elephant but he's still a fawking neanderthal and a ******. Maybe an elite ****** but he's
still a ******. Blind, deaf, and dumb is still blind, deaf, and dumb even with all the powers
of the secret police at their disposal.
Ms No PREMIUM 7 hours ago
Rand is sick too. He goes on about how these things are bad specifically because they
strengthened Iran? How about liberty crushing mass murder?
"Sen. Paul said the administration of former President Barack Obama spent $250 million (USD)
on training 60 rebels [as part of the DoD side; the CIA program was much more expansive], which
he said was a waste of money."
So your mad they steal money while creating terrorists? Or are you mad that they don't tell
you what they do with the rest? They abduct children from war zones to make them. Maybe the
indoctrination and rape children's homes are expensive. They have screwed the entire
planet.
There is something wrong with him too. He is another limited hangout
silverlinings00 7 hours ago
He's all bark no bite like Elizabeth Warren. Trotted out to show a feigning resistance.
Insert farm animal here 4 hours ago
Poor Rand is going to have a tough and lonely battle over the next few years. Let's wish him
well, he'll be going it alone for sure.
the_pencil 2 hours ago
It seems odd that no one has allied themselves with him in the same manner as McCain &
Graham.
Pareto 6 hours ago
Another life long bureaucrat talking about his resume. And fails to answer a simple
question. Woop there it is. That's why they hated Trump. Because somebody off the street had
better answers than 25 years of experience.
Rand Paul, one of the few good ones left. Good Luck with Biden and his war hawks!
NumbNuts 6 hours ago
These same people are attempting a regime change in the United States too. From Freedom to
Fascism.
Helg Saracen 6 hours ago
The Americans lost perspectives and actually real freedom when Woodrow Wilson sold US to
international banksters in 1913, now this scam just ends and a new scam begins. You haven't
figured it out yet. By the way, fascism is Italian National Socialism. No offense.
frank further 6 hours ago
Then what was German National Socialism, if not fascism?
/
/
BluCapitalist PREMIUM 6 hours ago (Edited)
They are not attempting. They have done it. They have perfected their craft over the last 70
years in other countries and they brought it home to keep their criminal organization
going.
urhotdogs 6 hours ago remove link
They didn't attempt, they did it! Took a little over 4 years but had to stoop to massive
election fraud and changing state laws on the fly. It was coordinated throughout all levels of
government down to states and courts and SCOTUS.
bunkers 5 hours ago
Communism
bunkers 5 hours ago
Maybe not.
WhiteHose 6 hours ago
Russia Russia Russia! They never stop! BTW, wheres scumbag Hunter?
starman99 7 hours ago
(((Anthony Blinken)))
rkb100100 7 hours ago
Yea we know the cabinet is full of heeb's.
brown_hornet 7 hours ago
Is he in the boat with Winken and Nod?
GatorMcClusky 7 hours ago
Good one.
Mount Massive 7 hours ago (Edited)
There is a reason Russia has spent the last 2 months ramping up testing of its mil hardware
including hyper-vel ICBM's and SLBM's. - Xiden
SelectedNotElectedBiden 7 hours ago
Rand will be the only Senator to give the Dems a hard time. Sad since it should be payback
for EVERY Republican Senator.
freakscene 7 hours ago
Cruz will be fun to watch too. They excel being outnumbered.
Ms No PREMIUM 7 hours ago
If they wanted Rand out of that spot he would have been gone a long time ago.
Bob Lidd 5 hours ago
Does anyone think the US policy in the middle east will change with 10 of biden's
appointees being jewish .......??
The "greater israel" will continue no matter the cost to the American tax cattle.......
((((blinken))) ..........
ReadyForHillary 7 hours ago
The neocons are back!
Max21c 7 hours ago
The neocons are back!
Does not matter. They could not win before and they shall not win now. They're ineffective,
inept, and incompetent. They won't be able to fix the messes and disasters they've created for
themselves. At best they might be able to sick the secret police on a few people at home and
drop some bombs or missiles abroad. But for the most part it's some more of the same. Evil is
as evil does. They're not going to be able to work themselves out of the fix they've got
themselves into or figure it out. They're toast. They're bad people and they're toast.
Washingtonians may have absolute power but they've had absolute power all along...and they
still can't fix the disasters they've caused.
Northern Exposure 6 hours ago (Edited)
Oh thank God!
If we're not looking for a new pointless war to start or jumping into an existing one then
this isn't the America that I know and love!
</sarc>
karzai_luver 7 hours ago
Where is the BUFFALOBILL dude storming the Senate to drag this blinken criminal scum out and
do justice for his wanton murder of thousands?
Shut down this freak show.
I would rather have BUFFALOBILL and his idiots running the place than these feckless
people's representatives.
Tony , have you learned your lesson?
Senator - screw you and your people I will think it over.
Alexander 7 hours ago
Silence republicans! Yes we stole the election using widespread mail in ballots, yes your
state governments changed the rules to allow us to count these mail in ballots more quickly,
yes there were far more votes in this election than any other ever. ANDDDD... NO we will not
look into the validity of this election becuase muh capital rioting grandma threatened sweet
little socialist AOC.
Now give us your children to fight a war in syria.
artless 7 hours ago
Barack Obama. Neocon to the core. Biden is no different. Gonna do us some "liberating"
again. And from the left there will be silence as thousands of poor, short brown people are
killed as "collateral damage".
Welcome back America to what you do the best. Destroy lives. Any over/under on how many days
it takes Biden to start killing folks and hence become a war criminal like pretty much all his
predecessors? I might like a piece of that action.
SassyPants 7 hours ago
Republicans are neocons, democrats are neoliberal. You're basically right, just left out
half the problem.
pods 7 hours ago
Can't bitch about foreign actions in our elections when we pick other governments.
Invert This, Media Matters Monkeys 7 hours ago
Pick ???? Surely you jest !
pods 7 hours ago
We choose sides right?
We picked the CIA stooge in Venezuela.
Not sure about your question.
Maybe "kinetically pick" would be better?
Invert This, Media Matters Monkeys 7 hours ago
Sorry, I didn't read your post properly. I didn't see "other" governments.
rwe2late 7 hours ago
you either forgot the sarc tag
or failed to notice such as V. Nuland hand-picking leadership in Ukraine,
or the Trump picking of Guiado for Venezuela.
Invert This, Media Matters Monkeys 7 hours ago
Poor eye sight is my best and only excuse.
SelectedNotElectedBiden 7 hours ago
Where is Hunter?
Invert This, Media Matters Monkeys 7 hours ago
The Big Guy made him the Advance Minister of Foreign Extortion.
headslapper 7 hours ago
The faces change but the song remains the same. What a waste of energy this government is.
Resources thrown down the toilet to make the Ruling class more wealthy. Why do we even pay
attention. We all need to have a look in the mirror. Myself included of course.
Armed Resistance 7 hours ago
So now that you've looked in the mirror, what are you going to do about it? Send a
strongly-worded letter? Or are you ready to actually step up. As morally wrong and demented as
the radical left is, at least you have to admire them in the sense they actually step up to the
plate to get sh!t done. It's immoral, but effective.
Canadian Dirtlump 7 hours ago
Lest we forget the same bearded butchers that Chris Stevens flew into ben gazi with (al
Quaeda inter alia aligned ) who were funded and trained by the West were the same ones who flew
from ben gazi to the incirlik nato base to try to do the same thing in syria.
The only reason it didn't work was because of the SAA, Hezbollah and of course the ultimate
backstop Russia. I'm thankful for this.
mikka 7 hours ago
Imagine Russian or Chinese parliament publicly debating regime change in USA.
Uncle_Cuddles 7 hours ago (Edited)
Debating? China has ALREADY done it here.
joew8989 7 hours ago
Rand will continue to fight the good fight, when you live a life based on principal, that's
what you do. We will always need more people like him. That's what built this country, not the
parasites at the helm now.
ItsTooHotForThis 6 hours ago
Paul voted to confirm the electors. His challenge to the new Sec. of State means
nothing.
Garciathinksso 5 hours ago
his argument was based on State's right issue, in case you care
bunkers 5 hours ago
It doesn't matter WHY, he voted with traitors, only, that he did.
SillyTheEnemy 6 hours ago (Edited)
This is literally the only guy we have in the senate who even remotely gives a ****. Yet the
amount of **** that is going to happen to us when biden heats up the war in Syria is
immeasurable. F*ck me
hardright 6 hours ago
Rand Paul is wasting his time.
If he wants to make a difference he should be lobbying Russia to send more troops into
Syria.
surroundedbyijits 6 hours ago
And arranging imports of the Russian vaccine. Less likely to kill you and more effective
than the only 45% effective Pfizer ****.
BluCapitalist PREMIUM 6 hours ago
This guys eyes look exactly like the vampires in the movie 30 days of night. Am I in a
simulation? Why do these people actually look like fictional villains? I mean Whitmer, Newsom,
this new fat, unhealthy, mentally ill assistant "health secretary"? Did I do something really
wrong? Am I in hell and don't know it? No. I am here on earth and psychopaths are real and evil
is real.
duckandcover 1 hour ago
they're just a little scared and overwhelmed. You might be too
WhiteHose 7 hours ago
Look at this Blinken twit! F you pal! And....wheres HUnter??? Diddling his brothers minor
niece? Again? Still?
First Ron and now Rand. I think the club just lets them in as the token Don Quixote. They
have been the only voices of reason for the last 25 years or so, but they are only tilting at
windmills. Nothing is going to change until something forces them to change. The war mongering
and corruption will just roll right along while the MIC and congress get richer by the
minute.
The unrelenting droning of brown people in foreign lands that are ill-equipped to fight back
will commence in 3,2,1...
SassyPants 7 hours ago
Leaving the Republican Party would be the first best step.
ejmoosa 7 hours ago (Edited)
We put too much on one man and one man alone to change things.
Faced with judges and a House and A Senate against him the task before Trump was
Herculean.
Add to that 2/5ths of the states with governors also against Trump and it's even worse.
What you need to do is get involved in your local politics and take control back of your
Cities and County Commissions, as well as your state governments.
Had Trump held control of the House and the Senate and we had sitting on Courts people who
put the Constitution first FOR the people rather than using it against them, things would be a
lot different today.
The choice is yours.
Time to play 7 hours ago
It's good to see that Rand, is starting to think more like his father!
north_hand_demon 7 hours ago
So he's controlled opposition, too?
Lyman54 7 hours ago
Pretty early to be smoking crack isn't it?
otschelnik 7 hours ago
With Cookies Nuland as Blinken's deputy, you've got the neocon family business installed at
Foggy Bottom. Robert (Victoria's huband), Fredrick, and Kim each with their own pro-war think
tank, and a list of supporters which constitute the "A-list" of the USSA's merchants of death.
Northrup-Grumman, UTX, Raytheon, Lockheed....
9.1ontherichterscale 7 hours ago
Winken, Blinken and Nod.
That's the administration we got now.
silverlinings00 8 hours ago
Careful Rand, we wouldn't want you to get another "visit" from a neighbor while you're
mowing the lawn.
Pdunne 3 hours ago (Edited)
Biden's biggest Cabinet mistake will ultimately be Blinken.
Like Obama picked H Clinton with disasterous consequences Biden picks Blinken.
JackOliver4 4 hours ago
Rand Paul says " Assad is a terrible person " !!!
Dr Assad is a HERO !!
Rand Paul is either completely misinformed or just another useless politician afraid to
speak the TRUTH !
A COWARD !
Hessler 4 hours ago
Assad may be a good person at heart but he is not qualified to run a state. He should be a
doctor or something.
JackOliver4 4 hours ago
And Joe Biden is ??
OR Boris Johnstone ??
Helg Saracen 4 hours ago
It is up to the Syrians to decide, not you. You already paid for the genocide of the Syrian
Christians in the "fight against the tyrant Assad." I've seen all kinds of idiots and
hypocrites, but you are their king.
Hessler 4 hours ago (Edited)
Why did not Assad anticipated the Zionist invasion even though the Snowden document reveled
the CIA/Mossad works in the making in 2006 ??
If he did anticipated an invasion why he did not do anything to safeguard his nation and
it's people ?
Why every men, women and child capable to lift and shoot was not given and an ordinance and
proper training ?? Israel has that. Why can't Syria ?
Syria is a part of Greater Israel. They have been marked for genocide the day Israel was
created, what haste did Mr. Assad showed to safeguard his country against their genocidal
maniacs psychopaths ??
I will never forgive those who inflicted the terrible atrocities on the children and women
and Mr. Assad has a blame to share.
mark3383 3 hours ago
Assad risked his life and continues to do so every day, trump recently bragged he thought
about "taking him out". he's a true hero more than you or I will ever be
steve2241 5 hours ago
Rand Paul doesn't understand. Blinken follows the path that Israel tells him to. Middle East
instability benefits Israel. The fomenting of Sunni-Shia conflict kills Israels' enemies, the
muslims, without Israel having to lift a finger. Syria is no longer a threat to Israel. Mission
accomplished.
Hessler 4 hours ago (Edited)
You're wrong on two accounts. First, there's no ****te/Sunni conflict. What goes in Miiddle
East is entire different than what is portrayed here. The locals know but how many of them get
interviewed on live TV or get a airtime on a prime time desk ? Those are reserved for the
chosenites who spew BS about Arabs and Muslims 24/7.
****te/Sunni fiction as broadcasts in the west is nothing but a ploy to wash the hands of
the responsibility and pin the blame on the victims.
Second, Syria is now a bigger threat to Israel than it was in Pre War era. Battle Hardened
troops, better organization, training with Russian/Iranian Military, better equipment, talented
strategists and when you fight a war like that for that long you tend to grow a bigger set of
balls.
JackOliver4 4 hours ago
Syria wants the GOLAN back - I would say they are a threat to ISRAEL !!
Sick Monkey 5 hours ago
Speaking of war didn't Rand Paul vote to accept the illegitimate electors. I like Paul he
seems to have a level head but you voted to put the commies in power. Like you said in your
speech "there are repercussions". Those who took a stand against this coup must be kept in
power as they put skin in the game. That's a rare and precious gift to us the people. In the
year 2021 it's as good as gold.
Taffer 5 hours ago
Exactly, hence my previous comment below.
mark3383 3 hours ago
trump lost the election because he allowed million of fraud votes to be counted and never
said or did anything about it in the year leading up to it. he 's the one that lost it. no one
else
Sinophile 6 hours ago
"War Pigs"----Black Sabbath
Generals gathered in their masses
Just like witches at black masses
Evil minds that plot destruction
Sorcerers of death's construction
In the fields the bodies burning
As the war machine keeps turning
Death and hatred to mankind
Poisoning their brainwashed minds
Oh lord yeah!
Politicians hide themselves away
They only started the war
Why should they go out to fight?
They leave that role to the poor
Yeah!
Time will tell on their power minds
Making war just for fun
Treating people just like pawns in chess
Wait 'til their judgement day comes
Yeah!
Now in darkness world stops turning
Ashes where the bodies burning
No more war pigs have the power
Hand of God has struck the hour
Day of judgement, God is calling
On their knees the war pig's crawling
Begging mercy for their sins
Satan laughing spreads his wings
oh lord yeah!
surroundedbyijits 6 hours ago
Circuses. Theatre for the plebes. Not one bit of foreign policy is decided or affected by
debates or hearings in the Legislative branch. They're all following a script, some of them act
like they aren't in on the joke.
Cloudcrusher 6 hours ago
Psychosis the denial of reality. The military industrial complex is make believe. It's
military industrial congress, Congress is in charge they alone are to blame know one else. The
sooner everyone starts living in reality the better off will be. You want to win the war of
words better start with reality. Or your going to get a another kind of war one where only the
strong survive.
Max21c 6 hours ago (Edited)
Watch: Rand Paul Challenges New Secretary Of State Over Regime-Change In Syria
Meaningless inside the beltway for the record drool-n-dribble... Rand Paul just wants to pad
his resume, bio, and gain some street cred claims...
TahoeBilly2012 6 hours ago
When do the new wars start? Dems can't wait. Blame them on Covid or something, they will buy
it.
vspam 7 hours ago
Biden will go to war with Iran and turned thr ME into a fireball. The mainstream media will
cheer him on under the banner of peace and unity
Max21c 7 hours ago
Diablo Corona
Washingtonians are for the most part the spawn of Satan.
DC= the Devil's City... they are evil... Washingtonians are just pure rotten evil...
Washington DC ... Devil's City
Washington DC .... Devil's Crown
The evil ones cannot change their evil ways... they're too far gone... the evil ones cannot
be redeemed...
Max21c 7 hours ago
Paul concluded by saying that regime change needs to end because it is involving the US in
long wars that are costly to the military.
Too late. Washington is toast. It's just a question of when Washingtonians lose in Syria,
Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Libya, et cetera. They already made a mess of things and they do not
have the brains to fix it. Same with their inabilities as regards nonproliferation, North
Korea, et cetera. They don't have what it takes to figure it out and work it out and nobody is
going to fix it for them because they're assholes regardless of which cabal of Ivy League
assholes or ******* elites are in power.
ThomasEdmonds 7 hours ago
Paul isn't supposed to question a Zionist's motives..
aloha-snackbar 7 hours ago
if the youth said no to war and moms said not my child and burned down the recruitment/death
centers then war would end...
tunEphsh 7 hours ago
Thank goodness that Paul told the idiot Blicken to lay off regime change. Obama-Biden made a
mess of the middle east and caused a refugee crises which is still with us. Instead of being
named secretary of state, me thinks Blicken should be put in jail for acts in the Middle East
which killed hundreds of thousands of people.
moneybots 7 hours ago
The EU has become a mess because of regime change.
freakscene 7 hours ago
Of course he should. But that would require sanity.
yerfej 7 hours ago (Edited)
Simple way to stop all this insane venturism and nation building it to MANDATE that every
aysshole like Blinken have a spouse or child or sibling or relative ON THE GROUND fighting in
one of these shyyytholes. These elites love this crap because THEY never pay a personal price,
no they have farmed that out to the "commoners" who supply the bodies. The filthy elites are
good at leveraging everyone else to fulfill their fantasies while paying no price.
Occams_Razor_Trader 7 hours ago
You've seen the videos of Chelsea and Malia on tour in Kabul? Yeah?
yerfej 7 hours ago
More like Eeyore pontificating from her 20 million dollar penthouse about how she is so not
into money, or Maglia dancing around stoned like a "social justice warrior".
Flynt2142ahh 7 hours ago (Edited)
The senate needs more Rand Paul types - and they dont have to be in the Republican
party...This would force actual accountability of uniparty folks and these appointees. We need
less murkowski and collins
phillyla 7 hours ago
I am going to harp on this
in 2014 Matt Bevin challenged McConnell in a Senate Primary
He was gaining momentum
Then Rand endorsed McConnell
Bevin lost McConnell got re-elected
Bevin was later elected Governor of KY so he had the votes
Rand Paul Broke my heart
Leguran@premium PREMIUM 7 hours ago
We need use the Progressive's signage: He is not my President.
LostMyGunsInABoatingAccident 7 hours ago
You can't necessarily call it an "American" policy.
America lost control of it's policy long ago.....
Mount Massive 7 hours ago
Here comes another war, and this time, it will spiral out of control. In two years or less,
I expect the US to be in a major conflict and/or hit at home. Sigh....Leftist
Invert This, Media Matters Monkeys 7 hours ago
Pelosi just took Rand aside and said, wait and see what your neighbor on the other side of
you has to say about this.
9.1ontherichterscale 7 hours ago
Rand is in the senate. nancy runs the house. That would be Schumer's job.
Invert This, Media Matters Monkeys 7 hours ago
Pelosi seems to be running the show and is the face of the party
WorkingClassMan 8 hours ago (Edited)
Rand Paul, the lone voice of sanity in a rubber-stamp corrupt government.
If you or someone you care about is either in or thinking about joining this nation's
military...please don't. Let these antiwhites fight their own wars. They hate you and don't
trust you because you're White and they hate you owning guns, but they'll put a gun in your
hand and point you at their and Isn'treal's enemies without hesitation.
fudge punch 8 hours ago
Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
AVmaster 3 hours ago
"Regime change in the Middle East has led to chaos, instability and more terrorism,"
Uhhh, yea...
... Thats what they WANTED!
Duh!
Scipio Africanuz 3 hours ago
Thank you Senator Paul..
For your candor..
The challenge of US Foreign Policy, is akin to a heroin addiction. It's bad for the country,
but all attempts to cure the country of addiction to imperialism has failed, including our
energetic efforts over the years..
Too many people benefit from the ruination of the country as it engages in squandering
lives, honor, power, reputation, and treasure, in maintaining a facade of illusory power, at
the expense of the true power of the country..
Put simply Senator, at this point, we don't believe any entity on earth can cure the US of
the addiction to depravity save nature, which cure is more preferable to that of the Entity
whose decision is not subject to appeal..
Now Senator, you may not believe in God Almighty and thus, swat away the simple insight but
God does not require your belief to act..
Over His creation..
The only cure, if sense and rationality don't prevail, is exactly what we don't desire to
know and why?
Because we've seen it before, applied to different societies with similar mentality over the
course of human history and Senator, it's never palatable..
Anyhow, probation is till summer, to allow folks do intensive introspective contemplation,
enough to acquire prudent humility and if they don't, well..
Cheers...
Ckierst1 2 hours ago
I believe the Senator is a Christian.
Pdunne 4 hours ago
Blinken is a bald faced liar and is already working with Ms Nuland on more regime
changes.
Venezuela and Syria need to get ready for more robust attacks.
Dzerzhhinsky 2 hours ago
Control the oil, you control the world.
the_pencil 2 hours ago
Oil was the cause of every war for the past century.
Posa 4 hours ago
A ridiculous exchange. Sen Paul seems to take at face value the Liberal-NeoCon claim that
Regime Change is good-intentioned attempt to democratize the Middle East.
Hardly. Regime Change was always designed to a) install Israeli supremacy in the region
("Operation Clean Break"); and b) secure US Global Uni-polar dominance (the Wolfowitz Doctrine)
as part of the Brezezinski "Grand Chessboard". That's the intention... this exchange
demonstrates how out of it Rand Paul is; and what a nasty weasel Blinken is.
Ckierst1 2 hours ago
That's not what Sen. Paul said. He doesn't agree with regime change. That's what he
said.
PaulDF 5 hours ago
To which the Biden appointee replied, "You know, the thing!"
mark3383 3 hours ago
cmon man!
duckandcover 2 hours ago
do your job!
Taffer 5 hours ago
Rand Paul's opinion and $6 will get him a latte at Starbucks.
Hessler 6 hours ago (Edited)
Foreign policy is never gonna change no matter who's in change because the way system is
setup.
The lifestyle (our way of life) pertaining to the western model of civilization (our values)
needs unlimited supply of money to be supported. The money that can't be made by legal means,
hence the continues war that needs to be maintained overseas while also starting new ones as
requirement arise.
And since this is a continues state, so accompanies it continues propaganda, lies, false
flags, deception and manipulation of facts and truth. LYING IS IN VERY GENES OF THE WHITE
CHRISTIAN WEST. They have been doing it for so long that they have almost mastered the "the art
of lying" the zenith of which is to project your own flaws and crimes on to the subjects you
carried it out on. One thing you can always be sure of, they will never admit their crimes
unless there's no other way. And that they will be accusing their opponents of the same things
they would be doing.
War underpins their society, nation and civilization.
steve2241 4 hours ago
The problem is that the U.S. is abusing its position as printer-in-chief of the Reserve
Currency of the world. With that fake money, it can intervene in the affairs of nations
throughout the world - a capability that no other country enjoys. Take away its reserve
currency and watch how quickly middle eastern strife ends - and the nation of Israel, too.
apparently 6 hours ago
will the left and their mindless supporters be comforted to know that their guy promotes
these "endless wars"? will they be happy to sacrifice their sons and daughters for desert
real-estate whose oil we don't want?
Paul was being way too polite. He should simply say: "I'm not voting to confirm this war
monger" then get up and leave the room.
Hessler 6 hours ago
If you think it's about the oil, you really don't understand the world you inhabit.
apparently 6 hours ago (Edited)
I don't think it's about oil but I'm struggling to name a single US interest in sand-wars.
maybe you can? yes, yes, military/industrial complex, blah, blah, but why the middle east?
please enlighten us.
Hessler 5 hours ago (Edited)
It's to rebuild the world in the image of the west and Islam is the biggest hampering in the
way. Like other religions, it can't be altered or dominated so the only way is to completely
destroy it. This is why Israel was setup by the Anglos at a strategic location in the heart of
the Arab world to engage them into perpetual war and destroy them.
That's about it.
And whenever a war on a civilization is waged, there are always monetary benefits. Oil, MIC,
Political donations come into play here. But that's just a sideshow. And with a civilization as
big as Islamic, benefits also tend to be massive.
apparently 5 hours ago
no evidence that the arab spring was against islam. why aren't we doing regime change in
indonesia? why did joe just reverse the Muslim travel ban?
do you understand anything about the world you live in?
Hessler 5 hours ago (Edited)
A lot actually. We are concentrating on the core of the Islamic civilization for when the
core collapses, the outer layers collapses with it. It's the core that holds the entire thing
together, hence we concentrate on Middle East and not on Indonesia.
Arab spring was to sow chaos and turmoil. By the way of deception.....Jewish moto
It is not that Israel establishes America's foreign policy. It is that the basic world view
produced by WASP culture is naturally aligned with Jewish thought in most ways, especially in
terms of Empire: ruling the world.
InflammatoryResponse 5 hours ago
it was not a muslim travel ban. it was a ban on places that didn't have adequate
infrastructure to verify who was travling.
duckandcover 1 hour ago
where is the last place, core or not core, that Islam religion and Muslim culture has been
eradicated by any means? Yugoslavia? India? Not seeing it. Culture eats strategy for breakfast.
Your argument does not hold.
starman99 5 hours ago
(((THEM)))
Groucho 5 hours ago
No of course not. Nothing to do with what George Kennan called "the greatest strategic
material prize in world history".
Hessler 5 hours ago
And whenever a war on a civilization is waged, there are always monetary benefits. Oil, MIC,
Political donations come into play here. But that's just a sideshow. And with a civilization as
big as Islamic, benefits also tend to be massive.
apparently 2 hours ago
by now, we should be weary (and wary) of "it's all a sideshow" arguments.
it simply asserts greater knowledge (never disclosed) and terminates the thread.
as for the grand anti-islam plan... how's that going in western europe?
Groucho 5 hours ago
No of course not. Nothing to do with what George Kennan called "the greatest strategic
material prize in world history".
JackOliver4 4 hours ago
It is ALWAYS about the OIL - thats why IRAN and VENEZUELA are being weakened by crippling
sanctions !!
THAT"S how the ZIO/US does it - SANCTIONS first - WAR 2nd !
Doesn't work anymore since RUSSIA stepped in !
nocturnal66 7 hours ago
Just ask if this 100 year plus war is to create "greater Israel" . It all documented. Enough
already with the lies. Just admit it.
Occams_Razor_Trader 7 hours ago
WWE- fake fights have begun again in earnest .....................
Paul Ryan could fake a punch as good as John Boehner ............
Max21c 7 hours ago (Edited)
"Maybe we shouldn't be 'choosing' governments in the Middle East," Paul continued.
The Washington establishment imposed their chosen ruler Joe Schmo Biden to rule over
America.
jesus_loves_you 7 hours ago
H a n g t h e m a l l
Aquamaster 7 hours ago
Should we have a contest to see who can pick the first country Biden will send troops
to?
Lyman54 7 hours ago
DC !
SERReal1 7 hours ago
You win!
WTFUD 7 hours ago
Blinken Heck , don't worry ya'll, Nuland (Nudelman's) back to steady the ship with a fab new
chocolate chip cookie recipe that the terrorists will adore.
littlewing 7 hours ago
And they aren't even trying to hide it.
fzrkid 7 hours ago
Rand can say whatever he wants and it changes NOTHING
Armed Resistance 7 hours ago
Who is still planning on filing taxes? At the very least, turn your back on the
system-right? Upvote for not filing, downvote for I just want to avoid conflict-I'm filing.
brown_hornet 7 hours ago
But, we are getting a return.
No paying next year though.
rwe2late 7 hours ago (Edited)
Doesn't matter if it is a disaster for the peoples invaded and for domestic liberty in the
USA.
It's considered "worth it" by those in power
to protect the financial supremacy of the dollar,
promote the regional military supremacy of Israel,
and continue the war profiteering of the MIC.
north_hand_demon 7 hours ago
So what? Your cushy lifestyle and mine is a direct result of hegemony. Get over it.
rwe2late 7 hours ago (Edited)
Celebration of a "cushy lifestyle" gained by plunder and murder is not for everyone.
To revel in it, one requires a special insensibility.
DonGenaro 7 hours ago (Edited)
This fence-sitter did virtually NOTHING to stop the steal.
Now he's whining about having to lie in bed his cowardice helped make.
Many MORE thousands will soon be massacred by these war-mad psychopaths.
This POS is DEAD TO ME.
littlewing 7 hours ago
Rand is smart, he knew no matter what Xiden was going to be installed.
HominyTwin 7 hours ago
He's smart. A bunch of idiots, after a good breakfast at IHOP, were herded into the capital
by govt informants to break stuff for the cameras, and then herded right back out in time for a
hearty dinner at Golden Corral. They did sacrifice their lunch for exactly nothing, though.
Congrats. He stayed away from all that nonsense.
9.1ontherichterscale 7 hours ago
That's about the size of it, in retrospect.
zulu127 7 hours ago
regime change needs to end because it is involving the US in long wars that are costly to
the military.
Wrong! "regime change needs to continue because it is involving the US in wars that are
profitable to the military.
ableman28 4 hours ago
Part of the problems is that neither the democrats or republicans are primarily in favor of
DEMOCRATIC governments in the middle east. When Egypt FREELY ELECTED the Muslin Brotherhood to
power in Egypt the US fell all over itself to help unseat them, using every technique we
can.....currency debasement, food aid manipulation, tacit encouragement to strongment
(military) that we feel are controllable, etc. etc.
The US was never in favor of one man one vote in South Africa during apartheid and explained
this convenient hypocrisy as an unfortunate necessity.
Supporting regime change is entirely, ENTIRELY, different than supporting democracy. The US
has a very very very long history of supporting the former and claiming it was the latter when
in fact it wasn't. Democracy means letting the chips fall where they may. In countries whose
ruling leadership is oppressive to its people and for which we have a long history of support
its very unlikely that any democratic election would bring us new friends. It would, in every
case, bring to power people who opposed the old government and by association US.
People playing to the stands here in the US are smart enough to know this. But maintaining
the correct political position for domestic consumption also trumps doing the right thing in
anywhere else.
International politics is a pure expression of national interest. Our national interest is
economic outside the US. That part of socialist or marxist theory is spot on.
Hessler 4 hours ago
Insightful, thanks!
LooseLee 4 hours ago
'Disaster' is the MO, Rand. Please, get real or get lost.
Musum 5 hours ago
Senator Rand Paul recently challenged the new Secretary of State nominee Anthony Blinken
on his history of pushing regime change in the Middle East and North Africa
Pointless and hopeless. The only way to end America's endless wars is to deal with the guys
in small hats.
Hessler 5 hours ago
Small hats were employed by the English speaking protestants for their ulterior motives,
world view, global ambitions which were in alignment with the chosenites.
You can't solve the Jewish problem without solving the problem of western civilization.
Fire_Hog 5 hours ago
The real problems are the 3 letter intelligence agencies, not religion.
Musum 4 hours ago
Are you naive or misdirecting? Offices are occupied by people.
train rider 6 hours ago
Deep thinking and reflection...what about our military personnel and contractors...why are
we putting them in danger with these interventionist kockamamie screw balls coming up with
these strategies...meanwhile innocent civilians keep getting maimed and killed.
We have no business over there, let the countries decide for themselves what they want etc.
we need energy idependence...greta can go fly a kite...keep reducing emissions with tech we
have.
It is very sad that paul's neighbor does not have a more lethal right hook.
TheZeitgeist 7 hours ago
Sen. Paul began his argument by questioning Blinken's role in the NATO intervention of Libya
in 2001
So...only off by a decade. I think ZeroHedge drops these snafus into the copy just to see if
anyone actually reads the stuff.
freakscene 7 hours ago (Edited)
Its skimming material at best. Reading all the way through went out the window when ZH
become a CNN sponsor.
:)
littlewing 7 hours ago
When Ron Paul was calling out Bernanke you would see they were alone in the room.
There is no debate, its all a fraud. Saw the vote on election theft and it was their aides
voting for them.
StanleyTheManly 7 hours ago
Give me a break, Rand Paul. YOU KNOWINGLY voted for this by not standing for our elected
President.
You're a traitor. Shut up and sit down.
TRON Paul 7 hours ago
PRESIDENT PAUL!
PRESIDENT PAUL!
PRESIDENT PAUL!
wmbz 7 hours ago
War is a business, and "we" are big business. Matter no how many completely innocent people
get blown away. What matters are the spoils. We were warned over and over again about the MIC
yet here we are.
Profit always wins over peace, no money in it.
totally unwise 7 hours ago
Today, wars aren't meant to be won
they're meant to bring chaos
Chaos
Calling Maxwell Smart and agent 99
Where's that shoe phone ?
freakscene 7 hours ago
I guess, good for Rand? Thats about all he can do.
Dog Will Hunting 7 hours ago
Oh, that Rand Paul. I wondered where he was hiding this whole time peels back Trump's saggy
*** cheeks to find the good doctor
in_xanadu_did_kubla_khan 8 hours ago
Achoo: Hey, Blinkin
Blinkin: Did you say Abe Lincoln?
Achoo: No! I said, HEY, BLINKIN!
createnewaccount 8 hours ago
If we can't have Giant Meteor maybe a global helter skelter of 'regime change' will be a
good consolation prize.
Lt. Frank Drebin 8 hours ago
I voted for Giant Meteor, but the Dominion voting machines switched my vote to turd
sandwich.
Holding My Breath 7 hours ago
A big upvote for sarcasm (or is it utter stupidity?)
The Military/Industrial Complex needs endless foreign wars and imaginary enemies so that the
money won't be spent at home helping Americans. Such as infrastructure projects. The goal from
within is to destroy the American middle class and turn the United States into a third world
country. Clinton, Bush, Obama and Trump all served the crooks.
littlewing 7 hours ago
Uh then why didn't Trump start wars?
Bear 11 minutes ago
Like father like son ... insight and wisdom
Arizona1234 26 minutes ago
China Joe and the mentally ill Marxist that run his crap show already started a multi
Trillion dollar endless war. The War on the weather they call Climate Crisis. It's the one
where we loose and wind up praying to find the small potato to make it through the day, and
then hope to find a few dry sticks for the fire to cook it. Where you will have to make the
small fire at night so that mentally ill #AOC carbon police can't easily see the smoke.
Maltheus 1 hour ago
It's taken less than 24 hours, after Biden's inauguration, for ISIS to magically make an
appearance again. They're not even pretending anymore.
Tom Angle 2 hours ago
I think I had heard all I want to hear from Rand Paul after.
boattrash 2 hours ago
Gawdamit Rand, we like you and everything, but the Coup you should be focused on is HERE,
even if it means you should spit in your hands, hoist the black flag and start slittin
throats.
Sincerely,
The American People
Dzerzhhinsky 3 hours ago
If the US can steal Syria, it means it will be able to build a pipeline, steal Iranian gas
and sell it to Europe.
The US needs something to give its financiers and controlling energy supplies to Europe would
go a long way to paying off the debt.
learnofjesuits 4 hours ago
vatican's wars
Hessler 3 hours ago
Puritans burred the Vatican so deep underground that if even the nuke detonates there, if
won't make a shockwave on the ground
TemporarySecurity 4 hours ago
Perfectly fine for anybody in the executive to lie through their teeth.
Say one thing in the hearing and do what they always do once confirmed. Our post
Constitutional government needs to fail.
tangent 4 hours ago
Ran Paul's ability to talk as if they are not simply being outright bribed for their
positions is impressive. I suppose the new CCP SoS will take the positions of the CCP, which is
the one paying him the most money for those positions.
richnhappy 4 hours ago
Just read confessions of an economic hit man, by john perkins, all you need to know. The
playbook sounds like what china is doing in the us now, distract the masses with the middle
east ****show.
Seditious 4 hours ago
We have had just one president so far this century that has not used American blood and
treasure to destroy a nation. He was a rogue billionaire that got taken out by every other
billionaire that wanted to stay in the club. The American people are going to have to figure
out that they will have better results solving this nations problems at the Bezos, Walton,
Zuckerberg and Dorsey homes than they will going to the Capitol in Washington DC.
The Child sacrifice murders committed by these people don't occur in some hidden room at a
pizza parlor. They occur on public roads under semitrailers marked Amazon Prime and Walmart
that wouldn't be allowed on the roads of nations that we used to call the third world.
I suppose the only big question is, who's child dies tomorrow?
Maghreb2 4 hours ago
You could look it at that way. I'd say he was a hairs breadth from starting world war III
with Iran and China and was removed by a stroke of bad luck from Wuhan and the old
establishment asserting their authority through corruption.
Trump might be remembered fondly for actually lowering the number of small conflicts but the
U.S war machine is bigger than any one president and his closeness to Israel show what camp he
was in. Only God or a few insiders can really judge what his ultimate aim was but he wasn't the
man who pulled the first shot of the first world war. Damn well loaded the gun and gave it to
the Israelis in my opinion.
Seditious 4 hours ago
During Obama's time in office we had a year in which the United States dropped bombs in more
nations than they did in any single year during WW2.
Bezos, Walton's and others spill our blood domestically. Biden will spill our blood overseas
to keep some other billionaires happy.
Based on your comment, I take it you REALLY like Blinken! Yes?
Fire_Hog 5 hours ago
The same thing happened in Egypt when Obama pushed for and got quick elections when the only
organization that could field candidates was the Muslim Brotherhood. The result was very
predictable.
The Brotherhood took over and the result was so bad that the people finally rebelled against
Morsi's government. This lead to Al Sisi who was better than Morsi. I question whether the
situation improved by letting the Muslim Brotherhood take control.
Maghreb2 4 hours ago
People? Thought that was the military?
WatchnSee 5 hours ago
"regime change doesn't work" "Maybe we shouldn't be 'choosing' governments in the Middle
East,".... nor in the USA. Time will tell.
Hessler 6 hours ago (Edited)
Don't worry Mr. Paul, these white men in the suits are the leaders of the terrorists groups.
It's hardcoded in their genes, they don't know any other way of earning a living.
Mancolo 6 hours ago
Lessons? I don't need your stinking lessons. I've got friends to pay off.
Pvt Joker PREMIUM 7 hours ago
I like the US policy of Perma War and Regime change. The more troops over there , the less
troops over here.
Scornd 7 hours ago
I dont understand the complaints.
You voted for this.
MCDirtMigger 6 hours ago
By 'you', do you mean Dominion?
littlewing 7 hours ago
District of Criminals
that's all they are.
I am bailing out forever now.
Just looking at them and their actions is self harm.
Max21c 7 hours ago (Edited)
District of Criminals
Diablo Corona
Washingtonians are for the most part the spawn of Satan.
DC= the Devil's City... they are evil... Washingtonians are just pure rotten evil...
Washington DC ... Devil's City
Washington DC .... Devil's Crown
The evil ones cannot change their evil ways... they're too far gone... the evil ones cannot
be redeemed...
LorDampNuts 7 hours ago
Keep sending your donations to Stop the Steal, Trump has a plan and will be sworn in by
April when it warms up. Free Chumptard hat with every $100 donation.
Occams_Razor_Trader 7 hours ago
I'd donate a hunny for you to flush your head in a toilet ...............
foxenburg 7 hours ago
plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose
Rammbock 7 hours ago
Republicans are great actors
Kotwica 44 7 hours ago
This guy speaks truth, but, no one gives a flying fu<k.
Ajax_USB_Port_Repair_Service_ 7 hours ago
Attention Secret Police: We've got one for you!
freedommusic 7 hours ago (Edited)
Whatever these folks say is irrelevant. They are all sitting on foreign soil. The UNITED
STATES CORPORATION is a foreign Municipal entity owned by China claimed in the recent
bankruptcy settlement. POTUS said when he was leaving. Go ahead, take it. The buildings, the
chairs, statues, it's all yours . Anyone who steps outside of that foreign jurisdiction will be
entering American soil and subject to the Laws of the United States Constitutional Republic and
prosecuted for treason and sedition.
DC is now a Chinese embassy.
I wonder how much food they have stocked up in there? I would presume the military would
uphold a blockade and prevent the exchange of trade from occurring into a surrounded hostile
territory of the enemy.
YOU WANT IT
YOU GOT IT
HAVE A NICE DAY
SERReal1 7 hours ago
Where was Rand in calling out the election fraud?
Now he is acting all tough again on the deep state creatures.
9.1ontherichterscale 7 hours ago (Edited)
He wants to stay in office. No way is going to touch the third rail. None of them will.
rkb100100 7 hours ago
This is part of a Punch and Judy show put on for retards.
leodogma1 7 hours ago
And yet not one peep of this Quislings tie's to the Chinese Communist party of Evil !
Southern Discomfort 7 hours ago
I'm sure it will be blamed on an action taken by Trump and the only cure will be
intervention. Maybe Joetard can set up a new cabinet level position to seek out opportunities
for new wars.
More-Cowbell 8 hours ago
The show must go on. As if these asz clowns ( all of them ) matter.
north_hand_demon 8 hours ago
Whatever. Your cushy lifestyle, and mine, exists because we're the dominant imperial power
on the planet. Might makes right. Paul knows it too; this is just virtue signaling.
artless 7 hours ago (Edited)
And in your statement lies the real problem with the vast majority of people in this
country.
Yeah I edited the lame ad hom line after I read a few comments. But perhaps it is long due
that rather than simply accept things as the way they are and calling any opposition to it the
thoughts of a ten year old, it might be high time to actually try to make a change in how
people think and ultimately behave.
Too many people letting their wishful thinking override their wisdom, just like when Obama
was enthroned. I will admit that I was fooled back in 2008 as well, thinking "This time
things are finally different!" , though in my defense I will say that the "Reality
Distortion Field" built around BHO by the mass media was far more believable than the one
they have scraped together for Biden.
Biden being installed will thus buy the empire a "grace period" in which other
countries (EU mostly) will happily buy into America's next war effort. As with the
post-Bushlette era decorated with the Obama figurehead, the empire will take advantage of
this "grace period" to escalate its violence.
After all, that is why they want someone like Biden in the White House in the first place.
If the imperial establishment were at all interested in global de-escalation then they would
have gone forward with it when Trump demanded troops out instead of playing shell games to
keep the empire's wars on a low boil. Trump's belligerent noise-making made it impossible
for the empire to escalate its wars. The empire needs someone who is willing to put a nice
"progressive" spin on mass murder in order to get buy-in for a renewed round of
slaughter.
The empire will not waste this opportunity. They have been waiting four years for it.
There will be more war.
Posted by: William Gruff | Jan 20 2021 21:14 utc | 77
Agree with most of this as well as your other post earlier in the thread.
Biden is an attempt to put the mask back on the monster so that the woke, "resistance"
crowd will continue to not care about the unabated slaughter abroad. I mean, when you really
look at it, they (and the corporate mainstream "liberal" media) rarely criticized Trump's
foreign policy and often cheered it, albeit without ever openly praising him, per se. We saw
the occasional article about the ethnic cleansing in Yemen that Trump greatly aided and
abetted, but everyone including the NYT was completely behind his war on Venezuela and
attempt to create war with Iran. The media got a bit up in arms when Kashoggi was murdered -
because of course he was then a journalist - but even that died down quite quickly while
Trump continued feting the Israelis and Saudis.
The coming hot wars will be fought with all of the record breaking arms that Trump sold in
the Middle East and Southeast Asia.
All of that having been said, I'll repeat a point I've made since we started talking about
the election: Trump didn't "start any new wars" because there wasn't much left to do after
Obama and Bush set the world on fire and the Iranians (and Venezuelans) showed restraint when
attacked - both physically and economically. Trump and his Zionist handlers would have loved
it if the USA had ended up in a war with either of those countries and I have no doubt that
if he was elected to a 2nd term, we'd have seen one or both transpire. With Biden, same thing
as the first thing about Trump - There isn't much left to destroy that the USA could actually
get away with and I suspect he will continue the existing wars for however long he (or
Kopmala) is in office.
It's an Empire with a revolving-door Emperor called a President or Prime Minister. The
facts are fixed around the policy. We're obviously headed back toward a more 'can't we all
get along' empire, after four years of a guy who thought he was an actual emperor, instead of
a bobble-head. The differences between the two monopoly parties in the USA are entirely
domestic and are nothing but the size of the crumbs given to the people who think they are
free.
bottom line kadath.. the usa will be an ongoing slavish servant to israel.. that much is
clear as day... which way it goes - syria or iran - none of the saber rattling will stop..
israel doesn't want it to stop! neither does the american duopoly! the people might, but
they don't get a say and generally are not interested in foreign policy..
IMO Biden will do as he is told. His white house chief of staff is a powerful and
skilled player and is quite experienced in working with Biden. Joe could well be diverted to
give solid focus on the home front while the rats he has appointed continue their global
piracy and belligerence. I figure that is why they ran the old fool.
On January 21, the president-elect will sign a number of executive actions to move
aggressively to change the course of the COVID-19 crisis and safely re-open schools and
businesses, including by taking action to mitigate spread through expanding testing,
protecting workers, and establishing clear public health standards.
On January 22, the president-elect will direct his Cabinet agencies to take immediate
action to deliver economic relief to working families bearing the brunt of this crisis.
Between January 25 and February 1, the president-elect will sign additional executive
actions, memoranda and Cabinet directives. The president-elect will fulfill his promises to
strengthen Buy American provisions so the future of America is made in America. He will
take significant early actions to advance equity and support communities of color and other
underserved communities. He will take action to begin fulfilling campaign promises related
to reforming our criminal justice system. The president-elect will sign additional
executive actions to address the climate crisis with the urgency the science demands and
ensure that science guides the administration's decision making. President-elect Biden will
take first steps to expand access to health care – including for low-income women and
women of color. He will fulfill his promises to restore dignity to our immigration system
and our border policies, and start the difficult but critical work of reuniting families
separated at the border. And, President-elect Biden will demonstrate that America is back
and take action to restore America's place in the world.
As noted above, this list is not comprehensive. More items and more details will be
forthcoming in the days ahead.
Time will tell how the other appointees in the administration align with Klain and the
extent of the savage power struggle that is soon to manifest.
The USA is now the proverbial Whale in a Swimming Pool: it is big, powerful and impressive
- but can't hide its moves anymore and has little to none margin for any maneuver.
The American Center-wing is ossifying, or, in Cold Warrior terminology (Arthur
Schlesinger Jr.), is losing its "vitality". It is entering a stage where it must "burn the
village in order to save it".
... it seems the answer is that Germany plays the role in Europe that the US plays in the
world and both are satisfied with that role even though neo-liberalism, austerity and
war-mongering are leading us to inhumanity and disaster.
Like i said before elsewhere Biden would capitalize on what Trump has put forth and take
the infamy and blame for instead of moving in the opposite directions of whatever Trump
criticized for in foreign policy. That means be it trade war with China, renege on climate
deals, strong arming NATO and EU countries, or giving everything Israel wants nothing stop
Biden from maintaining what has been put in place.
At most they'll just make excuse on why they had to maintain the policies they themselves
criticized Trump for without changing direction.
He said Joe Biden's strong conviction was that the Nord Stream 2 pipeline is a "bad idea"
and that the administration would use "every persuasive tool" to convince partners,
including Germany, to discard the project.
That is pretty much a declaration of war against countries in Europe. Stay
away,
America's
disarray is its own woes, not other countries' opportunity The Financial Times lives in
a world where the USA doesn't have more than 2,000 operational nukes, doesn't control the
financial system (SWIFT), doesn't issue the universal fiat currency (Dollar Standard),
doesn't have a big fucking navy, doesn't enjoy absolute ideological hegemony etc. etc.
...Tronald's foreign policy has been a disaster, even if he has supposedly not sparked a
new war. Let's not talk about all the secret operations, multiplied drone attacks, state
terrorist assassinations, etc. And the new administration is now continuing this...
They've stopped thinking, become utterly predictable.
They just go through the motions. They know that they can't win-achieve their long held
objectives-but they can't stop repeating themselves, including their past errors. They are
not allowed to. The US ruling caste-servants of the ruling class- are only allowed to
operate within very narrow boundaries. They aren't allowed to take radical measures when
faced with new crises- they are confined within ever diminishing political circles. The
duopoly has become an obvious One Party system. And its politics are those of the Gilded
Age-150 years old and still going strong.
The only solution to America's problems is defeat so complete that it cannot be denied
even by the least perceptive. Anyone with money to spare should be buying popcorn
futures.
...Biden is an elderly figurehead. Trump's mistake was being openly bullying and vulgar
instead of underhanded. Already, the EU ( as cowardly vassals ) are falling into line on
Iran and Russia.
...Paul Craig Roberts is correct. There has not been a regime change, there has been a
revolution and treating policies of this "president" as if he is more than a figurehead
being run by oligarchs is foolish in the extreme.
They've stopped thinking, become utterly predictable.
One could say this about the American people who have been herded into two camps so that
the Center can rule. Here's an example: One of Biden's first executive actions is to
include undocumented residents in the Census. This will please the Left immensely and
outrage the Right. But the Census is conducted every 10 years and it was completed in 2020.
So Biden's action is actually meaningless. How many people will actual notice this? Very
few.
It is funny/sad to see the Post Trump Stress Disorder victims are already rationalizing
and making excuses for the war that the establishment drones they voted for will be
starting, and those drones are not even sworn in to office yet. They know that they voted
for war yet their plastic, Hollywood "identities" are so intertwined with their assumed
self-evident moral superiority that they are compelled to defend the evil they are
responsible for even before it is committed. For them, doing nothing crudely is far worse
than murdering millions accompanied by lofty and emotive platitudes.
Meet the Filthy Rich War Hawks That Make up Biden's New Foreign Policy Team
"I expect the prevailing direction of U.S. foreign policy over these last decades to
continue: more lawless bombing and killing multiple countries under the cover of "limited
engagement," – Biden Biographer Branko Marcetic
by Alan Macleod November 13th, 2020
https://www.mintpressnews.com/filthy-rich-war-hawks-make-joe-biden-foreign-policy-team/273039/
Neera Tanden – Reduce US Deficits by Raiding the Economies of Countries We Have
Destroyed:
Neera Tanden, Biden's Pick for Budget Office: Now Is Not the Time To 'Worry About Raising
Deficits and Debt'
by Robby Soave https://reason.com/2020/11/30/neera-tanden-biden-omb-debt-deficit/
She once suggested that if Americans care about the deficit so much, maybe we should make
Libya pay for it.
| 11/30/2020
( Ariana Ruiz/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom )
Trump ripped the mask off US foreign policy and exposed it for what it is - ugly Zionism
and outrageous Jewish supremacy. Trump did many foreign policy changes previous incumbents
and their handlers wanted to do but were constrained by the optics and international
opinion.
I agree the Biden administration will continue the same tired old foreign policy, only
with the mask back on. Of course the media won't notice the similarities, but the public
will. No matter how fervently the managers tinker with the edges it is events that drive
changes and change people.
I just listened to President Biden's speech. It was a good one, even a great one. Thinking
about what Plato means by the 'noble lie' it was a noble speech, and there wasn't much of a
lie about it.
b finished the posting with
"
While Trump had continued the wars the U.S. waged when he came into office he did not start
any new ones. Since Joe Biden first entered the Senate 47 years ago he has cheered on every
war the U.S. has since waged. It would be astonishing to find four years from now that he
did not start any new ones.
"
Prepare to be astonished. Biden isn't going to start any new wars for the same reason
that Trump didn't......MAD
Humanity has been in the MAD phase of the civilization war we are in since the Obama era
push back in Syria.
Biden's chest beating will not be as "impressive" as Trump's but the trajectory is the
same.
The new chief says to tighten the circle of wagons, but those accused of besieging the
Outlaw US Empire's wagon train stopped attacking and moved on long ago. Meanwhile,
supplying the wagon train continues to take resources away from dealing with very real
domestic problems. The upshot is China will continue to pull away and increase its lead
geoeconomically, and together with Russia will continue to solidify and strengthen the
Eurasian Bloc. Very soon, the EU is going to be faced with a very stark choice--to join the
Eurasian Bloc and thus stave-off economic atrophy or continue to allow its brand of
Neoliberal Parasites to eat and risk rupture, perhaps not in 2021 but before 2030.
The key is that the false narrative that was initiated in 1945 and bolstered in 1979
continues to be treated as gospel despite its path to certain ruin. I noted there were no
questions asked about the international call for a Bretton Woods 2.0 that would end dollar
hegemony and Petrodollar recycling, while removing the one source of coercion behind its
illegal sanctions.
The only possible target of opportunity I see is Venezuela as the frack-patch is about
to fold-up shop and fuel prices cause domestic inflation to soar -- Here in Oregon, gas
prices have gone up 50cents/gal since the first of the year--25%. The oil being the obvious
target now the the lower-48 has definitely peaked.
@ 32 juliania... you are the eternal optimist! there is something admirable about that!..
however you have to contend with a lot of cynical people who think like it's business as
well, as b's post notes..... you might not like to hear this, but nothing is going to
change under biden... big wheels set in motion and biden is not interested in the least in
changing any of it... neither was trump as some of his fanbots are coming to see too...
political speeches are just so much b.s... juliania - as the saying goes, talk is cheap, it
is actions that count.... watch peoples actions, not their talk... biden can talk a good
line, but that has nothing to do with his actions... top of the day to you!
@34 Invading Venezuela and 'taking the oil' won't be easy though there is a possibility
Colombia will help out. Which means the total disruption of South America. More economical
to just buy the stuff.
"It is funny/sad to see the Post Trump Stress Disorder victims are already rationalizing
and making excuses for the war that the establishment drones they voted for will be
starting, and those drones are not even sworn in to office yet. They know that they voted
for war yet their plastic, Hollywood "identities" are so intertwined with their assumed
self-evident moral superiority that they are compelled to defend the evil they are
responsible for even before it is committed. For them, doing nothing crudely is far worse
than murdering millions accompanied by lofty and emotive platitudes."
Posted by: William Gruff | Jan 20 2021 16:16 utc | 26
Tnx for expressing this in a much nicer and polite way then i would have written. And
yes, yes it is sad/amusing to watch NPC`s turn into pretzels to explain away their
cognitive dissonans ,utter foolishness and stupidity.
"... If not for the "new normal" we 100% would guarantee a new war – or a restarted old war – within a year. As it stands, we're only 60% sure they'll be some kind of military intervention sometime soon (Venezuela wouldn't be a surprise). ..."
"... The real crackdowns are going to be domestic. There is a huge push to take "domestic terrorism" seriously , and that will go hand-in-hand with increased purges of social media (again with "Russian disinformation" playing a major role). ..."
"... I wonder if the military occupation was designed to disguise the total lack of support, given the evidence of election fraud. You couldn't get more emptiness and virtual absence of reality if the military conducted the installation in a bunker in the dying days of the Reich. ..."
"... Another poster said it looked like a junta in a minor banana dictatorship. Spot on. It was a military installation visually and in a political sense for there were no people. ..."
This particular inauguration is going to look a lot different from all the others –
the twin bogus narratives of coronavirus and the "attempted
coup" on January 6th have forced, FORCED, capitol city into an almost Martial Law-like
standing.
A heavy troop presence as your leader is sworn in is one of the hallmarks of legitimacy, you
understand. And not even slightly a sign of power being seized illegitimately.
That said, Biden will technically be "President", so it's time to ask ourselves –
what kind of world are we in for?
Internationally it's likely to be business as usual. If you look at his cabinet choices,
from
Victoria Nuland to
Samantha power , we have a LOT of warmongers who bleat about America's "responsibility to
protect". While politicians and pundits are already rebuking Trump & Johnson for failing in
US/UK's
"moral leadership" of the world, or praising Biden for his plans to "counter Russian
disinformation".
If not for the "new normal" we 100% would guarantee a new war – or a restarted old war
– within a year. As it stands, we're only 60% sure they'll be some kind of military
intervention sometime soon (Venezuela wouldn't be a surprise).
The real crackdowns are going to be domestic. There is a huge push to take "domestic
terrorism" seriously , and that will go hand-in-hand with increased purges of social media
(again with "Russian
disinformation" playing a major role).
The big question is whether the inauguration will go off smoothly, or they'll try another
manufactured incident to sell that agenda.
How do you think President Creepy Uncle Joe is going to shape our world? How long before,
for whatever reason, Kamala Harris replaces him? Will the pandemic be "solved"? Will we have a
new war? Discuss below.
Jan 21, 2021 2:24 AM
Washington DC was empty except for the troops. Windblown streets. Jason Goodman did his
walkabout could not even get a distant view of the Capitol. It's as if no one voted for Biden: no supporters even tried to attend the inauguration. You would have expected someone a few diehards who hadn't heard about the military
occupation.
I wonder if the military occupation was designed to disguise the total lack of support,
given the evidence of election fraud. You couldn't get more emptiness and virtual absence of
reality if the military conducted the installation in a bunker in the dying days of the
Reich.
Another poster said it looked like a junta in a minor banana dictatorship. Spot on. It was a
military installation visually and in a political sense for there were no people.
An inauguration of the leader of a nation cannot be legitimate if the people play no part
.
Celebrities cheered with exaggerated leering grins and lockjaw, tongues lolling in a vain
caricature of support from the class of paid actors.
The term 'State Actor' has a new meaning today. The Corporatist Media could not recognise
its own banality. This was like the USSR Actors' Union huddling and fawning around Secretary
General Brezhnev as the Soviet Union teetered to collapse.
Social cretinism is the best one can say about this sorry debacle but I fear it is something
much, much worse.
Disillusioned Peasant , Jan 21, 2021 2:38 AM Reply to theobalt
Agreed, Trump was used as a puppet to shame anybody who questions the narrative or resists
the deep state. He was asked to be a cartoon, a ridiculous exaggeration of a "traditionalist"
or "nationalist" to forever tarnish that stance. He was basically the Alex Jones president
.the ultimate controlled opposition. A clown.
I'm so embarrassed I fell for it in 2016. Of COURSE he was phony. Jan 21, 2021 1:39 AM
The snake as a new head. It's still the same snake. It still crawls on it's belly and it
still spits the same lies on behalf of the masters who stand behind the curtain. We could
still hear Bush Sr when Clinton spoke ; We could still hear Bush Jr when Obama spoke. Red and
Blue are the same colour.
It was refreshing in parts to have an American president who didn't try to contrive a
narrative that would justify invading another country or contrive yet another cell of
'radicalised' terrorists. No explosions on home soil intended to be taken as an attack from
foreign soil. Nothing in four years.
It was all the more surprising as many believed that Trump was and is a great real estate
dealer and TV celebrity who has manufactured his charisma from arrogance and ignorance. He
has never been celebrated for much beyond his business acumen in the real estate area and TV.
This wasn't exactly an erudite man. Former presidents of different ages were and were capable
of putting it on paper in their memoirs. Trump was the sign of the times ; a Twitter
president. His reign was punctuated by the occasional flexing of Uncle Sam's muscles with
threats and a go -ahead-punk-make-our-day approach to public speaking. Yet still no
threats of war. This was an odd four years. That odd = peace says more about the US than
Trump though. So, what was his role ?
In 2001 we had the Twin Towers. The most dramatic mass murder and the destruction of the
laws of Physics and Logic all in one day. Soon after we had the destruction of personal
freedom and the creation of domestic terror. It had been suggested by Philip Zelikow three
years earlier that a 'searing event such as a terror attack' would be a useful and
effective tool in transforming the future by breaking away from the past in no uncertain
terms. It would be the event that nobody dare question, and that would be perfect for
creating a real fear within the people of the west that such a disaster could occur any time
without warning. All they needed was the right salesman to address us.
And so the Patriot Act was born. The surveillance of everyone in their streets, in other
towns and their homes was pushed through as a public health measure and a matter of
national security. If you protested you were a ' 9 /11 denier' and 'unpatriotic'. If
we went too long without evidence of this terror then somewhere would be bombed and the
bomber would be 'neutralised' before we would ever learn who was behind it. It took time to
become a 'new normal' but it became the 'new normal'. Complain- you were a 'dangerous'
conspiracy theorist; in some states it was considered grounds to label you under the mental
health act. Just for asking questions.This was how to protect democracy- by
tyranny.
So, two decades on we were ready and primed.
Gates and his cohort billionaire 'philanderers' had been beavering away for decades
creating more subtle forms of terror. No bangs; no smoke; no mess. These 'missiles'
were microbes and the control groups had been observed closely. From mice, to bats to black
people to gay people. Once the results /data became big enough numbers, the bomb factory went
to work behind the closed doors of 'Cancer Research ' facilities.
We all know now about the hypothetical exercises 'imagined' by the Gates 'Good
Club' ; nightmares of being unprepared etc. They penned in 2030 as target date for the
endgame. . A date that will have seen the human race enslaved or culled by their
terrorism.
Liability would have been taken off the table, giving them free reign. All involved sank
their pennies into the manufacturing of these little bombs. And all Academic Institutions,
MSM platforms, and pharmaceutical industries were funded by Gates and Co. Then
Monsanto and it's subsidiaries were purchased the same way, and the same immunity from
prosecution granted from the damaging synthetic /poison crops and food.
So, 2020, was Trump's last stand. He had his '9 /11'. He had domestic bio
terrorists. Then the rest of the world had it. We had the same threats to national
security and the same 'need' for a new version of a Dystopian Patriot Act.
This wasn't about ISIS or Al -Qaeda and their radicalised lunatics. Trump had found a new
group of Bogeymen. China. He would have sounded a bit paranoid if Russia was blamed for
something again. Besides, everyone knows that all SARS- type or flu-like viruses are made in
China quicker and cheaper. And the US should know that by looking in their many, many
stockpiles in their own Biological War labs they pretend are trying to cure
cancer.
Trump decided to refer to the Covid 19 virus as 'The Chinese disease '. Fang
Ling Fauci had told him to on behalf of Wong Sing Gates.
He went on to call himself a 'war time president' ( there you go- he got one).
He invoked the Defence Production Act, an old Cold War law which allows the Executive
Branch to control and redirect the production and distribution of scarce materials deemed
"essential to the national defense. " In an executive order dated March 18th,
2020.
To add another layer to the movie the troops were brought in and all medics were now
'heroes on the front line'.
The script went global. It began in the country that Gates had composed such a
hypothetical scenario- America. Hence the 'Chinese Disease'. It was the new war on terror
minus the James Bond bad guy Bin Laden.
So Trump ushered it in right on time. It didn't win the election( we were told). Instead,
it won it for Obama's man, Biden.
Biden and Obama were the most vehement advocates of Monsanto, Sterilisation, and Social
Technology ( eugenics ; social cleansing). Obama was made a very wealthy man for his
services to the Gates agenda, pharma and GM / Frankenfood. He was surprisingly racist
as well as elitist. Tom Vilsack was their frontman. Biden has already called him out of
retirement.
So, given the 'war-on-(bio)-terror ' that was born in the USA and sold worldwide,
there was no place for Trump. His job was to let the the 'enemy' in, warn us of the possible
'war ahead' and leave it to Gates. But Trump seemed to have spotted that and didn't
seem too keen on the narrative. So, come on down Barack O Biden. The timing's right.. Jan 20,
2021 11:40 PM Reply to Ben
Do not be bamboozled, in SHAM DEMOCRACY USA there is only one party, THE
REPUBLICRATS (the WAR RACKETEER CORPORATE FASCIST political racket so corrupt it needs two
aliases).
"This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it may be both moral
and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never
did and it never will. Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have
found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them, and these
will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of
tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress."
~ Frederick Douglas, 1857
Schmitz Katze , Jan 20, 2021 10:44 PM
„That said, Biden will technically be "President", so it's time to ask ourselves
– what kind of world are we in for? –
The real crackdowns are going to be domestic.-
Will the pandemic be "solved"? „
It will only be solved when people have had enough of it. The deep state got rid of Trump
(for the timebeing-) under the guise of a pandemic. For them and their minions in MSM,
government and academia it´s a gift that keeps on giving, with never ending corona
mutation fearporn.
It´s totalitarianism, it´s dystopia under under the guise of –
domestic-safety.
The plan now, on the part of the Swamp, is to declare every Trump supporter a terrorist and
an insurrectionist.
But we did not tear down statues of American heroes.
Antifa and BLM did that. We did not attack the police and call for them to be defunded or
fried like bacon. Antifa and BLM did that.
We did not burn and loot the business centers of dozens of America's major cities. Antifa
and BLM did that.
And what have Republican leaders done? They condemn you, anyone who dares to continue to
express support for Donald Trump, as a domestic terrorist. And when there was ample cause to
call out the real terrorists–Antifa and BLM–many of the Republican leaders cowered
and kept silent.
"Neoliberalism and imperialism do not care about the pseudo-fights between the two
parties or the cable TV bickering of the day. They do not like the far left or the far right.
They do not like extremism of any kind. They do not support Communism and they do not support
neo-Nazism or some fascist revolution. They care only about one thing: disempowering and
crushing anyone who dissents from and threatens their hegemony. They care about stopping
dissidents. All the weapons they build and institutions they assemble -- the FBI, the DOJ,
the CIA, the NSA, oligarchical power -- exist for that sole and exclusive purpose, to fortify
their power by rewarding those who accede to their pieties and crushing those who do
not."
the democrats are led by a bunch of international sociopaths, pariahs, billionaire
psychopaths, paranoid schizos, think tank imbeciles, and endless-war mongers - all of this
fully enabled by a sycophantic a**-kissing and biased press which also has lost its common
sense and collective mind. very sad!!!
I particularly like glenn Greenwald's take on some of this insanity...
Glenn Greenwald @ggreenwald
Remember when Mueller spent 18 months and millions of dollars armed with a team of
prosecutors and subpoena power, then closed his investigation after arresting *zero*
Americans for conspiring with Russia?
Let's do it again! Anything to distract from how rotted neoliberalism is:
LOL. In that above clip, Hillary Clinton explicitly suggests that Trump was plotting with
Putin on the day of the Capitol Riots, as if Putin directed it.
These people are the *last* ones with any moral standing to rant about conspiracy theories
& disinformation.
This comes at a time when Americans are now
reporting that they trust corporations more than they trust their own government or media,
when pundits are gleefully proclaiming in The New
York Times that "CEOs have become the fourth branch of government" as they pressure the
entire political system to smoothly install Biden, when the leading contender for the
Department of Justice's Antitrust Division is an Obama holdover who went from the
administration to working for both Amazon and Google, and when Americans are being
paced into accepting an increasing amount of authoritarian changes for their own good.
And this manic celebration and increasing brazenness of corporate power are of course
overlaid atop an unceasing river of human blood as the globe-spanning empire continues to smash
any nation which disobeys it into compliance so as to ensure lasting uncontested planetary
hegemony.
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of
Consortium News.
DH Fabian , January 18, 2021 at 12:03
Yes, nervous middle classers pray Joe Biden will be their salvation. The rest of us know
why "business as usual" will continue. The only real difference between Biden and Trump is
that Biden is more likely to start a catastrophic war (as his record clearly indicates).
Jeff Harrison , January 17, 2021 at 23:17
Good points. Since Americans don't see any consequence to their government's outrageous
behavior, everything's outstanding (there are real benefits to those two oceans)! And it will
remain outstanding until someone shoves our bad behavior in our faces (which could really
happen. The Russians and Chinese are arming themselves to defend themselves from the US.
That's a lot cheaper than having to support a major offensive capability) or our brokeness
blows our economy to hell. You might want to read up on what happened to Sparta ..
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
Contribute to Consortium
News ' Winter Fund Drive
"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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.