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Due to the size an introduction was converted to a separate page Neoconservatism, an introduction
Neoconservatives, which like Bolsheviks in the past are mostly Jewish intellectuals, are frequently described as ideologues with pro-Israel and anti-Russian bent, but the truth is that they are far more interested in gaining access to money and power. Most of them are useless smacks with degree in journalism or history and they would starve if not fed by military industrial complex. Being a lobbyist of military industrial complex is the only job they can get. Add to that that most of them are personal cowards and chicken hawks and you get the picture: they are just bottom-feeders. "National security parasites" is a very apt definition for this category of people.
Large part of neocons consist of a large class of elite-wannabes, often well-educated and highly capable, who has been denied access to elite positions and who decided to use warmongering backdoor to get there
Proselytizing their own brand of global regime change is just a mean to sustain the access to funds and political power. They know perfectly well which side of the bread is buttered and by whom. We can suspect that for many of them (Max Boot is a good example here) access to money from MIC and Israel lobby is the primary driving force. Often they are viewed as Likud lobby in the USA: "The definition of a neocon is somebody who has great difficulty distinguishing between the strategic interests of Israel, on the one hand, and the strategic interests of the United States on the other. Israel wants bedlam in Syria, and they’ve got it." ( Israel lobby in the United States - Wikipedia ):
The formal component of the Israel lobby consists of organized lobby groups, political action committees (PACs), think tanks and media watchdog groups. The Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks all lobbies and PACs, describes the ‘background’ of those ‘Pro-Israel’ as, “A nationwide network of local political action committees, generally named after the region their donors come from, supplies much of the pro-Israel money in US politics. Additional funds also come from individuals who bundle contributions to candidates favored by the PACs. The donors' unified goal is to build stronger US-Israel relations and to support Israel in its negotiations and armed conflicts with its Arab neighbors.”[24]According to Mitchell Bard, there are, three key formal lobbying groups:
- Christians United for Israel, the US "largest" pro-Israel lobby.[25][26]
- The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) which directly lobbies the United States Congress
- The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations which "is the main contact between the Jewish community and the executive branch" of the US government.[23]
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A summary of pro-Israel campaign donations for the period of 1990–2008 collected by Center for Responsive Politics indicates current totals and a general increase in proportional donations to the US Republican party since 1996.[46] The Center for Responsive Politics' 1990–2006 data shows that "pro-Israel interests have contributed $56.8 million in individual, group and soft money donations to federal candidates and party committees since 1990."[47] In contrast, Arab-Americans and Muslim PACs contributed slightly less than $800,000 during the same (1990–2006) period.[48] In 2006, 60% of the Democratic Party’s fundraising and 25% of that for the Republican Party's fundraising came from Jewish-funded PACs. According to a Washington Post estimate, Democratic presidential candidates depend on Jewish sources for as much as 60% of money raised from private sources.[49]
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AIPAC does not give donations directly to candidates, but those who donate to AIPAC are often important political contributors in their own right. In addition, AIPAC helps connect donors with candidates, especially to the network of pro-Israel political action committees. AIPAC president Howard Friedman says “AIPAC meets with every candidate running for Congress. These candidates receive in-depth briefings to help them completely understand the complexities of Israel’s predicament and that of the Middle East as a whole. We even ask each candidate to author a ‘position paper’ on their views of the US-Israel relationship – so it’s clear where they stand on the subject.”[43]
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Mearsheimer and Walt state that “pro-Israel figures have established a commanding presence at the American Enterprise Institute, the Center for Security Policy, the Foreign Policy Research Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Hudson Institute, the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA). These think tanks are all decidedly pro-Israel and include few, if any, critics of US support for the Jewish state.”[50]
When strategic interests of Israeli (for example remaking of the Middle East so that Israel can exercise dominant power in this region; which includes fragmentation of several existing states) deviate from the strategic interests of the USA (which mostly are interested in uninterruptable supply of cheap oil) neocons do betray the USA national interests with ease. The US-Israel relationship significantly damages the relationship between the United States and the Arab world. They also were serving as propagandists and influencers for all recent Middle East military adventures and regime change efforts. Recently that was the case in Syria: in no way Assad government represented a threat to the USA interests. Still the pressure of "likudniks" was such that the USA engaged in the "regime change" efforts.
But in reality they should be viewed more like lobbing group of MIC then lobbing group of Israel. As well as transnational corporations interested in opening new markets. But recently facts that Israel spend large sums on money on trying to influence the USA politicians came to light and to this extent one gets impression that the tail is wagging the dog.
They should probably be viewed as the lobbying and propaganda arm of military industrial complex. In now way they represent an important political force on the USA political landscape. With Democratic Party becoming the second warmongering party.
And there is not much conservative in neocon ideology -- it is basically a revamped Trotskyism, if not neo-fascism. Just look at Nuland's fraternization with Ukrainian far right nationalists despite her Jewish roots (and despite the fact that this movement was hell-bent on killing Jewish people during WWII and served as capos in concentration camps) is not accidental; this was a conscious political choice -- they are birds of the feather.
Ideologically they are a more militant flavor of neoliberals ("neoliberals with the gun", so to speak). So their neo-Trotskyites roots are especially evident in foreign policy (they do not have a coherent domestic policy; but generally their views are more aligned with the Democratic Party than Republican Party views). Again, we will essentially view then as "neoliberals with a gun".
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Apr 20, 2018 | www.rt.com
Britain's strategic relationship with radical Islam goes back decades and continues to this day. There is no more foul a stench than the stench of hypocrisy, and there is no more foul a hypocrisy than the British government painting Bashar al-Assad as a monster when in truth he and the Syrian people have been grappling with a twin-headed monster in the shape of Salafi-jihadi terror and Western imperialism. Both are committed to destroying Syria as an independent, non-sectarian state, and both are inextricably linked.
Author and journalist Mark Curtis charts in detail the contours of this history in his book 'Secret Affairs: Britain's Collusion with Radical Islam':
" British governments, both Labour and Conservative, have, in pursuing the so-called 'national interest' abroad, colluded for decades with radical Islamic forces, including terrorist organizations. They have connived with them, worked alongside them and sometimes trained and financed them, in order to promote specific foreign policy objectives. Governments have done so in often desperate attempts to maintain Britain's global power in the face of increasing weakness in key regions of the world, being unable to unilaterally impose their will and lacking other local allies. Thus the story is intimately related to that of Britain's imperial decline and the attempt to maintain influence in the world. "
As far back as the First World War, when the Middle East began to assume strategic importance in the capitals of Western imperial and colonial powers, the British ruling class went out of its way to identify and recruit loyal local proxies in pursuit of its regional objectives. Britain's relationship with the Arab tribal chief, Ibn Saud, who would go on to establish Saudi Arabia in the early 1930s, began in 1915 with the Darin Pact, demarcating the territory then controlled by Saud as a British protectorate.
The following year, the Arab Revolt against the Ottomans erupted. Begun and inspired by Saud's fierce rival, Sharif Hussein, head of the Hashemite Arab tribe, the revolt was heavily bankrolled and supported by the British – a period immortalized in the exploits of British military agent T E Lawrence, known to the world as Lawrence of Arabia.
But whereas Sharif Hussein was a follower of orthodox Sunni Islam, Ibn Saud adhered to the radical doctrine of Wahhabism, which Winston Churchill was moved to describe as " bloodthirsty " and " intolerant ." Regardless, when it came to its imperial interests there was no tiger upon whose back the British ruling class was not willing to ride during this period, and which, as events have proved, it has not been willing to ride since.
The most egregious example of this policy, one that continues to have ramifications today, was the support provided by the UK to the Afghan mujahideen in the late 1970s and 1980s. The insurgency's objective was the overthrow of Kabul's secular and left-leaning government, whose crime in the eyes of the Islamist insurgency's US and UK sponsors was that it had embraced the social and economic model of Moscow rather than Washington during the first Cold War.
British support for the mujahideen, married to the huge support provided by Washington, was indispensable in the eventual success of these self-styled 'holy warriors' in taking control of a country that had embraced modernity and turning it into a failed state mired in religious oppression, brutality, backwardness and poverty.
Mark Curtis again:
" Britain, along with the US, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, covertly supported the resistance to defeat the Soviet occupation of the country. Military, financial and diplomatic backing was given to Islamist forces which, while forcing a Soviet withdrawal, soon organized themselves into terrorist networks ready to strike Western targets. "
While Washington's primary role in channeling military and financial support to the Afghan mujahideen, known as Operation Cyclone , may until have succeeded in overshadowing London's role in this dirty war, declassified British government cabinet papers which were made public in 2010 and reported in the UK media make grim reading.
They reveal that three weeks after Soviet forces arrived in Afghanistan at the request of the Afghan government in Kabul, struggling to deal with an insurgency that had broken out in the countryside, the Thatcher government was planning to supply military aid to the " Islamic resistance ." A confidential government memo provides a chilling insight into the insanity that passed for official policy: " We trust the Western leaders are prepared for the enormous beneficial possibilities that could just possibly open up if the Afghan rebellion were to succeed. "
It will be recalled that out of the ensuing collapse of Afghanistan emerged the Taliban, under whose rule the country was turned into a vast militant jihadist school and training camp. Many of the most notorious Islamist terrorists began their careers there, fighting the Soviets and then later broadening out their activities to other parts of the region and wider world. In this regard, Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda loom large.
Other notorious names from the world of Salafi-jihadism for whom Afghanistan proved indispensable include the Jordanian Abu al-Zarqawi, who founded Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) during the US-UK occupation, an organization that would over time morph into ISIS.
Abdelhakim Belhaj and other Libyan Islamists cut their jihadist teeth in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Returning to Libya, they formed the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) in the eastern city of Benghazi. Though the group may have been disbanded in 2010, having failed to topple Gaddafi despite repeated attempts to assassinate the Libyan leader with, it's been claimed , the support of Britain's MI6, former members of the LIFG, including Belhaj, were important actors in the 2011 Libyan uprising.
By way of a reminder, the uprising in Libya started in Benghazi and would not have succeeded without the air support it received from NATO. Britain's then prime minister, David Cameron, was key in pushing for that air support and the sanction of the UN under the auspices of Security Council Resolution 1973. Though protecting civilians was central in wording of this UNSC resolution, it was shamefully distorted to justify regime change, culminating in Gaddafi's murder by the 'rebels.'
Staying with the LIFG, in the wake of the Manchester suicide-bomb attack in May 2017, which left 23 people dead and 500 injured, the fact that the bomber, a young Libyan by the name of Salman Abedi, was the son of a former member of the LIFG, did not receive anything like the media attention it should have at the time.
Manchester, England is home to the largest Libyan community in Britain, and there is strong evidence to suggest that when the Libyan uprising broke out MI6 facilitated the ability of Libyan Islamists in Britain to travel to Libya to participate in the fighting. Among them was Salman Abedi, who it is thought received military training in the country before being allowed to return to the UK thereafter.
This brings us on to Syria and, as with Libya, the question of how so many British Muslims have been able to travel from the UK to Syria via Turkey to take part in the anti-Assad insurgency since 2011? It also brings into sharp focus a policy that has veered between the ludicrous and the reckless.
Emblematic of the former was ex-prime minister David Cameron's claim , which he made during a 2015 Commons debate over whether the Royal Air Force should engage in air strikes against ISIS in Syria, that fighting as part of the Syrian were 70,000 moderates.
As for the recklessness of Britain's actions in Syria, look no further than the country's recent participation in the illegal missile strikes that were carried out in conjunction with the US and France, justified on the basis of as yet unproven allegations that Syrian government forces had carried out a chemical weapons attack on Douma, just outside Damascus. The only beneficiaries of such actions by the Western powers are Salafi-jihadist groups such as ISIS (whom it was later reported took advantage of the missile strike to mount a short-lived offensive), Al-Nusra and Jaysh al-Islam.
The latter of those groups, Jaysh al-Islam, is a Saudi proxy. It was the dominant group in Douma and throughout Eastern Ghouta until the district's liberation by the Syrian Army and its allies with Russian support.
Given the deep and longstanding ties between London and Riyadh; given the fact, reported towards the end of 2017, that British military personnel were embedded in a training role with Saudi forces in Yemen; given the news that a British special forces sergeant was killed in northern Syria at the end of March this year while embedded with the Kurds, revealing for the first time that British troops were operating in the country on the ground – given all that, the question of who else British special forces and military personnel may be embedded with in Syria is legitimate.
In the context of the British state's long and sordid history when it comes to riding the back of radical Islam in pursuit of its strategic objectives, readers will doubtless draw their own conclusions.
Read more
- Did an ISIS ringleader receive British taxpayer money?
- Boris Johnson throws support behind Saudi prince accused of Yemen human rights abuses
- Hotel Intercontinental siege – is Kabul falling?
John Wight has written for newspapers and websites across the world, including the Independent, Morning Star, Huffington Post, Counterpunch, London Progressive Journal, and Foreign Policy Journal. He is also a regular commentator on RT and BBC Radio. John is currently working on a book exploring the role of the West in the Arab Spring. You can follow him on Twitter @JohnWight1
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Apr 19, 2018 | www.unz.com
WorkingClass , April 17, 2018 at 2:47 pm GMT
The most interesting aspect of this false response to a false flag attack is the non participation by Germany. Turkey has one foot in both camps. Germany will be next to turn. Time is working against Imperial Washington.Mike P , April 18, 2018 at 5:50 pm GMT
@WorkingClassAvery , April 18, 2018 at 6:30 pm GMTGerman expat here.
Merkel is a CIA asset. She has skeletons in her closet from her time in East Germany, and her meteoric rise to power was clearly engineered by a third party -- she herself lacked both the experience and the power base within the party for doing it herself. She was promoted over Kohl's natural successor, Schaeuble, who was discredited using comparatively trifling allegations of accepting improper donations (aka bribes) on behalf of the party.
Merkel has betrayed German interests at every turn, most blatantly in the context of the Greek debt fiasco and the refugee fake crisis. She goes along with imposing sanctions on Russia, which hurts export-oriented Germany like no other Western country. At the same time, the "ultra-right" (i.e. common sense) party "Alternative fuer Deutschland" is forever mired in ridiculous infighting, which regularly escalates just ahead of elections -- funny how that is. Must be those meddling Russians.
Long story short, hell will freeze over before Merkel decides herself what is for breakfast, never mind for policy. I wish we could clone Putin and import him.
@Mike PMike P , April 18, 2018 at 7:49 pm GMTMerkel's selection as chancellor does not explain why German electorate keep electing her party as majority, which then is in the position to name her as chancellor. German people have been lobotomized and neutered after decades of Soros-Neocon brainwashing.
There is no other explanation for people who are committing slow self-extermination as a distinct ethnos. Same with the French electorate: they had a chance to elect a true French patriot and instead chose another globalist weirdo poodle.
@AverySean , April 18, 2018 at 8:39 pm GMTMerkel's party has no majority – actually her party's share of the vote is at historic lows with less than one third (traditionally it was 45-50%). She has moved that formerly conservative party to the left by co-opting green and welfare agendas of the competing parties. The other formerly strong party, the Social Democrats, have been reduced to a status of auxiliaries in an eternal "grand coalition". In spite of infighting, the new "right-wing" AfD came in third in the last elections.
But of course, as you say, the people's failure to get rid of her is due in large measure to relentless media brainwashing, they swallow the refugee nonsense because it is subliminally suggested that it atones for the "holocaust" etc. I don't read a single German newspaper anymore, the manure is just too depressing.
@Mike PMike P , April 18, 2018 at 9:47 pm GMTMilitarily subsidised by Nato, Germany spends next to nothing on its own defence and is keeping wages down even more than usual by importing immigrants, thereby aiding its deindustrialising of the rest of the EU. Russia is declining in national power compared to Germany by getting into silly pissing contests with America. Adolf Hitler always said it would be necessary to sacrifice millions of Germans to make Germany Great. He would approve of Merkel.
@SeanWhat keeps German wages down, in real terms, is the Euro, not the migrants.
You are correct on the neglect of the armed forces. I have griped about it often, but I have recently changed my tune. If the forces were indeed up to snuff, this would only cause the U.S. to "ask" for their deployment in their many endless idiotic wars. Letting the troops degrade to some sort of war museum on wheels is a sly way of getting out of that – can't deploy in the short term, sorry, no spark plugs, but will be more than happy to go along for the next war so I now see this as one of the few things Merkel got right.
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Apr 19, 2018 | www.unz.com
S. N. , April 19, 2018 at 12:43 am GMT
The Corrupt U.S. Congress Cheers as the War Industry Steals Billions from the People's Coffers !Christian Sorensen | April 13, 2018
"Missile Production Capacity
In February, Newsbud reported on the war industry increasing its capacity to produce Hellfire missiles.
Capacity to produce other missile types is expanding as well.
On 6 March 2018, BAE Systems received close to $13.7 million to help increase production capacity of the Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System (APKWS). With its headquarters in London, BAE Systems links the U.K. war industry to the United States, effectively underpinning the 'special relationship' between the two countries.
On 19 March 2018, Raytheon received roughly $7.8 million to improve the production capacity of AIM-9X Sidewinder missiles. Steps Raytheon might take to increase missile production include adding more equipment, altering staffing levels, and upgrading its facilities.
The war industry has been operating at full steam for the past seventeen years. Now, these contracts tell us, the boardrooms of prominent war industry giants believe there is reason to produce more Hellfire, APKWS, and Sidewinder missiles. Is it war with Iran? A bigger offensive against President Assad's forces in Syria? Conflict in Korea?
The U.S. war industry is expecting more sustained, high-tempo hostilities in the near future. You've been warned."
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Apr 19, 2018 | www.unz.com
KA , April 19, 2018 at 1:53 am GMT
Iran doesn't want to escalate the situation and give Trump any leverage on Iran deal. Iran wants to deprive any moral political or legal supports from EU to USA on this. Trump pulls out. Rest remains same. This will give Iran moral political and legal authorities to pursue its nuclear program with China and Russia.This will have domino effects on other areas of these 3 countries -- how to conduct business internationally.
So a choreographed coordinated attack works for Iran. Trump is happy. His base angry. His enemies can't go after him for few hours or days . Mad madam prostitute Nick Halley has to be soothed by Kudlow telling her she was not a demented rat.
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Apr 18, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com
A massive battle is brewing between former FBI Director James Comey, and his deputy Andy McCabe - as first noted a few weeks ago by the Daily Caller 's Chuck Ross - over exactly who is lying about Comey knowing that McCabe had been leaking self-serving information to the Wall Street Journal .
Comey stopped by ABC's The View to peddle his new book, A HigherRoyaltyLoyalty, where he called his former Deputy Andrew McCabe a liar , and admitted that he "ordered the report" which found McCabe guilty of leaking to the press and then lying under oath about it, several times.Comey was asked by host Megan McCain how he thought the public was supposed to have "confidence" in the FBI amid revelations that McCabe lied about the leak.
" It's not okay. The McCabe case illustrates what an organization committed to the truth looks like ," Comey said. " I ordered that investigation. "
Comey then appeared to try and frame McCabe as a "good person" despite all the lying.
"Good people lie. I think I'm a good person, where I have lied," Comey said. " I still believe Andrew McCabe is a good person but the inspector general found he lied, " noting that there are "severe consequences" within the DOJ for doing so. As a reminder, the Justice Department's internal watchdog, Inspector General Michael Horowitz, released a report last week detailing his conclusions from the months-long probe of McCabe, which found that the former acting FBI Director leaked a self-serving story to the press and then lied about it under oath .
In response, McCabe's attorney, Michael R. Bromwich (flush with cash from the disgraced Deputy Director's half-million dollar legal defense GoFundMe campaign), fired back - claiming that Comey was well aware of the leaks .
" In his comments this week about the McCabe matter, former FBI Director James Comey has relied on the Inspector Genera's (OIG) conclusions in their report on Mr. McCabe. In fact, the report fails to adequately address the evidence (including sworn testimony) and documents that prove that Mr. McCabe advised Director Comey repeatedly that he was working with the Wall Street Journal on the stories in question..." reads the statement in part. So to review , McCabe was fired when it was uncovered that he authorized an F.B.I. spokesman and attorney to tell Devlin Barrett of the Wall St. Journal , just days before the 2016 election, that the FBI had not put the brakes on a separate investigation into the Clinton Foundation - at a time in which McCabe was coming under fire for his wife taking a $467,500 campaign contribution from Clinton
proxypal, Terry McAuliffe.The WSJ article in question reads:
New details show that senior law-enforcement officials repeatedly voiced skepticism of the strength of the evidence in a bureau investigation of the Clinton Foundation, sought to condense what was at times a sprawling cross-country effort, and, according to some people familiar with the matter, told agents to limit their pursuit of the case . The probe of the foundation began more than a year ago to determine whether financial crimes or influence peddling occurred related to the charity.
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Some investigators grew frustrated, viewing FBI leadership as uninterested in probing the charity , these people said. Others involved disagreed sharply, defending FBI bosses and saying Mr. McCabe in particular was caught between an increasingly acrimonious fight for control between the Justice Department and FBI agents pursuing the Clinton Foundation case .
So McCabe leaked information to the WSJ in order to combat rumors that Clinton had indirectly bribed him to back off the Clinton Foundation investigation, and then lied about it four times to the DOJ and FBI, including twice under oath.
Did McCabe in fact tell Comey about the leaks?
Is Comey losing his " boyscoutish " charm?
Will McCabe and Comey face justice following Wednesday's criminal referral to the DOJ?
Find out on the next episode of bickering bureaucrats...
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Apr 18, 2018 | turcopolier.typepad.com
Pat Lang Mod -> Wj , a day ago
Ever heard of the British Army's 77th Brigade?Wj -> Pat Lang , a day agoPLang,TTG -> Wj , a day agoNo, but you just sent me down a fascinating rabbit hole. From what I can tell, there is the already established link between White Helmets and Mayday Rescue, which seems to be an extension of or front for the 77th.
It turns out that news reports citing UOSSM tend *also* to cite or refer to "French intelligence," especially if the report has to do with local conditions or events within Syria. So perhaps the "partnership" between the UOSSM and the White Helmets in Syria represents, in large part, the coordination of British and French military propaganda/intelligence services.
I had already heard that French intelligence was using Doctors Without Borders (MSF) as cover in Syria, but was not aware that UOSSM in Syria is likely--at least in part--another French intelligence front. How common is this kind of multinational coordination of intelligence/propaganda front groups, if that is what this is?
My own impression is that the NGO-ification of military and state intelligence of the degree and sophistication we see in Syria is a relatively recent phenomenon, predicated in part on the disseminating capacities of social media platforms. Is this right?
Wj,JJackson -> TTG , a day ago"How common is this kind of multinational coordination of intelligence/propaganda front groups, if that is what this is?"
The coordination and interoperability among these special operations units is intense and has grown rapidly over the last decade. Even in the 80s this joint combined exchange training was the norm. Now it extends into live operations.
This 77th Brigade is an odd mashup linking civil affairs and PSYOP capabilities, but kept within the Tier 1 special operations community. I never heard of it before, but it's a logical progression. We probably have a similar military capability, but i have no idea what it is.
I note it also has close links to the close ties with the 361st Civil Affairs Brigade.Peter C. -> Wj , 7 hours agoMy wife and I stopped donating to MSF a few months ago, based on their evident lack of neutrality in Syria. The reply from their Donor Relations office did nothing to dispel that impression. In it, MSF admitted that "extreme insecurity has forced us to remove our medical teams from the front lines of the conflict. As a result, in order to do what we can to help alleviate the suffering of Syrians, we have partnered with several hospitals and medical clinics to provide support, with medical supplies and expertise from a distance...Though our teams may not be physically present on the front lines, we receive regular reports..."I think we can guess who those "reports" are from.
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Apr 18, 2018 | thesaker.is
Rob from Canada on April 15, 2018 , · at 5:39 pm UTC
In my opinion, the ego becomes "mental" when it starts believing in duality, that it's the centre of the personality and in control. It's just the centre of the field of consciousness.Stuart Harlan Doblin on April 16, 2018 , · at 5:43 pm UTCI believe Stoicism has a great deal of value for modern man.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5897dMWJiSM&t=333s"The axiom of Maria. A precept in alchemy: "One becomes two, two becomes three, and out of the third comes the one as the fourth."
Jung used the axiom of Maria as a metaphor for the whole process of individuation. One is the original state of unconscious wholeness; two signifies the conflict between opposites; three points to a potential resolution; the third is the transcendent function; and the one as the fourth is a transformed state of consciousness, relatively whole and at peace."Good Day Rob from Canada – Stuart says, "Hi".Barry on April 15, 2018 , · at 10:46 pm UTC"In my opinion, the ego becomes "mental" when it starts believing in duality, that it's the centre of the personality and in control. It's just the centre of the field of consciousness."
Stuart begins: Our ego is a vestigal organ, long since gone by the by, and all that remains is a cell-wall-less gooey-plasma ready at the moment to luminesce and retire into nothingness.
I take it as axiotmatic that our Whole Mind cannot lose it Self.
OK, Rob from Canada, now to your opinions:
One: "the ego becomes "mental" when it starts believing in duality".
Two: "(the ego is) the centre of the personality".
Three: "(the ego is) in control".
Four: "(the ego) is the centre of the field of consciousness".Regarding Point One: Please explain how fracturing an entirely mistaken ideal can lead to dualism and not chaos?
Two: "Who says?"
Three: "Of What?"
Four: An unconscious ideal cannot attain consciousness, except in illusions.Hi Stuart! Here's my take on the issue of ego being mental, and from my own experience it is correct. With very little practice one can observe his thoughts and internal dialogue. It doesn't require meditation. It's simply a matter of paying attention to our internal dialogue. We all talk to ourselves. That internal dialogue is the ego talking to itself. The ego is a mental construction based on the brain's interpretation of it's experience since birth. So what are we witnessing the ego's internal dialogue and thoughts with? That's where our "spirituality" lies, regardless of religion or no religion. We all have immediate access to the witness to our own ego but few use it. The "witness" is silent. It observes and knows, but doesn't know how or why it knows. Call it "knowingness". That witnessing awareness is silent. Zen Buddhists call it the practice of "no mind". In modern sports it's called being in "The Zone". Though silent is is a very aware state of consciousness.Stiv R on April 16, 2018 , · at 1:59 am UTC
Instead of using our brain to think when we want to use it to think, we let the brain's ego think us and think our lives for us. Our ego is our own worst enemy. The ego never sees the "big picture" of all involved. The ego/mind is always insecure and spends it's life trying to compensate is some way or another to overcome it's basic insecurity.
Humans for the most part, identify with their mental chatter (the ego). Any real spiritual teaching, teaches us to identify, instead, with the observer of the ego, which is transcending the ego.
All the problems we face on this planet are because of insecure individual egos, grouping to form tribal egos, such as tribes of nationalism, tribes of religious beliefs, tribes of political beliefs, tribes of sports team fans. Egos tend to be competitive and want to be "one up" in some way. One can easily see that the party of Democrats has an ego identity as does the party of Republicans. Egos are mental creations. Mental creations are not necessarily true. They are beliefs about our perception, whether actually correct or not. The witness or observer we all have and share knows the truth of the moment and the appropriate action to take. Of all the books on Spiritual Practices I've read through the years (I'm 80), I recommend Eckhart Tolle's "The Power Of Now". The best to you!To Barry, thank you for your post. I have read Tolle's book too, about 8 years ago, and found it really making good sense to me. Your explanation of our internal dialogue not being who we really are, is very clear and well-said. These can be hard concepts to get one's head around. You did an admirable job of it in your post.Anonymous on April 16, 2018 , · at 5:12 am UTC
Thanks again for posting your thoughts.Insecure group think problems at the crux of existence.Stuart Harlan Doblin on April 16, 2018 , · at 5:35 pm UTCSimple, profound and, also from my experience, true.
Thank you Barry.
Barry, I pride myself in speaking to an octogenarian! "And from my own experience" .Robin Gaura on April 17, 2018 , · at 5:51 pm UTC"Here's my take on the issue of ego being mental, and from my own experience it is correct. With very little practice one can observe his thoughts and internal dialogue. It doesn't require meditation. It's simply a matter of paying attention to our internal dialogue. We all talk to ourselves. That internal dialogue is the ego talking to itself. The ego is a mental construction based on the brain's interpretation of it's experience since birth."
Barry, the internal dialogue of what you speak, is to me, your conscience and your inner self, not the ego talking to a hallucination of itself; for what can an illusion manifest but more illusions of : it : self.
The ego is a misprojection from our higher mind; ergo, not mind, but misunderstanding, illusion, maya, separate from reality, separate from us, not us, not anyone, just lost awareness with no where to settle but nonexistence from which it came.
Cool. I´d take it a bit further, though. Putting the mind on emptiness, the place without characteristics, in a deep meditative state. One sees the way things really exist, the way consciousness creates our reality, the truth of emptiness and karma. Its called entering the stream. The beginning of the transformation to the divine being. Its an experience that changes you forever.
Beyond words. Meditation is essential.
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Apr 18, 2018 | russia-insider.com
The Rape of Russia (full transcript)
Lars Schall: Hello ladies and gentlemen. I am now connected with F. William Engdahl, who has written a new book, Manifest Destiny: Democracy as Cognitive Dissonance. Hi William.
F. William Engdahl: Hello, Lars. Good to be with you again.
LS: Great to have you with us. And first off, let me read something to you and our audience that was written by the economist Dean Baker earlier this month.
As a long-term columnist at the NYT, Thomas Friedman apparently never feels the need to know anything about the topics on which he writes. This explains his sarcastic speculation that Putin could be a CIA agent since he has done so much to hurt Russia.
For all his authoritarian tendencies, it is likely that most Russians think primarily about Putin's impact on the economy, just as is typically the case among voters in the United States. On that front, Putin has a very good record.According to data from the IMF Russia's economy had plunged in the 1990s under the Yeltsin presidency. When Putin took over in 1998, per capita income in the country had shrunk by more than 40 percent from its 1990 level. This is a far sharper downturn than the United States saw in the Great Depression. Since Putin took power its per capita income has risen by more than 115 percent, an average annual growth rate of more than 3.9 percent.
While this growth has been very unequal, that was also the case even as Russia's economy was collapsing under Yeltsin. The typical Russian has done hugely better in the last two decades under Putin than they did in the period when Yeltsin was in power.
For this reason, there are probably few Russians who would have sympathy for Friedman's speculation about Putin's ties to the CIA. The same would not be the case for Boris Yeltsin.
Now, I think this is a good starting point for our discussion William because in your book, you have a chapter entitled The Rape of Russia, the CIA's Yeltsin Coup d'état. Why do you talk about rape related to Russia?
FWE: What the US Government under George Herbert Walker Bush, Bush Senior organised together with CIA, old boy networks of his, in terms of the breaking up of the Soviet Union and the looting of the assets, this open theft, the destruction of pensions, security, the health system and everything. The only appropriate word is the rape of Russia. They just pondered anything that they could.
And what you just read from Mr. Friedman is of course horse rubbish but the real CIA asset of this whole collapse of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s was in fact Boris Yeltsin and the so called Yeltsin Family, the Yeltsin Mafia. And in my book, the Manifest Destiny book I document and detail at great lengths the relation of a handful of KGB very, very senior persons who worked with the Bush Senior old boys CIA networks in the West and their banks to create a group of oligarchs around Yeltsin, you know the famous Russian oligarchs, well, The New York Times and other Western Media portrayed them as Russian Mafia. They were kind of mafia but the real point was that they were a CIA-run mafia. They were run by the West. They betrayed their own country, their own people and literally stole billions and billions and billions of dollars of assets. And that's the reason for the title in that chapter.
LS: And Boris Yeltsin was very essential for this.
FWE: He was the key figure. He had been selected as a regional governor and brought into Moscow and a certain point Gorbachev saw him as a rising star and someone that could help with a little bit more liberal image as [unclear] was – the Russian economy was running into serious trouble in the '80s, the Star Wars of Reagan, the Nicaragua and above all the war in Afghanistan which is a CIA project with the Mujahideen, that took 10 years long that was bleeding the Soviet economy, the Soviet Union's Vietnam, as Brzezinski used to call it.
And the West, the Bush networks recruited a handful of KGB agents around Yeltsin who literally promoted Yeltsin to the top when they engineered the August 1991 fake coup. You remember, I'm sure many people remember the picture of Boris Yeltsin standing there courageously on top of a Soviet tank in front of the Russian White House or Soviet House, the Supreme Soviet building and reading a speech defying Gorbachev and so forth. Well, that was a KGB CIA-engineered coup d'état in June 1991. And through that the – this network, this corrupt network within the KGB that was working with the CIA, working with General Philip, Bob [unclear] is one of them, so called at that time the KGB brain. He was head of the KGB Fifth Directorate controlling to roll this in. And he later joined the [#inaudible 00:06:40-0#] oil and to this day he's still a member of the State Duma giving him prosecution immunity.
So, some of these people are still around after some 23, 25 years and incredibly enough but others of them have died off, have been killed, or murdered or whatever. But the operation that was done with Yeltsin, this corrupt KGB network working with the CIA financed Yeltsin's the silent seat of the presidency of the Russian Federation. And once they had their man in controlling the Russian Federation which is the largest of the former Soviet Union, the Socialist Republic, they were able to engineer through the international monetary fund that was mandated to oversee the transformation of the Soviet economy.
They engineered a complete opening up of the assets of the Russian Federation which called today the Russian Federation, the largest part of the former Soviet Union and they made it such that the Russian Federation would assume all of the debts of Ukraine, of Kazakhstan and the other socialist republics of the Soviet and all the assets, all the crucial assets that were within the Russian Federation so the aluminium Rusal that's in the headlines yesterday, the nickel, the oil, the gas, just hundreds of billions if not trillions of dollars' worth of assets that came into Yeltsin's control.
LS: But those assets were sold to a price that was rather ridiculous.
FWE: Someone estimated that that gets into the whole coupon privatisation that was set up under Yeltsin in the '90s. The coupon privatisation issued one coupon to every single Russian man, woman and child 140 million in total. And the value of those coupons was such someone estimated that the totality of Russian Soviet's Fed assets or Russian Federation assets now was equal to the value of the stock at that point of General Electric Company on the New York Stock Exchange. I mean that's just laughable. Russia had financial bankruptcy because the shock therapy, the Jeffrey Sachs and others from Harvard and elsewhere brought in, George Soros and his pals. That created bankrupt companies that couldn't stand on their own and suddenly they had no, no resources. But the assets, the assets on the ground, the nickel, the aluminium, the uranium that Hillary Clinton knows more than a little bit about them, all of these were estimated to be in the trillions of dollars. And this is what the Bush operation aimed at. And they used NGOs, they used the National Endowment for Democracy, they used, George Soros' Open Society Foundation and so forth to bring this about.
LS: You've mentioned already the coup d'etat attempt of August 1991. Highly important for things to come was something that took place in early 1991 and that was the theft of the Soviet gold. Please tell us about this.
FWE: The, under the Soviet Union, this is a very crucial point about the transition that Washington forced on the Russian Federation because Yeltsin was, I think as long as he was well-supplied with vodka he didn't protest very much. But under the Soviet system and the Russian Federation took this over, there was a state bank, not a private central bank like the Federal Reserve or the European Central Bank today but a state bank that was an entity of the Russian State apparatus and that was called the Gosbank. And a man named Viktor Gerashchenko was the chairman of Gosbank at the time of Yeltsin's early start in 1991.
And Gerashchenko made a speech around that time in November of '91 to the Russian Duma or the parliament such as it was and said, "I have to report to you ladies and gentlemen that of perhaps 3,000 tons of Gosbank state-owned gold reserves, we have an estimated less than 400 tons that we can account for." And then he had to go to tell, shock members of parliament that he had no idea what happened to the missing gold, which of course was a lie. And Gerashchenko had created right after 1989 to prepare this coup d'etat coup, which was the CIA and Bush's old boys, he had created something called [unclear] on the Channel Islands in the Island of Jersey to handle the Russian foreign currency reserves.
And the Jersey was exempt from European supervision, so this was a perfect place to hide money, dirty money or stolen money and they managed something like $37 billion between 1993 and 1998. The Gerashchenko and the Gosbank even went to the lengths of hiring a New York Financial Detective firm called the Financial CIA back then called Jules Kroll Associate. And they were told to track the Soviet gold, find out what happened to it and something like $14 billion of communist party assets that were missing as well. And the Cruel which was tied with the CIA linked AIG Insurance Group Hank Greenberg whom you remember from the 2008 to the bail out of Henry Paulson.
LS: Yes.
FEW: The Kroll Associates after a few months announced that they had no results in the attempt to find the missing Soviet Gosbank gold. Then to add insult to injury, the IMF came in and rewrote the constitution of the Russian Federation under Yeltsin and took the power of money creation just like the Federal Reserve took the power of money creation from the congress in 1913. They took the power of money creation from the state and created the Russian Federation Central Bank, the Russian Central Bank and gave it a mandate for two things. One, to control inflation and the other to create currency stability.
Now, in Russia that day that meant stability of the ruble against the US dollar. So it effectively hammer-locked the Russian money creation into the US dollar. And unfortunately that constitution amendment holds until the present day. It's one of the difficulties that Vladimir Putin has been having to try to persuade the Independent Central Bank to lower interest rates more rapidly as inflation is simply managed as a problem in Russia in the last two years.
So, they looted the gold so that there would be no stability to the ruble. If you don't have any gold-backing, then western investors are going to lack confidence which is sort of what happened. And then they began working with very select western bankers to get their money out of Russia.
LS: And instrumental to get money out of Russia were Valmet and Riggs. Can you tell us please about some crucial personnel that was employed there at Valmet and Riggs?
FWE: Valmet Riggs was kind of a fusion of a Swiss bank and Riggs Bank of Washington D. C. And Riggs Bank, this is really quite a fascinating and very little discussed aspect of the reign of Russia back in the '90s.
So you have something called Riggs Bank in Washington and they were set up decades earlier since the 1960s CIA Bay of Pigs operation, they were known as the CIA tied bank. They invested the assets of people like Marcos of the Philippines until when he was close to the CIA. And there was a former NATO Ambassador named Alton Keel and in 1989 when the Soviet KGB generals and they had a group of protégés called the 'Kids' by George Bush Senior. The protégés were in their 30s and a couple of them were in their 40s but rather young. And they were the ones who were nominated to become the oligarchs, the frontal men for taking these state assets the aluminium, the oil assets and other things and looting the Russian Federation.
And Alton Keel just as the Russians were setting up men at a bank for the oligarchs to funnel their stolen assets, de facto stolen assets, Keel went from NATO and the National Security Council to become a head of international banking of Riggs Bank in Washington and its deputy chairman.
Now, it gets even more interesting because the international banking group of Riggs included a new entity that had been created called Riggs Valmet SA in Switzerland, and Riggs Valmet was set up by a man named Jonathan J. Bush, a private banker, who just happened to be the brother of George Herbert Walker Bush. So, Bush brother and Alton Keel set up Riggs Valmet, there was a money laundering apparatus in Geneva and Riggs then through their help bought the major share in Geneva Valmet to create Riggs Valmet.
So, you have the brother of the president of the United States up to his eyeballs in this whole Yeltsin CIA money laundering operation. And then Jonathan Bush was created CEO of something called Riggs Investment in Connecticut where he lived and at that point the looting and taking of the dollar assets out of Russia was just unstoppable. It was in the billions and tens of billions of dollars.
LS: William, there is one guy who was working closely with those people and he was working on Wall Street but later on he was personally recruited by George Tenet then the Director of CIA to become the number three at the CIA, and this is Alvin Bernard "Buzzy" Krongard.
FWE: Yes. We meet "Buzzy" Krongard at Bankers Trust, which bought up Alex Brown, and Krongard became vice chairman of Bankers Trust along with another charming character named Carter Beese. And at the time of the 1998 collapse of the ruble, Krongard was formally made, as you've pointed out, number three, the executive director at the CIA under George Tenet. So, it's a CIA network from beginning to end, from the banking side to you know the direct CIA side. You have Carter Beast, you have "Buzzy" Krongard, Jonathan Bush and Alton Keel and they were the ones working with Valmet as the Riggs Valmet Bank in Geneva to pull this money out through shell companies.
And the oligarchs, this is an interesting part of this whole thing that you know right now Theresa May and the foreign secretary Boris Johnson in the UK are accusing Putin of murdering almost everybody since the birth of Jesus Christ. And one of them was the person who had been the trusted bodyguard of one of the oligarchs living in London Boris Berezovsky.
And Berezovsky was one of the dirtiest of these oligarchs. He'd financed the Ukrainian Colour Revolution back in 2003, 2004 as a revenge against Putin because he at first thought Putin could be bought like Yeltsin and suddenly he realized that he was up against the faction of nationalists within of what had been the KGB but wanted to stabilise and preserve Russia as a functioning nation today. And so Mikhail Khodorkovskyi, Roman Abramovich, who is listed on the sanctions list yesterday, and Berezovsky were some of the leading oligarchs that were created by this Bush operation.
LS: And to jumpstart all of this, we have to talk about something that is well, that is stranger than fiction and that is something called for example "Yamashita's Gold". If our audience is interested in this, they could for example look for an article written by Chalmers Johnson, the famous Asian expert, The Looting of Asia, which was published at the London Review of Books on the 20 th of November of 2003 because then they can find something on this topic of Yamashita's gold on an instant basis in the internet ( https://www.lrb.co.uk/v25/n22/chalmers-johnson/the-looting-of-asia ). I think this is just fair
FWE: Yeah.
LS: because no one really is aware of this whole story. Please tell us about this.
FWE: The Yamashita Gold story is one of the, as you've said really incredible stories of post-World War II. During the Second World War, the Japanese Imperial Family looted the gold of occupied Arch of China, they looted the gold of all the parts of Asia that they had conquered.
LS: Basically from 1895 to 1945.
FWE: Yeah, yeah. And because they had no guarantee that Japan was going to win the war, the emperor ordered the gold to be hidden away in, mostly in the Philippines as far as we know and literally untold tons of gold were buried so deep underground in tunnels around the Philippines and the people who dug the tunnels in many cases were later shot you know so that they couldn't tell. But Marcos who was a CIA asset initially, the dictator of the Philippines through much of the '70s and into the '80s, yeah through the '70, Ferdinand Marcos somehow came upon some of this gold. So, the Japanese looted war body was buried in the early '40s before the end of the war on orders of Emperor Hirohito should they lose the war.
And at some point in the 1970s, Marcos discovered some of the sites where Hirohito's soldiers had buried the gold and the gold was stolen from China, Korea, Philippines, Indonesia and other countries occupied by the Japanese forces. And Marcos, and I think this is the major reason the CIA dumped him, got a little bit greedy and took that gold and started selling it under the market through selective secret Swiss banks. But he used the CIA asset, the Saudi billionaire named Adnan Khashoggi to help them get the gold under the market. And what he didn't realise was that Khashoggi would double cross him. He got a better deal from Bush Senior and the old boys.
LS: We have to say Khashoggi is a figure who is involved for example in B.C.C.I. and in Iran-Contra.
FWE: Back in the '70s he was involved in everything dirty that Bush and the CIA were involved in. B.C.C.I. Bank, the money laundering bank of the CIA, the arms deals, Khashoggi was a huge arms dealer during the Iran and Iraq war the CIA was feeding. He was involved in almost every dirty thing the CIA was doing.
LS: He was aware of this gold.
FWE: Supposedly he was helping Marcos to sell the gold out of the market. So he was not only aware of it, he was right in the middle of it. But then once Marcos was tackled by the CIA Bush got rid of Marcos in 1986. Then someone named Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Armitage and Khashoggi began to work with someone in Canada to create something called – Peter Munk was his name, a rather dubious businessman there – to found something called Barrick Gold of Canada and later it went on to become the world's largest gold mining company.
But Barrick Gold, all available evidence is that buried gold was used to melt down the – I don't want to get too much into the details of this but basically to melt down the Emperor Hirohito's gold that had been discovered by Marcos in the Philippines, to melt it down and use that as collateral for derivatives that would be the collateral used to take over the Russian Federation assets.
LS: The money was basically transformed into bank loans into Russia so that the would-become oligarch people could buy up those assets
FWE: Yes, exactly. So, Yegor Gaidar, the economic privatisation adviser of Yeltsin and his sidekick Anatoly Chubais privatisation had kind of guided this whole process together with Jeffrey Sachs and a group from Harvard University. #00:28:37-8#
LS: Yeah. Let us talk about this. This is known as Harvard Shock Therapy.
FEW: Well, the Jeffrey Sachs Shock Therapy, but the Harvard shock therapy is – well, what happened, the next phase of this incredible story and it's important to keep all this in mind, this is one reason that I wrote the book because of what was clear after the CIA coup d'etat of 2014 in Ukraine and all the sanctions against Putin's Russia and so forth, that if you don't understand what really happened in the '90s, the deep-seated hatred there is on these neoconservatives around Washington and their think tanks as well as, the US political establishment for Putin's Russia and the nationalism behind group Russia. You can't make much sense out of what's going on today with all these incredible lies and accusations against Russia for every crime under the book.
So, what happened is the, as I mentioned the IMF, the International Monetary Fund which had done a beautiful job for Washington in terms of, and George Soros and others in terms of looting the assets of the dead economies of Latin America, Yugoslavia, Poland and others during the oil crisis in the 1970s. The IMF was used and a group of economists around Jeffrey Sachs, a young professor at Harvard University then to impose what Sachs called shock therapy.
And the idea was that Sachs convinced Yeltsin, let prices rise through western market prices and this will increase the supply of goods, you know the stores had a paucity of goods back in the Soviet Times and get rid of trade barriers so foreign commodities could flow in to fill the shelves of Russian stores. The problem was that was a lie. The shops had been full. Okay, you could say it wasn't Kellogg's Corn Flakes and Fried Perdue Chickens or whatever, but they were full of Russian food products until November of '91 when Yeltsin announced that the exact date on December 31 st of 1991, that price controls would be suddenly lifted. So, shop owners immediately hid their goods and waited for December 31 st . So, suddenly the shops were empty and rationing was imposed and so forth. It's just unbelievable.
So, into this, this was Jeffrey Sachs on shock therapy and a group of Harvard University under the auspices of the Harvard Institute for International Development, a group of, among other things later documented CIA agents set up shop in Moscow and worked with Yeltsin's economic team Gaidar and Yegor Gaidar and Anatoly Chubais and themselves got in on the thunder the Russian East Harvard economist working. Now we have a transition in '93 through the Clinton Administration and there former Harvard professor and former World Bank Chief Economist Lawrence Summers became the deputy secretary of treasury responsible for the looting of Russia, effective and responsible for the gold economic transition in the Russian Federation.
And all of the key actors were named by Summers and they were all involved in the privatisation of Russia. They were all from this Harvard Mafia. For example of David Lipton, a former consulting partner of the Jeffrey Sachs, became deputy assistant secretary of treasure for former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe and Sachs himself was named Director of Harvard HIID that oversaw the looting of Russia through the voucher privatisation and so forth. And they got grants from the USAID, AID works very closely with the CIA in different parts of the world, this is documented. And so it was really a tight-knit cabal around Lawrence Summers that oversaw this complete theft through these pieces of paper called privatisation coupons.
And what you had was the economic situation under Yeltsin had become so severe I mean people literally they had no jobs because of the freeing up of prices, they could afford to buy little or nothing. So, most people, millions of Russians sold their privatisation vouchers on the street corners to the highest bidder. And of course the would-be oligarchs were the ones with hard currency dollars that they could buy these things up as you pointed out earlier when we talked about them. So, they had credits from their friends in the West, the Riggs Valmet and so forth to buy up these vouchers and therefore they were able when the cost came up, were able to simply steal the property titles, the ownership titles of some of the most valuable investor assets and mineral assets in the world.
LS: And we can talk about this as a classical case of leveraged buyout – even though it was a covered leveraged buyout, if it was?
FEW: Well, you could call it a leveraged buyout. I know Anne Williamson has used that term, the earlier descriptions of it. I think it was simply legalised theft, leveraged buyout gives it too much dignity. That was a term that was quite popular in the financial world back in the '80s and the early '90s. But whatever name you want to give it, it was certainly not a conventional leveraged buyout, it was bizarre in every sense of the word.
LS: An influential figure in this was mentioned by you already, George Soros. And in 1994, as you point out in your book, he was described with the following words from The Guardian in London, "Soros extraordinary role not only as the world's most successful investor but now possibly fantastically as the senior most powerful foreign influence in the whole of the former Soviet Empire, it tricks more suspicion than curiosity." What was he doing back then in Russia?
FWE: Soros was very intermittently tied with Jeffrey Sachs and the whole Harvard to become a shock therapy group and working with Lawrence Summers team at the US Treasury under Clinton. And in 1993 already the opposition inside what was left of Russia when the old communist party was in the Duma and so forth and the population generally was such that the opposition threatened to get out of hand and Yeltsin was forced to agree to hold a national referendum on the entire privatisation. So, this was in April of '93 and the referendum that was given to the population had four questions, yes or no. Do you support Yeltsin? Yes or no? Do you support Yeltsin's economic policy? Yes or no? Do you want early election for president? Yes or no? And do you want early elections for parliament? Yes or no?
So, Chubais was as an adviser to Yeltsin at that time and the key person on the economy arranged the secret meeting with George Soros. And Soros agreed to finance of course on behalf of Yeltsin, the referendum campaign. So he funnelled money over a million dollars by some accounts to offshore accounts set up to be used by Chubais to buy media. And so the media campaign and by this time most of the national media had been bought up by the oligarchs around Yeltsin so they were able to exercise undue influence. So they barely squeak through and got a yes to the privatisation scheme that Harvard, Jeffrey Sachs and George Soros and others had going on. And then of course Soros' company himself benefitted enormously from this privatisation just a little bit later when the auctions took place.
LS: A figure that connects yesterday with today is Vladimir Putin who came to international attention first in 1998, the same year when the ruble crisis took place.
FWE: This was 1999 and in August '98 you had the collapse of the ruble. This was part of the Bush "Operation Hammer's" original design. You had a huge scam going on in the GKO Russian Bond market where the interest rates were just unbelievably high. So, you had all sorts of hot money coming in, making profits and pulling it up including Soros Fund, quantum fund and so forth.
And finally, Yeltsin was getting near the end of his ability to hold this thing together. And he appointed in August '99, he appointed a young former KGB officer who served during the Cold War in East Germany named Vladimir Putin. And briefly Putin had been a deputy mayor in St. Petersburg and briefly had been the head of the successor to the KGB called FSB and the oligarchs around Putin, I've heard various Russian accounts have had this happen but Berezovsky, Brzezinski and other, the Yeltsin oligarchs thought they could take this young guy Putin and do business with him and you know that he was young and had no political base.
So, at that point Putin gave the ultimatum to Yeltsin, resign or face serious consequences and it turned out that Putin which has later been confirmed was the spokesperson for a nationalist faction within the intelligence community, a patriotic faction, call it what you want but Russian nationalist. And so Yeltsin was told, "If you resign and just get out of politics, we'll leave you alone." So he took the offer and ran. And before he did that he named Vladimir Putin as acting president until elections in March the following year.
So, Putin then came into power and called a meeting as it were of the most powerful oligarchs who had made staggering fortunes at the expense of Russia and he called them creators of a corrupt state through insider dealings and began criminal prosecution against oligarchs like Vladimir Gusinsky and Media-Most, a financial group led by Vladimir Potanin who is in the newspaper today and soon left an oil company controlled by a Roman Abramovich and Boris Berezovsky. So, at that point Putin began the uphill battle of trying to stabilise Russia as a functioning economy. And the recent re-election of Putin indicates that the Russian people by and large support that effort of Putin's.
LS: Meanwhile he also had to react to something new that was taking place then and that was NATO was marching east.
FWE: The negotiations and this is, has been confirmed by former US Ambassador to Russia Jack Matlock and that was the negotiations between the Bush administration in 1991 Germany and Gorbachev included a solemn guarantee as Jack Matlock, Ambassador Matlock who was in Moscow in '87 until '91 in this period. He said that we gave a categorical assurance to Gorbachev when the Soviet Union still existed that if United Germany was able to stay in NATO, NATO would not move eastward. So, of course that pledge like so many pledges of Washington under Bush successor governance was honoured in the breach and the newly created National Endowment for Democracy that I write about quite a bit in the Manifest Destiny.
You had, Vin Weber was the chairman of the NED at that time and he took US taxpayer money through the NED to supposedly bring democracy into former communist states. Then Weber was also a member of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), the neocon think tank which really shaped the personnel of George W. Bush in the year 2000 and 2001. And Vin Weber was also a lobbyist for the largest military industrial conglomerate of the US Lockheed Martin.
So, he was instrumental together with another military industrial Lockheed Martin, former Vice President for Strategy named Bruce Jackson, Bruce P. Jackson to promote back democracy in former communist countries including Russia. And they started the process of expanding NATO to the east in strict violation of the pledges that had been given back in the early '90s. So, by 2003, they had begun this whole expansion of NATO into Poland, into Hungary, all the former communist countries.
LS: And the countries at the Baltic Sea.
FWE: So, at the Baltic Sea right on the doorstep of the Russian Federation, and Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and so forth. And you began to see a very definite NATO encirclement of Russia. And then in 2003-2004, the National Endowment for Democracy, George Soros' Foundation, the whole arm of the fake democracy NGOs of Washington, began to create the so called Orange Revolution in Ukraine, and also the Rose Revolution in Georgia next door. And if you look at a map, if you bring a pro NATO government into power in Ukraine, this they did under Viktor Gerashchenko in 2004, then you're presenting a pretty formidable military threat to the national security of Russia.
Now, at that time 2003, Russia was in no shape to do much more than feebly protest as loud as they could but of course they were ignored. Then you had something quite dramatic in 2006, the end of 2006. The George W. Bush administration Donald Rumsfeld was Secretary of Defence back then announced that they were installing ballistic missile defence now I'll get to that in a minute but it's anything but defensive. In Poland, in the Czech Republic and that those anti-missile defence installations which included missiles would be aimed at a rogue nuclear attack from Iran.
In early 2007, Vladimir Putin personally came as president of Russia Federation to the Munich Security Conference, the International Security Conference held here in Munich Germany and gave a speech which really defines the security position of Russia right up to the present date. He said of course this is not aimed at Iran or North Korea as Washington says. That's a lie. It's like taking your right arm to scratch your left ear we say in Russian. It's aimed at Russia. And we consider this intolerable as a threat to our national security and we will be forced to respond.
LS: And it is aimed at Russia as a first strike possibility.
FWE: Yeah. Well, the point about the missile defence is I – in connection with the book, I interviewed, in an earlier book I wrote, I interviewed Colonel Robert Bowman who had been briefly the head of Ronald Reagan's Star Wars or missile defence programme. And became a very, very severe critic of the Bush administration's reckless policies withdrawing from the antiballistic missile ABM Treaty and so forth, said that missile defence is the missing link to Nuclear Primacy. First strike capability.
And that's something that Pentagon planners had been opting for since the 1950s. And he said, "If you can block the counterattack from your opponent and you then have this possibility to make a first strike and wipe them out because they can't simultaneously fire an effective counterstrike." So, that in a nutshell destroys the whole cold war doctrine of mutual and sure destruction that kept nuclear options off the table up until that time. And the Russians understand military strategy rather well I would say. And said, "This is simply intolerable. We have to respond and we will respond but in our own way and you will see."
LS: And the Russians have reacted.
B: The Russians have reacted, and if we can go for a minute up until the present
LS: Please
FEW: On March 1st Putin gave an address to the Federal Assembly in Moscow televised to the nation. The beginning part of the speech, his annual speech there, was about the Russian economy and plans for the future. This was shortly before the Russian elections that overwhelmingly gave him a new term. But the crucial part of that speech to the Federal Assembly was Russia's military technologies and this is as he put it. He referred to that 2007 speech in Munich and he said, "We said at that time that Russia would have to reply and since the expansion of NATO to the east which really to be honest that's – see there is no reason after 1991 or certainly after 2000 for the existence of NATO other than the reason given when NATO was created by the first secretary general of NATO to keep the Russians out the Germans down and the Americans in."
But Putin's speech talked about nuclear primacy and the Russian response and he outlined the military are the developments that they had quietly brought online since Washington tore up, unilaterally tore up the ABM Treaty in 2002/2003. So he outlined an awesome array of missiles, hypersonic low flying stealth missiles carrying nuclear warheads, unpredictable trajectories, invisible against perspective missile defence and air defence systems, unmanned submersible vehicles to great depth that could go many times higher than the speed of submarines cutting edge torpedoes just and commentators in the West like CNN. They said, "Oh, this is just bluff and so forth."
People who know Russian military technology and the intensity of the kind of research and development that's focused on defending the nation confirm that this is no joke. Hypersonic aircraft five times the speed of sound, that's hypersonic and they have something called the [unclear] which goes 10 times mark 10 and as Putin described it, "This missile flying 10 times faster than sound can manoeuvre in all phases of the flight trajectory, overcome all prospective and aircraft county missile defences in a range of 2000 kilometres."
He outlined about six or seven of these I would call them not even cutting edge, bleeding edge military technology and as The Saker commented in his blogpost after the speech, it's indeed set marching game over for the empire. There's no more military option against Russia.
This all is to make a point that the entire history up until now, these fake accusations of Putin would have an interest or Russia would have an interest to meddle with the US elections when you have a choice between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump to accuse Putin and Russia of international violations of law by allowing a referendum to take place in Crimea after the CIA coup d'etat in Kiev and now it's come out from actual mercenary snipers that were brought in from Georgia under [#inaudible 00:55:08-0#] umbrella that they were paid by the CIA or promised to be paid by cut outs to the CIA to create the Maidan Square February 2014 chaos that led to the collapse of the government and the coup d'etat.
So, you know, this is not Russia is the arch Evel Knievel looking for a fight every corner of the world. It's not Russia doing bad things in Syria. It's Russia trying to stop a NATO and Saudi and other embedded destruction of the Middle East and create some kind of peace and stability. And anyone modest to take the slightest bit of care and follow this, they can read a running commentary on my website williamengdahl.com but not only there, it's all over the place. You realise that the fake media is the media that dominates and is guided by NATO public relations strategy in the West and it's not the so called critical media that's being sanctioned and censored right now.
LS: Let's talk further about the present, William, by closing one circle of our interview. As we've discussed the Russian gold vaults were empty since the early 1990s. This has changed since basically the financial crisis broke out in 2007, 2008, 2009. Since then the Russian Central Bank is buying gold like basically no other nation in a very rapid tempo.
FWE: Since the financial crisis and especially since the opposition of sanctions after the annexation of Crimea in 2014, it's been the policy of the Russian Central Bank and the Russian Federation to buy as much gold for reserves of the ruble as they can get their hands on. And they are now I think number five or number six in the world in terms of gold reserves and correct me if I'm wrong but just slightly behind the people's republic of China which has also been vigorously adding gold towards Central Bank reserves for the yuan.
So, what Russia is doing is creating a buffer gold, by the way in my view has never ceased being an object of value to stand behind currencies. If you have currencies like the dollar after all this 1971 when Nixon took the dollar off the bread and wood, gold exchange [unclear], then if you have a military you might or manipulate the oil price petrodollar and so forth, you can create money if you have the reserve currency you can create money without them. So what the Russia is doing is creating a security in terms of its currency and now that security is probably going to be tested by the economic warfare division of the US Treasury in these new sanctions.
But Russia is merging together with China. Interestingly enough after 2014 when the CIA coup d'etat Ukraine took place, Putin responded not by getting bogged down in the destructive war inside the Eastern Ukraine but he responded by turning east, strengthening his relationships with China, with the new president of China then Xi Jinping bringing the Asian economic Union which Russia is the leading economy in, together with Belarus and Kazakhstan, Armenia and others, bringing that in a coherence with Xi Jinping's Belt and Road Initiative One Belt, One Road to link the infrastructure, the energy pipelines, the high-speed rail networks, the deep water ports and so forth to create a Eurasian, some people call it the land bridge but it's an economic space in Eurasia that would have the majority of the world's population, would have every raw material resource that the world needs including rare earth metals that China is world's leading supplier of at the moment.
And Russia has vast oil and gas reserves and military technology, civilian technology, an educated labour force that is probably one of the finest in the world and scientific country and so forth. And independent of the bankrupt economies of Britain and the United States and very rapidly of the European Union where this banking crisis has, since the crisis of 2008 has just been swept under the rug but it's ready to explode on a moment's notice. So, you have a depth loaded western NATO world. Let's call it a NATO world, a world of the NATO member countries and you have Russia together, which by the way, Russia has unbelievably small
LS: Debt.
FWE: National debt.
LS: Yes.
FWE: Something like 13 to 17% of the gross domestic product.
LS: And now they have this huge stock of gold relative to very little sovereign debt. It's almost ideal.
FWE: Yes, and that's by design. That is by Putin's intention to create this independence. And one thing, I am very often in Russia, have a very, very dear special friends in Russia over the years, the first time I was there was 1994. That was a vastly different, that was in the middle of the Yeltsin and the insanity. The Russians are very not only proud people but they are very determined and they protect their existence and have done that I would say for well over 1000 years going back to the great schism between the Western church in Rome and the Eastern Church in 1054. I think that was a pivotal date in modern history, the division there.
But certainly the Russians have gone through two World Wars and the rape of Russia under Yeltsin, unbelievable trials and tribulations and they are not shying away from defending their existence. That's something I think the west or certainly Washington with these neocons really doesn't have a sense of.
LS: One thing that I would like to ask you about as my final question is the following. You are a renowned expert for the geopolitics and the history of oil. And since this month we have a future's contract in Shanghai, denominated in yuan for oil and we also hear that the Chinese are planning to price oil that they import in yuan which is safe for this buying of oil internationally via yuan, Russia would be the candidate number one as the exporter?
FWE: Definitely. Most definitely and Russia and China are connecting their financial markets ever closer. The Russian government is the in the process sometime this year of issuing Russian bonds denominated new Chinese yuan. The announcing of the petrol yuan, the oil futures contracts being sold in Shanghai, ultimately it won't happen overnight but it's certainly off to a positive start in the marketing acceptance. That has the basis for taking oil sales.
Let's step back a moment to the 1970s and I document this at length in two of my books, Myths, Lies and Oil Wars and A Century of War. In the early 1970s when Nixon took the dollar off of gold, the dollar relative to the German mark and the Japanese yen dropped like a stone, something like 40% over a period of five or six months. And in order to stop that because the New York Banks were hurting quite a bit from that, there was a oil price shock that was orchestrated. I won't go into the details it's documented quite extensively in those two books of mine.
LS: And Sheikh Yamani had said something about this, too.
FWE: Yes. He invited me after reading my book to his annual energy retreat in London in 2000, September 2000. And then called me to a private dinner discussion at his home outside of London to talk about what I wrote about in the book. And he later went on CNN on an interview and mentioned my book by name. In the written transcript it's in there and in the television version they spliced it out so that you couldn't realise that it'd been in there. But Sheikh Yamani told me you are the first journalist or the first person outside of myself that writes correctly what happened with that oil shock. And that was manipulated by among others Henry Kissinger, the Secretary of State and by a group in the Atlantic establishment called the Bilderberg meeting in Saltsjöbaden, Sweden back in May of that period before the Yom Kippur War.
In any case, the US circles around Rockefeller, who at that point was the chairman of the board of USA Incorporated, I would say. They had engineered a 400% price rise in oil and to make sure that Germany and Japan and other countries wouldn't make deals to buy oil in German mark but keep the dollar demand high and the dollar value high. They send a delegation from the US Treasury to sign an agreement with the Saudi Arabian monetary agency for a new relationship taking surplus Saudi petrodollars or OPEC petrodollars and buying US government debt.
LS: Yeah, and outside of the normal auction to privileged conditions.
FWE: Yes. In return, Washington agreed to give the Saudis tens and billions of dollars of defence equipment.
LS: Yeah, and Saudi Arabia would use its status as a swing producer in OPEC that it would only accept dollars as a pricing for oil.
FEW: And the quid pro quo was after 1975, this was formalised that Saudis would as swing producer in OPEC guarantee that OPEC sold its oil only in dollars and that held up until the time of Saddam Hussein during the sanctions shortly before the US invasion and Saddam Hussein began buying oil through a French bank denominated in Euros and not in dollars.
LS: And he made a plus, he made a net plus because he did sell his oil in Euro.
FWE: Yeah, yeah. And so this, what that has done up until the present is prop up the US dollars despite the fact that the internal industrial economy import activity of the United States went down the tubes over the past 40 years since the taking the dollar off of gold and the, putting of English dollars for the world economy. So, the idea than China and Russia would trade in energy and that other economies would begin to sell oil to China, Iran for example is a prime candidate in the petro yuan not in petrodollars, this began slowly like acid drops begins to erode the reserve currency status of the US dollar. And if that goes, it's end game for the US as a financial global power.
LS: We have to make clear to our audience. The fact that you have to buy oil in dollar makes sure that you need dollar, that you acquire dollar in order to buy oil.
FWE: Yeah.
LS: And so if this mechanism goes, well then the US has a problem because the dollars that are floating around internationally would find their way back into the homeland of the US.
FWE: Well, the other thing is that in order to sell now you have under this wonderful Trumponomics as I call it, you have projections that the US annual government deficit, shortage of tax income from tax outgo, spending outgo will by 2020 exceed one trillion dollars a year for every year as far as the eye can see. And by end of 2020, 2028 I think was figured by the congressional budget office, the US public debt is estimated to be well over $33 trillion, it's 20 now, 38 maybe, it's just out of control. So, if the ability of the US dollar to command use in the world economy is severely undermined, you're going to have to raise interest rates so high to sell this debt and it just becomes dysfunctional.
LS: Yes, but you have already in the last few years interest rates payments on this already existing that of per annum $400 billion.
FWE: Yeah.
LS: And if interest rates go up
FWE: Yeah and that was under zero interest rates, but now, you know, if they have to put up interest rates to five, six, seven, 8% like it was in the 1980s. the whole thing just blows up sky high.
LS: And so coming back to gold, gold has the advantage relative to bonds or shares or the US dollar or other Fiat currencies that there is no counterparty risk. If you have the gold in physical form, there is no counterparty risk.
FWE: Right.
LS: So would you say that gold will be one of the ultimate winners of the ongoing financial crisis when it goes into full gear?
FWE: Well, it's documented that J. P. Morgan, Chase and other select banks with this collusion of the Federal Reserve have been artificially depressing the price of gold for years. Every time there's a new financial crisis, they intervene and keep gold within a very tight range. At a certain point that's not going to work anymore and then some people estimate to follow the gold markets much more than I do but it could quickly go up to $10,000 an ounce or even beyond that.
Be that as it may, gold as you point out has no counterparty risk and it's a historic store of value. It's one of the beautiful commodities out there and it has a special – the other just being special significance economically and historically, the other thing is that China is the number one mining producer of gold in the world today, not South Africa. South Africa has fallen far behind
LS: Yeah, and Russia is number three.
FWE: Russia is number three.
LS: And a lot of member states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation are producers or are buying gold.
FWE: At the rail connections of the circle of the China Belt Road Initiative in part are aiming to go in the areas where there are known gold reserves but no infrastructure during the Soviet era to bring that gold down to market. So, we have an extremely fascinating prospect, not just for China and Russia, for the world really to build up instead of tear down, destroy and burn and bankrupt which is the only policy that Washington seems able to follow these days.
LS: Yeah. To sum it up with a famous Chinese proverb. "May you live in interesting times" – you and all the others.
FWE: We certainly do.
LS: Okay. great. Thank you very much, William, for this interview.
FWE: Thank you, Lars.
Fraser • a day ago ,Two things:
1. Operation Hammer:
In 1989 President George H. W. Bush began the multi-billion dollar Project Hammer program using an investment strategy to bring about the economic destruction of the Soviet Union including the theft of the Soviet treasury, the destabilization of the ruble, funding a KGB coup against Gorbachev in August 1991 and the seizure of major energy and munitions industries in the Soviet Union.Those resources would subsequently be turned over to international bankers and corporations. On November 1, 2001, the second operative in the Bush regime, President George W. Bush, issued Executive Order 13233 on the basis of "national security" and concealed the records of past presidents, especially his father's spurious activities during 1990 and 1991.
2. Why can't Putin touch Yeltsinist oligarchs:
Yeltsin's oligarchs remained as rich as they were; Yeltsin's family still possesses immense riches. And Putin does not dare to touch them. He goes hat in hand to open a Yeltsin's Memorial Centre; he is courteous with Yeltsin's widow and daughter. Putin's establishment cautiously avoided celebration, or even mention of the Revolution centenary, in keeping with Yeltsin's anticommunism. This is the Deal.Guy Fraser • a day ago ,Given the depth of the fall, the rise (under Putin) has been remarkable.
Tommy Jensen • a day ago ,The rise has been astounding and all because they have a leader that can't be bought , not corrupt and loves his country. That is why he literally was swept in in the last election. The Western leaders will not admit it but I am sure they are terribly envious .
Nicole Temple • a day ago ,Very good article to bring to RI also.
It open eyes on how the West political elite are a criminal rotten cancer syndicate and Georg Bush Sr. shows up to be even worse than the disgusting profile he already has in media and Georg Soros bad reputation gets confirmed.
No police or court are available to take this out. We only have John Connor or The One to count on.
Play Hide
Choice is the problem now. We will have to make a choice.Guy • a day ago ,The photo of Yeltsin and Clinton that accompanies this article should remind readers of this story:
https://viableopposition.bl...
There is something rotten in Washington and it has been in existence for decades.
Jimi Thompson • a day ago ,Great interview .William Engdahl is a very knowledgeable person. I have read a few of his books. Superb in my view.
Quite a few unknown tidbits for me in all of this... very eye-opening even for someone that is aware of the games being played at the higher levels.
To imagine all of what remains unknown, including many of the players, leaves much to the imagination.
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Apr 18, 2018 | www.moonofalabama.org
Hoarsewhisperer | Apr 18, 2018 4:28:52 AM | 105
The Colonial ratfuckers recent unprovoked, lie-based attack on Syria got me wondering about Russia's apparent impotence. I'm quite uncomfortable with that notion but can't dismiss it completely because I can't get a 'handle' on what Russia's strategy is.
Steve Gowans' latest commentary on Syria sets out his summary of US/NATO's Permanent War agenda in Syria.
https://gowans.wordpress.com/2018/04/16/a-prolonged-war-in-syria-is-on-the-us-agenda/
Despite its pessimism (if one takes it as a 'realistic' assessment), it goes a long way toward explaining the magnitude and complexity of the task Russia took on when it agreed to intervene in Syria.
Being pessimistic, it doesn't broach the subject of potential Bright Sides to the conflict, or the flaws in the US/NATO Strategy.
One rather obvious flaw which came to mind is the fact that Neoliberal Colonialism has inflicted pain on almost every country on the planet and have recently underlined their God-given right to continue doing so ad nauseum - without opposition or consequences.
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Bakerpete | Apr 18, 2018 9:01:53 AM | 117
@Hoarsewhisperer
While this isn't a great analogy consider the USA as a huge, immensely strong, obnoxious drunk that is being belligerent and needs to be arrested. The police show up, a bunch of them, and now need to corral the drunk. The drunk is so insensate that it can't feel any damage and the police need to be careful of how they use force. Generally the best outcome for the cops is the drunk trips and collapses whereby the police restrain him and hope he doesn't choke to death on his own vomit.
The USA is a zombie(drunk) country; dead but doesn't know it yet. Yet it is enormously significant in the world. If it suddenly collapses the rest of the world is going to be hugely impacted. While it has an enormous military it is extremely brittle and has virtually no depth; it can't sustain any meaningful military engagement for more than a couple of months.
Israel has created a really stupid situation for itself. It's dug this very small pit and stuffed it full of Jewish folk. A single nuke dropped on it would end the question of Israel. Yet the strut and bully like they are bullet proof.
In each case be too aggressive with them and they will panic. Conversely, and frustrating as hell, both the US and Israel have lots of leeway to cause mischief.
Russia and China are doing their best to patiently sheppard the USA along the path of its decline. They will grit their teeth and suffer humiliation but the alternative is a global economic collapse and many millions dying.
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Apr 18, 2018 | russia-insider.com
In the space of a few days Macron has:
- Claimed he talked Trump into staying in Syria. The White House has denied this .
- Claimed he, Trump and May successfully drove a wedge between Russia and Turkey. The Turks begged to differ .
- Claimed he is "the equal of Putin".
Inadequacy much? How needy for recognition is this guy?
CHUCKMAN • 9 hours ago ,
Muriel Kuri • 8 hours ago ,France used to produce some pretty fine leaders, but lately, it's like a different place.
Hollande was the most ridiculous, gutless thing we ever saw. He was laughably pompous and ineffective and dishonest and even cowardly, vis a vis the US.
Macron probably ranks second worst. He's making a mess of France, he's blubbering all kinds of nonsense about the EU, he's busy putting troops in Syria against all international law, he is not liked by the people, and he is virtually a French doormat for America.
Sarkozy showed the odd bit of promise, but he was largely talk with no worthy efforts. And he was immensely corrupt. Imagine taking 20 million euros from Qaddafi and then participating in the scheme to kill him? Or the case of the senile woman who was France's wealthiest woman, from whom he took many millions for his campaigns, doing so in private without other members of the family or strict legal supervision.
Hard to see the same country we saw in de Gaulle's time and that of his immediate successors.
'I am an equal of Putin' - well, he's right in a way - they're both leaders of a country. Beyond that, there is NO comparison. Maybe he admires Putin - which is good, if he tries to emulate him, even better because Putin, after all, is one of the few great current leaders of the world. Macron has a very long way to go, but with many years experience, if he gets the chance, MAY become a better leader than some, but never will be the match of Putin.
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Jackrabbit , Apr 18, 2018 11:59:00 AM | 145Don Bacon
PavewayIVThe West wins by making Syria a hell on earth. That means no reconstruction funding, no trade, and continuous harassment by "rebels".
The clearing of Ghouta puts a serious dent in this plan. Demoralizing the population of Damascus is now almost impossible.
But Lebanon is only about 15 miles from Damascus, and US/Israel would have to deal with Hez at some point anyway, so why not sooner rather than later?
Grieved | Apr 18, 2018 12:00:50 PM | 146
@131 WJ and 134 Don Bacon
I appreciate this discussion.
On a side note I would add that 3-4 years ago when Ukraine was boiling, much of the discussion by concerned people focused on countries outside of the US, and the damage caused by the US. The US, in this context, was largely regarded as an evil but coherent entity.
But that coherence has now come more and more into question. Discussion shifted gradually, as the US made more and more mistakes and lost battle after battle in so many theaters, and revealed itself as a failing actor. And in the last year or two there's much more discussion about the US itself, largely trying to pierce the obscurity of how that country is actually run and by whom. This shift was already happening, and Trump of course added to the fascination.
I was glad to see that gradual shift. To me it indicated the war itself was won, while many battles were yet to be fought. I think it's true that Russia, China, Iran and others are increasingly concerned with curtailing the damage that the US can still inflict. Every day they increase in actual, effective power, and the US decreases in that power. Yesterday's battle will be fought differently tomorrow, because the balance of that power will have shifted again by then.
Syria has been an enormously useful magnifying glass to show us so much about the relative power balances of many nations. And even as the US lashes out in its death throes, it is increasingly cornered and stymied. The same is true of Israel. It's reaching the point - if not already there - that every move made by the US will result in clear damage to itself, with no gain, and no damage to its targets.
The other side has had sufficient time to wargame countless contingencies, and think them through and make preparations for them. Increasingly, it gets to choose what damage to allow and what to stop, because the costs of every action have now been calculated - and the passage of time reduces the costs too, so the equation constantly updates.
This is true outside of Syria also, in all theaters and on many planes of activity.
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A P | Apr 18, 2018 1:42:41 PM | 160
The US Deep State doesn't want to "conquer" any country. Then they'd have to pay the bill for the destruction they caused... think an actual Marshall Plan, not the Iraq and Afghan Debacles. It is not trying to "win". It is trying to destroy those countries' ability to function outside the iron-fist influence of the IMF/BIS/etc. banks/economy.
... ... ..
As for US operations in Syria being handed off "to others", i.e. to Prince's latest iteration of Blackwater/Xi/Academia, the last we heard of Erik was trying to sell a budget airforce/drone system to countries in Africa. What a joke.
Not going to happen in Syria, because Russia, Iran, Hezbolla and Syria would have no qualms about directly assaulting Prince's Kurd/Arab/Wahabbist mercenaries... Eric may be a self-serving parasite, but he's not stupid enough to directly take on the Russian military, or even the SAA for that matter. Especially with no NATO air cover...
Killary is not around to unilaterally impose a Libya-style no-fly-zone.
Trumpty Dumbdy is trapped, just trying to convince his base that he really is getting the US out of being Israel's and the Rothschilds' bitch, but that is not a potential reality.
It would involve dismantling the FED and cutting off the yearly $multi-billion military aid tap to Israel. I doubt he is smart or informed enough to comprehend the situation he is in. Any sane, intelligent person would walk away and tell the Zionist/Rothschild/Deep State to find another patsy.
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Jackrabbit | Apr 18, 2018 11:42:04 AM | 142
Don Bacon
Trump's actions have not matched his election rhetoric. Just like faux populist Obama. Obama also "caved" to pressure, and even set himself up for failure by emphasing "bipartisanship".
That is how the political mechanism of faux populism works.
Obama: Change you can believe in
Trump: Make America Great AgainObama: Most transparent administration ever
Trump: Drain the SwampObama: Deceiver: "Man of Peace" engaging in covert ops
Trump: Distractor: twitter, personal vendettasWeakened by claims of unpatriotic inclinations:
Obama: Birthers (led by Trump who was close to Clinton's) - "Muslim socialist"!
Trump: Russia influence (pushed by 'NeverTrump' Clinton loyalists) - Putin's bitch!There's more but I won't belabor the point.
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Apr 18, 2018 | thesaker.is
Anonius on April 16, 2018 , · at 12:25 pm UTC
Addition, for the ones that want to see the Russian Tactics, I refer you to Polish movie "Ogniem i Mieczem". You will see how Hetman Chmielnicki (Khmelnicky) deals with Polish heavilly armed Hussars. Oh, yes Hetman is what we today would call Marshal (or not). I am pretty sure he never read Sun Tzu, just used his smarts. He simply kept sending fake attacks, thus keeping Polish Hussars awake and on their horses all night and then if this wasn't enough, He used the rain, which made Polish attack to simply collapse "drowned in wet dirt" and then he made his move and destroyed Polish army, which was on the paper heavier armed. All he needed to do is wait.
And this is how it's done kids. Russian Great military traditions are not forgotten. Have faith.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JA9ZW2Iiv3Q
The battle I am talking about is at about 43:00
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Apr 18, 2018 | thesaker.is
Rob from Canada on April 15, 2018 , · at 2:06 pm UTC
Count on an inverted yield curve and Treasury Department derivative losses in the trillions on interest rate swaps sold to Wall Street banks.guest on April 15, 2018 , · at 2:52 pm UTCWall Street banks have been buying surplus US government debt that the world doesn't want to finance huge budget deficits over the last 10 years and the Treasury Department sold them insurance protection against capital loses on that debt.
A lot of malinvestment in fracking and share buybacks with borrowed money has overleveraged corporations. Personal debt, corporate debt and government debt compared to GDP are at 1929 levels and a lot of that debt will be uncollectible.
The USA has kicked the financial can down the road for 10 years. It created a huge asset inflation bubble with borrowed money ie all malinvestment via interest rate suppression by the Fed that will blow up when the yield curve goes inverted signifying a financial panic is underway. That is the demand for short-term money(to borrow) is greater than the supply of money to short-term borrow.(to lend)
All I have to do is look at the SPX chart of the SP500 to know the US is FUKUS. The bull market that started in 2008 has started a head&shoulders topping pattern. In 2019 I expect 52-week lows to be hit and a bear market worse the 2008 financial crisis to be underway.
People keep tossing out "The US economy is tanking, it is going to implode/explode/crumble sooner or later" etc., etc. Such beliefs may be soothing to hold but they do not rest on knowledge or economic literacy. Briefly, here is why.Simon Chow on April 16, 2018 , · at 12:57 pm UTCEconomies do not tank because of massive credit. Money Supply = M1 + M2 + M3, where M3 is the outstanding credit in the economy. The US M3 is huge because the economy itself is huge. Modern economies have moved away from paper notes and in future all money supply will essentially be M2 + M3. M2 (total outstanding bank deposits) and M3 are in turn fusing into one as credit card payments replace the practice of mailing out cheques.
Nor is high foreign indebtedness in itself a sign of future imminent collapse. Yes, it is worryingly high presently, but no it is not imminent that some sort of disaster will befall the US Treasury. No one forces the rest-of-the world to buy US treasuries, bonds, and stocks. Yet governments, corporations, and individuals from all over the world line-up to buy these. Ask yourselves why. The answer is: Money and Capital flows to low risk and high return zones. This is how it always has been, and this is how it always will be. Why do Alibaba and the other Chinese majors seek listing on American stock exchanges?
Yes, there are plenty of things wrong with the USA, and yes it may end up paying a dear price for its arrogance, aggression, and cruelty all over the world (not to talk of its collapsing morality, ethics and social cohesion at home) but there is nothing the matter with its economy. Those who wait for its supposedly "Ponzi scheme" to collapse will wait to eternity, I am afraid.
@guest. I think your conclusion that the US economy is not tanking is blinkered. The US economy tanked in 2008 and would had crashed into a worse depression had not the Chinese held up the US economy (the Chinese also held up Europe by holding up the German economy). Alibaba is not the biggest Chinese company to list in the US. The biggest which is twice as profitable, twice the market capitalisation of Alibaba(more than USD500 billion) and listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, is Tencent.pogohere on April 16, 2018 , · at 8:12 pm UTCThe US economy and the US dollar was viewed as safe haven becuase there was no alternative. The US dollar and the US economy became a bubble because of the global demand for the US dollar resulting from there being no alternative. Besides the use of the USD is enforced by the US military.
But, if you have been following the latest economic development, that had changed. The US economy is no longer the biggest, certainly not the strongest. The US dollar is no longer indispensable. It's value is now perched on the edge of a sharp slippery slope due to US financial mismanagement and profligacy ala the late great USSR!
Its stupendous, useless, egoistic and hubristic military spending and other factors will push the US economy down that very slippery slope to oblivion.
But China will be waiting at the bottom of that slope to cushion the fall!
SIGNS THAT THE US DEBT-FUELED ECONOMY MIGHT ACTUALLY COLLAPSERob from Canada on April 15, 2018 , · at 10:17 am UTCAn Awara Accounting Study on US Economy 2018:
Signs that the US Debt-Fueled Economy Might Actually Collapse
Main findings:US debt-to-GDP to reach 140% by 2024
Net increase in debt could be as enormous as $10 to 15 trillion in just five years 2019 to 2024
Federal budget interest expenditure could reach $1.5 trillion by 2028, 25% of the total
There has been no real GDP growth since at least 2007
Growth of government debt has exceeded even nominal GDP growth multiple times each year since 2007
US reporting on national debt and inflation full of tricks
War budgets ripping open huge deficits
Skyrocketing social spending leaves no room for deficit cuts
Unfunded liabilities now a reality as Social Security and Medicare funds dry up
https://www.awaragroup.com/blog/signs-that-the-us-debt-fueled-economy-might-actually-collapse/
No, it's not over Saker, but compared to 2007 victory is in sight.Anonymous on April 15, 2018 , · at 10:29 am UTCFirst, my opinion is that the Russia/China asymmetric attack on US dollar hegemony will create a second financial crisis next year, worse than the one in 2008.
Second, in my opinion, Russia and China are winning on the most important Grand Strategic/Moral level of warfare for global public opinion. The UN votes are illustrative of that moral victory. Also, Qatar, Turkey and the Philippines switching sides are examples of moral victory.
"Facts simply don't matter. And neither does logic. All that matters are perceptions!"
That's the perfect strategy to defeat yourself."Those who defeat others are strong, those who defeat themselves are mighty." Lao Tzu
Napolean marched into Russia in 1812 with lot's of allies but left several months later with none.
I agree with MK Bhadrakumar assessment of the strike on Syria over your assessment. It's a moral defeat for the F#$%ing stupidest, exceptional nation on the face of the earth.
http://blogs.rediff.com/mkbhadrakumar/2018/04/15/trump-opens-a-pandoras-box-in-middle-east/
<>cdvision on April 15, 2018 , · at 3:32 pm UTCWell, I'm not sure what old Lao was smoking on that day but if we replace the word "mighty" with "exceptional" then perhaps Trump fits the bill in a modern context.
Putin the Great vs Trump the Mighty (and Exceptional) who managed to defeat himself.
Rob: my view exactly.Iris on April 15, 2018 , · at 7:24 pm UTCRussia and China have stopped buying US Treasuries, in fact are selling down for gold. The deficit if 1.3T will be more costly to fund, and the debt impossible to service. And China with the petro-yuan has tolled the death knell. Added to that is the dysfunction of the US political system. The mid-terms will be very interesting. I doubt Trump will see out 1 term, never mind 2.
And yes, the so-called US allies are fair weather friend.
Dear Saker;Rob is right: the coming economic crisis will be nothing like 2007, or like any depression that occurred over the past century for that matter. It is the first time a cycle is ending with interest rates so low, so the trick of lowering them further cannot be used this time.
Even though hyperinflation is not happening because of globalised and cheap offer (Richard Duncan), Western economies are slowly collapsing under the burden of debt (Prof Steve Keen, Prof Michael Hudson).The global Ponzi scheme will soon end, with major geopolitical consequence. The US, being given their history, will probably go to full blown war where this can bring most economic gains. The Chinese are fully aware of that, and are preparing for it All of their plans ( the OBOR initiative, the petro-yuan) depend on a strong Russia, The Chinese will not let Russia go down, their own survival depend on Russia.
All the best.
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Apr 18, 2018 | www.moonofalabama.org
Lozion | Apr 17, 2018 1:56:16 PM | 3
I know b is not fond of us posting content from other blogs but the Saker has just put up a must-read interview with a personal favorite author of mine, F. William Engdhal, entitled "The rape of Russia". Very informative, it documents the strategies put in place during the Yeltsin years to plunder the assets of the new CIS. Enjoy!
http://thesaker.is/the-rape-of-russia-saker-blog-exclusive-interview/
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Apr 18, 2018 | www.cia.gov
After collapse of the USSR the mount of infometion that has flown to the West is staggering. KGB might be then most open of intelleigence services in this sense. multiple defector probably created a very complete picture of the organization and its methods.
July 2, 1996
A NOTE ON KGB STYLE
Wayne Lambridge
The KGB like any enduring institution has a style, its own way of doing things. When we seek to understand the service and its officers, we should perhaps pay attention to how they do business as well as to what kind of business they do. This article is intended to raise the subject for discussion, to present largely one man's opinion. It is far from a definitive study.
By way of indicating something about KGB style, consider the implications for the organization as a whole of a communication system that carries one tenth or less as much traffic -- both electric and by pouch -- as its American equivalent. The KGB sends very few cables and its dispatches are infrequent. For maximum security, they are pouched on undeveloped microfilm, which is recovered and printed when the dispatch reaches its destination. Although Moscow headquarters does excellent and prompt printing, both exposure and development are sometimes haphazard in the field. Ten years ago, they were downright unreadable at times. Now, the quality is generally better. Volume, however, does not seem to have risen much.
The prints of the developed films are seen by the Rezident (the KGB Chief of Station) and by the case officer concerned. In large Rezidentury (KGB Stations) some intermediate may also read the traffic, but that is by no means always the case. The Rezident keeps a file -- sometimes in the form of notes or perhaps as copies of pertinent cables and dispatches -- for reference. The case officer keeps all his files in a briefcase or a notebook. Calling them "files" is perhaps misleading. It is better to say that the KGB officer keeps a movable In-Box. When a document leaves that box it is either returned to the Rezident or destroyed and the fact of destruction recorded. The case file is really in the case officer's head. The excellent memory that KGB officers often display concerning the details of their operations may well be traceable to the necessity of remembering the vital information on each operation that they cannot look up anywhere. Of course, when a new case officer replaces an old one, especially if the latter has been unable to brief his successor fully, complications may ensue. Illness, car accidents and PNG'ing have led to real chaos in some KGB operations when a harassed new man has tried to tie down the broken threads of a departed colleague's dropped contacts.
Although the amount of paper that he sees is small, the KGB case officer is held strictiy accountable for each sheet of it. When he destroys a document, a notation to that effect is included on a record. Even his scrap paper may bear a serial number and have to be accounted for. At the Moscow headquarters each document is sewn into the file by the senior officer directly responsible for the case. A special record of all documents in the file is kept by the case officer and its accuracy is regularly verified by the case officer's supervisor. Safe storage areas are locked and sealed with wax each night.
The ritual of sewing in the documents is often regarded as a waste of time by senior case officers in Moscow. Nevertheless, they would not dream of delegating the job. It seems to have a symbolic significance as an embodiment of both their authority and their responsibility.
The KGB case officer is his own intel assistant. At headquarters he does his own traces, gets his own documents from the archives and handcarries his own messages. Not too long ago, he also often wrote or typed his own dispatches. Even now he may write his own telegrams and personally take them and dispatches to his supervisor for review. In the field he is, if anything, even more responsible for doing everything connected with his operation except for technical surveillance and the like where he must call on experts.
The field case officer under official cover often works at his cover job about as much as do his colleagues who do not have intelligence responsibilities. This obligation is usually not as demanding on the case officer's time as it might first appear because KGB cover slots are usually selected so that cover duties complement intelligence tasks to a substantial degree. By contrast, other KGB officers have virtually no serious cover responsibilities and rely on the all-embracing security system of the Soviet colony to protect their true affiliation. In either case, the 'KGB officer is not expected to spend much time on the administrative or reporting aspects of his intelligence job. Within the limitations of his cover assignment, he is supposed to be out on the street, making contacts, working agents and performing other intelligence tasks, reporting only the highlights and the most crucial information back to headquarters.
In developing new sources, he will usually bring things along to the point where recruitment or some other substantial development is clearly foreseeable before asking for traces from headquarters or getting approval to go ahead with his plan. Local informers and support agents are sometimes picked up without reference to headquarters at all, except perhaps after the fact of recruitment. The KGB officer must account with some precision, however, for his operational expenditures and is usually quite limited in what he can spend for development prior to coming up with a concrete proposal for recruiting a source.
Once an agent is recruited or is established as a source, headquarters' control and demands for accountability are exacting, though never voluminous. For a recruited source with significant access, a senior officer, such as a branch chief or his deputy is specifically charged with responsibility for the case. Moscow's concern to insure that information is really coming from the source as described by the case officer and that the source is bona fide is very considerable. Somewhat by contrast, Moscow's requirements (outside of S&T operations) sometimes seem quite general, apparently leaving it up to the case officer and source to report what seems to them most important. On the other hand, reporting is expected to be factual and documentary, if possible. Sometimes the KGB seems obsessed with documents as the only reliable sources. Speculation is not usually encouraged.
In such a system of extreme compartmentation and vertical lines of communication and authority, the advisory role of staffs and other elements not within the chain of command is small. The First Chief Directorate, the foreign intelligence arm of the KGB, has a counterintelligence unit, for example, that actually takes over a case from the regular chain of command in the event that the agent appears to be doubled, compromised or in danger of compromise. The field case officer may remain the same, but in Moscow the Counterintelligence Service assumes full authority for directing the case. Deception and some types of complex political action operations often appear to be run directly by the headquarters element, Department A, that prepares the operation in Moscow. In such cases, of course, local assets of a Rezidentura may well be employed in support, but the operations are frequently run by specialists.
The typical KGB officer, trained in an environment where political agitation is part of daily fare, sees political action and propaganda as part of his regular routine. There are numerous examples of Soviet officers around the world who seem to concentrate almost exclusively on pushing the Soviet line on the issues of the day with whatever contacts they meet. To them the political approach is not something apart from spotting, developing, assessing, recruiting and agent handling. It is integral to that effort. Some do it crudely, some ineffectively, some with great skill. The point is that in almost all cases, it is a part of the operation.
In addition to politics, KGB recruiting and training of staff personnel emphasizes operational and area knowledge and experience from bottom to top. The main sources for new KGB officers are the institutes of International Affairs and Eastern Languages in Moscow. These institutions, which are better compared to the U.S. service academies than to other organizations of higher learning in America, prepare young Soviet citizens for careers abroad not only in the intelligence services, but for the foreign service, the Ministry of Foreign Trade, Radio Moscow, etc. Assignment of a student after graduation is worked out among the various consuming organizations. The students are under what amounts to military discipline and are required to accept the assignment given them. Few students, see much difference among the organizations these days except for differences in pay, length and location of overseas service and other practical matters.
In the course of their education the students learn two or three foreign languages well and study the history and culture of the area in which they specialize in considerable detail, although current politics is likely tobe a much weaker course than history. Access to native sources is still circumscribed. A substantial number of students go for a year or more as exchange students or as trainees with Soviet organizations working abroad. As a result, they often end up knowing the area, its language, its politics, customs, police systems, local geography and so on very well. Although the old-style Soviet intelligence officer who was raised in the shadow if not the institutions of the Komintern and could recruit agents through appeals to an international revolutionary ideology are long since past, the newest generation of Soviet intelligence officers can be quite effective by trading on their precise knowledge of target personalities and the problems and frustrations of the countries in which they operate.
A KGB officer is ranked in his service by two systems. He progresses up the ladder from junior lieutenant to senior lieutenant and so on up to colonel and general. At the same time, he is classified as a junior case officer, case officer or senior case officer and then as he progresses further by his position, such as Rezident, which he may hold. His pay depends on his ranking in both hierarchies and there is no necessary coincidence between where he stands in one and where he stands in the other. The operational designations are based on his experience and performance as an operator. His formal rank is largely based on length of service up through major or lieutenant colonel. The chain of command is designated through the operational positions rather than formal rank. For example, a major of State Security from some other part of the KGB might be transferred into the First Chief Directorate under the designation of junior case officer and find himself subordinate to a senior lieutenant who had attained the position of case officer.
The phenomenon of marked disparity between formal rank and operational designation was probably more common during the period of considerable expansion of the First Chief Directorate's personnel ten and more years ago than it is today. At that time officers from other branches of the service were being brought into the First Chief Directorate more frequently than they are now. Nevertheless, the emphasis on operational experience and operational ability continues to be a marked element of the KGB style. The top officers in the service, for example, usually involve themselves directly in operations. They meet and develop agent candidates, they recruit and they handle agents.
In part this is a consequence of the strongly operational orientation of the KGB as a whole. A direct involvement in operations comes naturally to almost everyone in the organization. This operational orientation is manifest also in the concentration of relatively few cases per case officer. Generally, one man may handle four or five agents or targets under development. He is not expected to spread his range of intelligence activities further, although he may well be encouraged to develop a large circle of casual contacts from whom a relatively small number of serious targets may be selected.
From the foregoing one can see that the typical KGB officer is a man who sees himself in a strict vertical chain of command. He expects to do everything necessary for his operation without much outside help, except in technical matters. Depending upon circumstances, the case officer may be closely guided by the Rezident in a particular operation, but he is not supposed to discuss it with anyone else. (Gossip and shop-talk are endemic, however, in part to overcome the excessive official compartmentation.) Although the case officer is held strictly to account for the results of his actions, he is not expected to report on day-to-day developments to headquarters and in fact the capacity of his communications system is far too limited to permit him to do so. He is street-oriented in the concept of his job and does not put in a lot of time at the desk writing reports, reading guidance from headquarters or maintaining his files. When he has a problem he takes it up with his boss and he is generally not expected to have many problems. He is supposed to know the difference between what he really needs consultation about and what he ought to be able to handle on his own.
His boss in turn has the responsibility of not only guiding the case officers that work for him, but of ensuring that vital information pertinent to the work of one case officer but acquired through another is made available. In both operational guidance and information sharing, the role of the Rezident is crucial. There is virtually no lateral distribution of communications and an extreme emphasis on compartmentation. Although the rigid compartmentation of the system is probably a major vulnerability, superiors both in the field and headquarters are usually able to keep up with each case because they are not overwhelmed with paper. Relatively primitive (in terms of capacity) communications equipment and the custom that each officer prepare his own reports and keep them brief make it possible for such reports as do get written to be read all the way up the chain of command. The general in command of the First Chief Directorate has been reported on several occasions as reading all the incoming traffic. Much of the outgoing traffic is also signed personally by him.
The strictness of the chain of command and the limited amount of communications place a great weight of responsibility on each Rezident and on each case officer. As with all Soviet officials, KGB case officers have a norm to fulfill for the year and are usually called to account for their activities during part of the annual home leave in the Soviet Union. In a system like that, if something goes wrong, someone must be found to have been responsible. This can encourage an extreme of caution, particularly when the relations between case officer and the Rezident are not of the best or when the headquarters desk officer is not cooperative and understanding of the problems in the field.
Although we are accustomed to think of Soviet organizations as highly impersonal, in the KGB personalities and the private connections of individual officers are often crucial to the success or failure of an operation -- or a career. In many ways, the KGB is an organization made to order for the man who wants to claim all the glory for himself and put all the mistakes on the backs of his subordinates. Family connections or other personal contacts have special significance in this sort of an organization because they can provide a secure and effective second channel for communication in a system in which there is otherwise only one narrow route watched over by jealous monitors for all the messages an officer may want to send.
The emphasis on the role of the individual in the organization also has its advantages, of course. A capable officer, particularly one from an influential family, working under a Rezident who knows his business and will accept responsibility is likely to find himself in a stimulating work environment that may compensate very well for shortcomings of the service or the Soviet system as a whole that might otherwise disturb him.
While the KGB style as outlined above is in many ways admirably suited to running operations, it appears to have limitations in the way it makes use of the product of its operations and in evaluating whether the operations themselves are really worthwhile. There are enough instances on record to permit the generalization that in political matters especially Moscow is often reluctant to receive bad news. The ambitious case officer may find himself frustrated by pressure to conform, either from his Rezident or from Moscow, when he tries to report things as he sees them. To a large degree this is probably an inevitable manifestation of the extreme isolation from the outside world in which the Soviet policy makers live and their lack of exposure to unwelcome information. In addition, the emphasis on operations as such and the overall environment of the KGB, which is predominantly an internal security, criminal investigation, and antisubversive organization, probably discourages the kind of critical intellect by whom frank reporting, regardless of its content, is most prized.
This last consideration, the emphasis on an investigative, operational style at the expense of analytical curiosity, may well be the source of considerable tension within the First Chief Directorate today. Bigoted and inflexible ultimate consumers are problems enough. But also the older generation of KGB officers, including many of today's Rezidenty, was largely trained in war time and internal security operations. Their juniors, speaking broadly, are more academically inclined, more tempted to discourse on their theories, more interested in foreign societies and politics per se and less dedicated to fulfilling the obligations of the party and the state. They are often perceptive and realistic about developments not only abroad, but also in their own country. Bearing in mind the importance of personal relations and the dependence of juniors on seniors in the rigid chain of command, the signs we see these days of tension and cynicism among these younger officers should not be surprising.
As they rise in the KGB, we may see some organizational changes over time. If these changes preserve the laconic style of communication while at the same time do away with some of the most cumbersome and archaic aspects of the communications and records keeping systems, the KGB could become an even more formidable institution than it is today. The problem of encouraging intelligence analysis and imaginative, critical thinking is a problem for Soviet society as a whole. As a part of that society, the KGB shares the problem, but probably not in greater degree than other Soviet institutions and possibly less than many.
Judgments about the influence the KGB style has on KGB officers as individuals, about the implications for KGB operations of the way they do business, about the relevance of the style to Western operations against Soviet targets, and about many other related matters lead us beyond the scope of this note which, as stated in the introductory paragraph, hopes only to raise an interesting topic for further comment. If this piece succeeds in making the point that KGB organizational style is important to Western intelligence and that we should concern ourselves with it more than we have, it will have served its purpose.
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Apr 18, 2018 | thesaker.is
Antoni on April 15, 2018 , · at 10:49 am UTC
Shame on Arabs and China! My personal experience with Chinese convinced me that the real God for them is money. Beside collecting money by any means possible, these people have no other issue to talk or discuss. They had shown zero interest in the geopolitics or the dire situation of the planet, or suffering of humanity. They did not show any emotional or sentiment towards what is happening in the World.Charles on April 15, 2018 , · at 12:31 pm UTCMajority of them express some kind of inferiority complex towards West. China Will soon or later betray Russia, They do not think about any higher moral or human value, heroism, solidarity, except for collecting money.
But the Number one betrayal came from Arabs, 22 Arab countries, and some 90% of them are happy in their slave minded status. They are the biggest disgrace for humanity and Muslims. Some of them are more aggressive then their masters in the West.
If not for the virus of Wahabism which infected the body of many Muslims, there could emerge a true alliance of Orthodox Christians and True Muslims. Such an alliance would be undefeatable, even without money worshiping China.
Antoni, you know obviously what you are talking about. Especially since I myself am Chinese, and spent almost two decades coordinating the visit of Chinese officials and business folks to US, on behalf of the US government. This was my previous career, before I abandoned it and moved to Russia.Darius on April 15, 2018 , · at 3:30 pm UTCThe topic of China is delicate here in Russia. If one considers the total and basically psychotic enmity from the West, offer of friendship from China is a godsend. One would not want to speak too undiplomatically about the Chinese mentality, and the current state of Chinese National psyche.
If you read very carefully the articles written by high level advisors of Putin, you would see that they harbor no illusions. Russia itself contains a significant number of former apparatchiks whose "Russian soul" evolved through the 1990s to a point exactly resembling what you described about the Chinese. I am convinced that president Putin is a patriot, and when he meets this type of people, he recognized right away what they were, whether they were Russian or Chinese.
The overseas Russian get very emotional at such trying times for their motherland. I more than relate to that. But they show a natural tendency to idealize everything about Russia, and gets instantly suspicious on hearing a different opinion. The same eagerness to believe is now extended to the new great Asian ally of Russia. I wrote something a couple of days ago to the same effect. The moderator even did not allow me to post. I hope now that this war charade has temporarily abated, the moderator would regain a minimal level of calmness and openness for dialogue.
"Even if you are a minority of one, the truth is the truth." – Mahatma GandhiCharles on April 15, 2018 , · at 9:58 pm UTCHizbullah, Persia, Russia vs China
The real power and fearlessness is not about numbers. It is about soul and its vibrant energetic radiation.
How can a small movement of people like Hizbullah be more vibrant and fearless and outspoken against oppression and international criminals then the so called giant nation of China?
How could Bolivia a small nation can be so to the point then China?How can Iran (Persia) with its 70 millions people and totally surrounded by Kosher Nostra mafia can be so brave and standing tall against the international oppressors of humanity in compare to China, which doing practically nothing?
It is not about numbers, it is about power of soul, about life philosophy, about way of life, about believe in true and one God. So that is way Persians historically influenced humanity more then anything China can dream of.
There is reason why King Cyrus, is mentioned several times in Bible. There is a reason why Saadi poetry about humanity is written in the entrance of UN:Human beings are members of a whole,
In creation of one essence and soul.
If one member is afflicted with pain,
Other members uneasy will remain.
If you've no sympathy for human pain,
The name of human you cannot retain!"Saadi Persian poet"
But perhaps, the most significant solid power and force which has not only the soul of justice, solidarity and humanity, but even instrument of physical power and ability to fight back a total war is Mother Russia. Despite its shortcomings, Russia is a gift from God, Russia is the historic Rom of our time, mentioned in Sura 30 of Quran (30:1-5 "To Whom Power Belongs" Declares the truth of the universe).
Russia may be is the second period of Zul-Qarnain mentioned in the Sura 18 of Quran. Russia is an exceptional Caucasian (White race, i personally do not believe in race ) people, (if we exclude Persians as Caucasians) which does not participate in the oppression of non-Europeans and blocking the total subjugation of planet by Western and its minions.
When you talk with Russians and Westerners, you will immediately recognize the difference. Russians are not arrogant and it is exactly what Quran describing a kind of Christians, who are not arrogant, but a people with love and affection. I have no illusions, but i talking in general terms, i talking about sum of all vectors and direction of this common vector.
Numbers are not important, historically majority always were wrong. Truth is still truth even you are a minority.So, the conclusion is that, if I am right and if Russia is righteous and just and hold on rope of God, no force of this plant can defeat Russia. Russia does not need China, China is not a nation of ideology, faith or religion, they only believe in money, which is also the god of Western world and its minions. China is not a natural ally of Mother Russia, natural ally of Russia is nations with believe in God, justice, solidarity, soul and judgment day.
My personal encounter with Chinese convinced me that they have a completely different mindset and I was completely disappointed.With love and respect to Russia and its heroic people
Yow Darius my man, you speak the truth. It is fire and light in one's soul, and nothing else. And if one might add, a preparedness to die, a simplicity and gentleness of character. Labels mean nothing.Ahmed on April 15, 2018 , · at 6:37 pm UTCDegeneration afflicted many nations, comes in many forms, it can be a well-mannered and finely dressed German so proud of himself, it can be an oily and greedy petty Chinese businessman, it can be a Mercedes driving Arab in front of some big hotel in Dubai.
Globalism is a satanic cult of our times. They are huge in numbers, but their souls are small, enslaved, and twisted. We have no fear of them. Keep well brother.
@AntoniPindos on April 15, 2018 , · at 10:49 am UTCI agree with everything you said. I will take a more wait and see approach with China. I hope for the sake of the world they jump onboard. Ultimately the issue is materialism. The Anglo zios want to deal with a world in which everyone has a price on their head, so they can be easy to buyout and compromised. Since the Zionists are the one with the most capital, anyone who wants a piece of the world, will have to go through them. So that materialistic outlook the Chinese have, can be a huge opening for the zios to exploit.
The state of the Arab leaders are even more pitiful. A bunch of animals who are enslaved to their lusts, and desires. I would tell them to enjoy it, because their end will not be good. Most of them have sold out to the highest bidder(Zionists) a ling time ago.
Now the Wahhabi movement, what's left to say about this devious, malicious cult. If you're interested check this article out. It talks about the founder of the Wahhabi movement, Muhammad ibn Abdul Wahhab, and how he was in cahoots with British spy's who were looking for a way to bring down the ottoman empire. I have to do more research on this article, however as someone who has studied wahhabisim, I'm fairly certain it was a movement that had malicious intent from the beginning, regardless of the article I linked below. It's just somewhat hard to explain to non Muslim's because some of it deals with matters of theology. Anyways I enjoyed reading you're post. Peace my friend.
Imagine how many would die in a war. What is happening is acceptable and necessary losses. Russia and China understand this.Anonymous on April 15, 2018 , · at 10:54 am UTCSaker says "But what could the Russians have done?" is the right question.Arioch on April 17, 2018 , · at 8:48 am UTC
Ans: Provide advanced defensive weapons well-ahead of time so that the Syrians themselves can impose a cost.In addition what the Russians have already done, why is Russia not selling advanced anti-ship and anti-aircraft weapons to countries in the cross-hairs of the West? Often, they talk about selling S-300 to Syria. Now imagine, Syria has Bastion, anti-sub weapons, and S-300. There will be costs to the West in this case. I think, this possibility is something Russia can do. Why wait, as it is obvious that promises by the West are basically lies. (Despite, dismantling the CW, the same argument is used to justify the attack. The Skripal case uses this method against Russia itself.)
What has the Russians got by withholding the sale of such weapons? What is the Russian calculus?
> What has the Russians got by withholding the sale of such weapons?James2 on April 15, 2018 , · at 10:55 am UTCThose weapons was not re-sold to USA to make them research it and either clone or devise countermeasures or both
Russia may take the issue economic routethe pessimist on April 15, 2018 , · at 10:57 am UTCThey should target key UK business Like BP and other British entities and exclude them from the Russian Market – force majeur can be put into effect
Then do the same with the French
They don't need China for this.
The attack was pretty clearly highly coreographed and followed strict rules that were not violated. The US provided a turkey shoot for the Syrian AD restricting the missile flight path to lanes with no typical deviations to confuse the AD. I'm sure this is what the Russians required in order to guarantee no response from them.the pessimist on April 15, 2018 , · at 11:33 am UTCSo there are a number of important questions here.
There was insistence that an attack must occur, despite Russian objections. The US and Russian militaries worked out a way for this to occur as safely as possible. Good that they pulled it off safely as it implies a high level of competence and discipline on both sides.
It seems likely from public behavior that the Pentagon thought this a bad idea and was fully aware of the dangers.
Where is Trump on this and was he forced to acquiesce?
It also seems clear that the pressure on Russia has not diminished and that the 'allies' intend to try and force an agreement on Syria through Geneva process that partitions the country and likely deposes Assad.
The Russian side said that the president of Russia had been insulted/disrespected and that there would be consequences for this action.
There has not been much effective push back in Europe to this policy of direct confrontation.
China is wearing a mask in public but is not pleased and has offered some diplomatic support in public.
I rate the situation as highly dangerous, unpredictable, with a great deal going on behind the scenes.
As an addendum b over at moa has pointed out in his summary that while the US Defense Dept is claiming only 3 targets Russian and Syrian sources claim many more, specifically airports. I also read that B1s, I believe, used laser guided bombs in the attack and I have no idea what the targets were as all discussion has focused only on the cruise missiles. Perhaps more sites were targeted than was agreed upon.the pessimist on April 15, 2018 , · at 12:57 pm UTCAlso, regarding the Skripal poisoning, Russia has obtained the evidence of BZ use from the Swiss OPCW lab, perhaps through back channels. I see this as hopeful – Russia does have friends in Europe, although the remain afraid or without the power to assist openly.
Postings in various places suggest that the US deviated from the agreed on plan and that the Russian jets that scrambled near the end of the attack put a stop to further deviations. Perhaps a broken promise like this led to the specific assertions of disrespect.Mark Hadath on April 15, 2018 , · at 11:04 am UTCThanks to the Saker especially and all the commenters for this forum and the robust discussion.
The Saker's frustration is clear and valid.ReneR on April 15, 2018 , · at 11:04 am UTCHowever, I think Russian behaviour is consistent with the long game strategy. Syria lost three buildings and its citizens were celebrating in the streets. The US had the bulk of its missiles shot down. This is quite simply posturing by the Empire. I don't think the last 48 hours add to the perception the US can whatever it wants whenever it wants. If anything its the opposite.
I think the US will try again. Its attempt will be no more powerful or successful than what just occurred. They will continue to do so for many years yet. They will continue the delusional narrative delivered ad nauseam to its own people for another decade at least.
My point is that as each month goes by, it matters less.
The American hrandstanding is becoming white noise.
I am encouraged by the last 48 hours. I admire Russian restraint. I have for years now and I expect to continue to do so for some time yet.
What Russia does imo is trying to buy time.Nathan on April 15, 2018 , · at 11:22 am UTCAs former analyses of you spoke of, the russians Lack the number of planes etc the Wallstreet-fascists have. This time they will use to speed up the stuff they need. The stuff Putin spoke off in his march speech. The provocation as much to to with it I guess.
And time Saker is not at the Side of the US, as the petro dollar Will be replaced and their debts Will reach astronimical figures. Remember China is a creditor of this fascist regime. Simply stop funding this moron shit. Why did China buy worthless state-papers from the US??
The americans didnt dare to kill Any russian a hoge difference to the event Pompeo was bluffing about. So ..?
China bought the worthless state-papers from the US because it give it's leader's the good life and the illusion of great wealth. If they sell off the Treasuries than that illusion with evaporate in hyperinflation. The Russians are only waist deep into the Global Economy, they probably can crawl out with some effort -- the Chinese are up to their eyeballs in it, they cannot.one minion on April 16, 2018 , · at 8:26 am UTCChina was being pragmatic and keeping its major market afloat. Little point in being the factory of the world if the world stops buying what you produce through lack of liquidity.Guest on April 15, 2018 , · at 11:07 am UTC
I have faith in the Chinese leadership–they are ordinary people like everyone else but their culture and mindset gives them a clever edge that the west has lost, long ago.China is not bowing down. They however don't play the game with the same strategy as Russia does.Jacobs Ladder on April 15, 2018 , · at 11:13 am UTCIt is indeed not over, because in history there is seldom a clear beginning and an end.Martin Giuffrida on April 15, 2018 , · at 11:14 am UTCHowever, the Saker is being too pessimistic. The FUKUS coalition avoided the Russian positions (ie showed a wariness and respect), and Syria did stand tall in defending herself.
For Russia to have taken the bait and reacted reflexively would have been counterproductive. As things stand, no escalation occurred, and Russia comes out looking cool-headed and mature. In effect the good guys.
The US is in sharp decline. It's current behaviour demonstrates that it is in the final stages of Empire. Time is on Russia and China's side. To engage the US unless absolutely necessary would work to favour the US and against the rising powers of China and Russia.
Kevin Barrett re-posted a Gordon Duff censored article re the SAA capturing a Takfiri chemical weapons facility in East Ghouta with western weapon components and reporting the capture of AZ personnel:Nathan on April 15, 2018 , · at 11:15 am UTChttps://kevinbarrett.heresycentral.com/2018/04/duff-fb/
Some excerpts:
"The Syrian Arab Army and with the help of Russian captured a shipment of chemical weapons destined for the Eastern Ghouta. These were British weapons produced at Porton Down in Salisbury.
"American, British and Israeli military personnel captured in Syria have confirmed they were ordered to stage chemical attacks in East Ghouta by their governments.
"The Americans are still being held along with Israeli's while British prisoners are being negotiated for. Sources in Damascus told us that representatives of Oman in Damascus approached the Russian Office of Reconciliation on behalf of Britain for the return of British chemical warfare personnel.
"The shells are identified as VX gas from British stockpiles.
"Russian officials in Syria informed Britain through Oman that they would have to directly deal with Syria for the return of their personnel. We have received no further information since, Damascus has remained silent on how or if negotiations were proceeding.
"Last week, VT Damascus received evidence that Americans, US Army Special Forces along with Israeli chemical weapons officers had been captured in East Ghouta. We were told that not only was a command facility captured with modern weapons but a stockpile of British made 81mm poison gas mortar shells, numbering in the hundreds, was seized as well.
"Videos were viewed by former MOD weapons specialists who identified the green stripe on the shells seized in East Ghouta as VX gas from British stockpiles."Just pencil in that article.
My comment:
Regarding Russian response, my feeling is Russia recived plenty of assurance the US was unwilling to hit Russian facilities, and got special corridors for attacks. The Russians could sit this out and watch and the US failed in a major way again militarily against only Syrian defenses. I think it is a wise principle for Russia to avoid the temptation to reveal the real power of its weapons prematurely until there is a real need for them at which time they may be a rather significant surprise.
-MartinSaker,sallysdad on April 15, 2018 , · at 2:24 pm UTCI view Russia's position as unassailable. After the bombing of Friday night is it even conceivable that the US could ever gain air superiority over the Russian homeland? Yes the attack was made with second-tier missiles at third-rate targets without the element of surprise and poorly coordinated, but it was still easily repelled by a combination of Soviet-era junk and modern EW equipment and radars. Even those in the West who are apathetic, if they are listening at all before they change the channel, must at some unconscious level realize that the US could not have a "perfect" air strike with over a hundred missiles and destroy only three unoccupied buildings.
A conventional WWIII of any length of time will destroy the Global Economy. The Russians will win easily simply because they are tougher and more prepared. They may not desire that outcome, but of all people they probably have the best chance to survive. Except if the nukes end up being released by accident or through escalation. So the Russians, being just about the only moral actors around, have a moral responsibility not to fight back until there is no other choice.
NOTE: Not that all western nations or the people within them are immoral actors, the greater population and smaller countries are just bystanders.
I am not convinced the US used second-tier missiles. These were launched from active duty warships and I can only assume it is the standard cruise missile weapon employed. There is way too much not yet known about the details of this operation.Nathan on April 16, 2018 , · at 12:21 am UTC
If, and it is a big "if", the missiles moved along agreed corridors, it is not surprising so many were shot down.
As I say, so much is not yet known.I always figure that the best stuff is under wraps, although available in no great quantity.pogohere on April 16, 2018 , · at 8:46 pm UTCBTW, I think a technology that isn't discussed much is passive detection systems, which may have taken the element of surprise away from standoff weapons.
The A-Ha Moment.Izaates bar Monobazeus on April 15, 2018 , · at 11:16 am UTCSunday, April 15, 2018
Here comes this important question of purely tactical nature which many flag-waving uber-patriots miss completely, while, I am sure, Pentagon and not only, is puzzled with what went wrong. The question is not about excellent performance of Syrian AD–what and how about this performance are being unveiled with each passing hour. Russian EW? Absolutely, no doubt it. Massive shooting down of Tomahawks and Scalpel TLAMs? Absolutely. But, but what about JASSMs. It is conceivable that these were they Trump was bragging about in his idiotic twits when spoke about those "Smart" missiles that "are coming". There are still no firm numbers about the number of intercepted JASSMs, what is clear, however, is the fact that many of them were intercepted. If JASSM passes today for "Smart", it kind of puts good ol' Tomahawks, logically, into the category of "Dumb". Obviously, as latest Syria's experience shows, Tomahawks are not an overwhelming threat, as they were positioned as for decades, for truly (not in Saddam Hussein's, or, rather US media, way) highly integrated and EW capable air-defense system.
But JASSMs, "stealthy" and supposedly "Smart", even by preliminary data pouring in didn't fare much better than Tomahawks and this was against Syrian AD assets which are pretty damn old. So, what about "stealth"? Ah, but in the modern signal processing, including well developed now sensor-fusion (or data-fusion) techniques it really doesn't matter for advanced adversary. But that is purely technological aspect, however influential for operational and strategic levels. Truly global, geopolitical issue is this, as Apps concludes:
Therein lies one of the greatest challenges of this situation. In 1990, after Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait, the George H. W. Bush administration was relieved to find that Russia – then still in the hands of Mikhail Gorbachev – was inclined to avoid turning the conflict into a Cold War-style standoff. In the years that followed, successive U.S. presidents became used to acting without such worries. Putin has now successfully signaled that those days are entirely over.
No it ain't over. It has just begun. Call it the great tribulation or Jacob's troubles or whatever you like but understand we have another half dozen years to go. In any event Daniel says Damascus will have terror fall upon it at night and become a smoking ruin byvmorning. So Damascus will fall to align reality with prophecy. The ultimate vanity.Anonymous on April 15, 2018 , · at 11:17 am UTC"The Chinese and the rest of them are not willing to do anything at this time to support Russia."Anon on April 15, 2018 , · at 11:17 am UTCYes, it's over.FURNARIUS on April 15, 2018 , · at 11:19 am UTCThe recent events are complete theatre but the first act is about setting up the second act.
In the second act, America's tough actions force Iran Russia and Syria to the negotiating table where a grand accord is hammered out.
In the third act, the Empire cuts its losses and gets the fuck out of the ME because it no longer has interests there. Israel BTFO. KSA BTFO. They are really the worst allies ever.
In the epilogue Russia becomes the main broker in the ME and balances out the competing interests while keeping the peace. France and England BTFO. Nobody wants these douche bags around anymore. America goes back to squabbling in South America and Asia where it arguably does have strategic interests.
The world Zio-Massonic movement has just shown that it can not dispense with provocations and plots that can unleash bloody world wars.Jake on April 15, 2018 , · at 11:20 am UTCThe United Nations are a farce and should be dismantled!
Just remembering, it is always England and Judea that press for war as they did in 1938-1939 or release the great and relentless butcher – the only true holocaust – 1914-1918 !
There is another possibility: These "empty strikes" were strictly intended for domestic consumption. Consider: The US openly telegraphed the coming strikes. Syria and Russia cleared some areas for the West to hit that would result in no injuries to personnel and limited damage to infrastructure. The West dutifully hit those evacuated areas and proclaimed "Mission Accomplished". Syrians danced in the streets for "surviving" the missile strikes while Russia threatened consequences. What form those consequences take will tell us if these countries are merely dancing a rather peculiar dance together or whether they are about to starting fighting in earnest. So far Russia has been playing it cool as a cucumber, but these strikes – empty as they might have been – demand some sort of response or Russia will risk looking weak. The fly in the ointment is Israel and their attack on an Iranian base within Syria that reportedly killed 20 Iranian officers. Will that loss of life influence Russia's response after the West made every effort to avoid drawing blood?Anonymous on April 15, 2018 , · at 3:59 pm UTChttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QF60VV3G3_Ymike k on April 15, 2018 , · at 11:28 am UTCSaker, many commenters here give me the impression that they will go to any lengths to reassure themselves that we are not teetering on the brink of all out nuclear war. All of their theories and reasonings seem to avoid facing that grim reality. Is that also your impression, or have I misjudged your position?Simon Chow on April 15, 2018 , · at 11:30 am UTCI think this blog may have misread China. I think I can read the Chinese mind and the 'Western' more subtly since I am ethnic Chinese but educated in the 'West'. But I follow Sun Tzu and therefore will not expound anymore on China's strategy as far as the Yanks are concern lest they are wised up.Anonymous on April 16, 2018 , · at 6:37 am UTCSuffice to say that a catastrophic decline of the empire ala the Ottoman Empire which led to WW1 and WW2 due to fighting over the spoils, is on nobody's interests, not even Russia's.
The best case scenario is to ease the Yanks into a break-up ala the late great USSR.
China's economic, diplomatic and political strength will be critically needed to do this and to rebuild the new independent states of Western North America, Eastern North America and the Southern Confederation.
A Chinese Empire with its new social contract would be like jumping from the frying pan into the fire.Simon Chow on April 16, 2018 , · at 9:20 am UTCAnonymous. No Chinese empire. The Chinese don't want to occupy other countries. Too troublesome ruling them. Philippines president Duterte recently suggested half-jokingly that the Chinese should just make the Philippines a Chinese province. China don't want that. Just to make the Philippines more prosperous and stable in order to trade with it – which is far better. If China wanted make the Philippines as its own province, She would have done so 600 years ago when Admiral Zheng He sailed his then unmatchable in the South China Sea and onwards to India, Persian Gulf, Africa and possibly beyond.Bro 93 on April 15, 2018 , · at 11:35 am UTCOver?one minion on April 16, 2018 , · at 9:16 am UTC"It ain't over till it's over." Yogi Berra
Which means never, unless you're talking about the individual organism, is it "over".
So get over it never being over.
What would you (we) do if it were "over"? Contemplate our navels??
Oh, you mean stress inducing bluster , bluff and brinksmanship of a dying entity. What else has it got, except blowing itself and everybody else up?
Patience, perserverance. Look at the reaction in the US. Don't forget this terrain, even if Trump's Unreality Show self destructs.
Is there progress? I think there is. None but the most cretinous deplorables are so stupid as to cheer the Donald in the last week. Most are dismayed.
And even Alex Jones is allowing open talk of Israel's Empire role in putting DT on this war mongering course that those who buy his supplements refuse to buy .:
Although Dr P is the one to explicitly state that Israel is a total liability.
So I wouldn't quibble too much about AJ and his mistakes and prejudices. Weaker on Israel than you would like but as good on Russia as you can expect.
Stupid on China. But Dr P isn't. And anyone watching can see that and see that AJ panders to his base's fears and prejudices.
But if they are wising up on Israel (as they have!) they can wise up on China and the whole picture, as well.
Who would want that process of improving consciousness to end, to be "over"??
To relax go back to what??
Actually, I like Snow Leopard's comment the most. And I am contemplating a surgical procedure on my navel, soon. It's just that Action is part of Being, and I see certain actions other than handwringing and brow wiping being more productive right now. Especially in terms of encouraging the process in the US where increasing numbers of people are realizing they have to think and act to grease the skids for the out of touch geriatrics like McCain, Feintsein, Pelosi, etc .or DT will go out with them, if he keeps acting just as ridiculously untruthful as they are.
'ridiculously untruthful' -- - that and deceit is the sea that the Donald has swum in his entire life, do you really believe that he could recognise reality if it smashed him in the face like a two ton truck?Ahsahyah on April 15, 2018 , · at 11:54 am UTC
Precious little chance of that happening in this lifetime, I'd say. It is by now part of his cell make-up and ineradicable.The US has backed Russia into a DEEP, DEEP corner . Sooner or later Russia will have to respond to the AmeriKKKan madness or surrender and become a vassal State like Europe, Australia, Canada, Japan and South Korea .After Syria is Iran and China. If Russia goes so is China. Now is the time to stand upp to AmeriKKKa (the empire of chaos)Simon Chow on April 15, 2018 , · at 11:57 am UTC
Check out the work of Dr. Paul Craig Roberts.org and Professor William EngdahlAll I can say at this stage is that Sun Tzu said not to fight out of anger, fear or enemy's provocation to a fight. Russia should stay cool. Pick carefully the battlefield (not necessarily a battlefield like Borodino), pick her own fight (not necessarily in the battlefield with guns and missiles but just as decisive) and pick the issues to fight for. This way retain the initiative and not let the enemy drive and maneuver Russia. Drive and maneuver the enemy instead.Anonymous on April 16, 2018 , · at 1:29 am UTCThe full-frontal 'love-in' with the Germans in WW2 is a no no type of war to be avoided. If unavoidable, must be very well prepared. But both the West and the semi-West seem addicted to the prospect of such an 'orgasmic' love-in. They seems locked into the paradigm of such logic. But beneath the rationalisation is simply a love for war.
Here is an extract from Richard Lovelace on the English Civil War. He reflects accurately on what, me as an Oriental, views as what drives the West's and the semi-West's mindset to war:
1) Tell me not (Sweet) I am unkind,
That from the Nunnery
Of thy chaste breast, and quiet mind,
To War and Arms I flee.2) True, a new Mistress now I chase,
The first Foe in the Field;
And with a stronger Faith embrace
A Sword, a Horse, a Shield.3) Yet this inconstancy is such
As you too shall adore;
I could not love thee, Dear, so much,
Loved I not War.Some version replace the last line in stanza 3) with: "Loved I not Honour more". But you get the drift. "war" and "Honour" (in or through war), are essentially the same.
So Russians, please calm down.
Speaking of Borodino, we must not lose sight of the fact that the Russians not only repelled Napoleon, but crushed him definitively in the end (thing somehow overlooked in 'histories' of the 1812-14 war genre 'War and Peace') and reorganized Europe on their own terms. Of course, it did not last too long (due to the usual British treachery), but the subsequent attempts to destroy Russia ended in the same way. Now if Hitler has not learned anything from Napoleon, how do you expect a Tramp like Donald, to learn anything from Hitler (and the Kaiser and Napoleon, for that matter)?Simon Chow on April 16, 2018 , · at 6:32 am UTCYeah, the Yanks know about Borodino. So unlikely they will attack that way. They are trying to provoke Russia into making a mistake and self-impale!one minion on April 16, 2018 , · at 9:31 am UTCI am in complete agreement with you Simon. All indications are that Mr Putin and team has a firm grasp on reality also, whatever that may bring in the future. It may not be too pretty for the western sphere but delusion and rank stupidity never has a pretty outcome.Albrecht on April 15, 2018 , · at 11:58 am UTCNot over. Not even close. The reason this isn't over is that the causes and conditions causing the root of the problem have not been dealt with. The cause of the problem can only be dealt peacefully through diplomacy. In the Empire's current configuration diplomacy is near impossible as there is no competent partner to negotiate with on this side. The Empire will signal their openness to negotiation by removing Bolton aka Captain Crunch, Haley and their ilk. This doesn't seem likely and I'm not sure who a competent replacement would be.Mike Reich on April 15, 2018 , · at 12:00 pm UTCIn short, prepare for war.
Russia needs to sell to Syria and to Iran ~30 nukes each plus delivery vehicles able to reach New York (thus also Israel, Paris, London). Also S400 systems to protect nukes enough to guarantee launch. Syria and Iran then declare next attack from any of the Gang of Four states will mean a nuclear response to all.mikhas on April 15, 2018 , · at 12:01 pm UTCYou forgot to mention that without adults Mattis & Dunford, WW3 would have started the last time they "bombed" Syria, now because of they talked the volatile, impulsive and emotional Trump out of it, it landed on a compromise, on Moscow's terms.Alan on April 15, 2018 , · at 12:06 pm UTCThe PRC is one of the only other 2countries that supported the Russian UN resolution, so it's not clear to me what the Saker is referring to re "just standing by" ? Do you expect PRC to send troops to Syria? has Syria or Russia made such a request or invitation? Do you know if such a move by the PRC has wide support by the Chinese public? Please do not respond with nonsense like public opinions don't matter in china. The Chinese government uses public opinion polls frequently and widely. Fact is I believe majority of Chinese are also affected by all the lies from the western msm, especially the well educated elites, most of whom studied in the West. This explains why their Global Times pieces tend to be much more pro Russia than their better educated elitesgrrr on April 15, 2018 , · at 12:35 pm UTCDiplomacy??? It degraded beyond recognition. We used to have the likes of Jeane Kirkpatrick. Now we have geniuses like Samantha Powers and Nikki Haley. We also had a joke of an ambassador to Saddam's Iraq that triggered 1-st Iraq war, although I tend to think (more and more lately) that her blurb to Saddam was a deliberate in order to advance Bush's understanding of his "new world order" idea.Serbian girl on April 15, 2018 , · at 12:52 pm UTCYes, but the previous UNSC meeting where Russia submitted a text requesting a full and objective investigation of the chemical attack in Syria only Bolivia voted yes. China abstained! So Russia looked isolated just prior to the attackHydro on April 15, 2018 , · at 3:11 pm UTCChina abstained on the US-sponsored "poison pill" resolution which was set up to be vetoed, and allowed the US to say they tried to resolve the chemical attack diplomatically but since the resolution was vetoed the only avenue left is to retaliate by missile strikes. However, China voted FOR the "clean" Russian-sponsored resolution to investigate but this seems to be lost.Serbian girl on April 15, 2018 , · at 9:29 pm UTCYes you are right. So there we're a total 4 resolutions. 3 resolutions on chemical weapons investigation and 1 on violation of international and UN charter.grrr on April 15, 2018 , · at 12:19 pm UTCFor the chemical weapons: Russia submitted 2 resolutions and US 1. None of them passed. China abstained on one, the US one, which Bolivia and Russia vetoed. Here are the links:
Security council fails to adopt three resolutions on chemical weapons use in Syria
https://news.un.org/en/story/2018/04/1006991And then there was last one on violation of international law and UN charter also didn't pass:
Russia's UNSC resolution calling to stop aggression against Syria does not receive enough votes
https://www.rt.com/news/424171-unsc-russia-resolution-syria/It is impossible to quickly overcome a ~30 years misguided attempt to impose physical hegemony forever. No complex dynamical system deviates from stable trajectory for too long and too far without breaking apart. And since nobody wants (or foolish enough not to be afraid) of a WWIII (a.k.a. breaking the system apart), the US will be forced to change its guiding principle of perpetuating its sole hegemony. Hopefully sooner than later and peacefully.ThereisaGod on April 15, 2018 , · at 12:21 pm UTCIs Putin not putting himself at a huge disadvantage if he allows the carriers group now crossing the Atlantic to get close to Syria and Russia. As this confrontation is obviously not over should Russia not draw a red line at the straits of Gibraltar or somewhere?Coast Guard on April 15, 2018 , · at 12:34 pm UTCI don't understand military issues but can see that the USA/UK/France cannot in the slightest way, be trusted to do anything other than wait for what they perceive to be a moment of advantage, then attack.
I saw him in a fastboat carrying an RPG. He'll be stopping the carrier task force momentarily.Justice coming for US on April 15, 2018 , · at 1:22 pm UTC
Don't worry. They won't get close to Syria.I understand he has a "Dagger" or six under his arm. Not only will that stop the Carrier Group, it will place it where it belongs. At the bottom of the sea.ReneR on April 15, 2018 , · at 12:24 pm UTCAnother possible option would be to simply bring the Warsaw pact again new life.ThereisaGod on April 15, 2018 , · at 12:25 pm UTCThe US in the past didnt dare to attack pact-members in the cold war. Now we have a situation that the US considers other States as his toy for torture.
Syria, China Venezuela Belarus, and Donbass even North Korea should become members of it.
It is dreadful to have to wonder if the history of Donald Trump's ***** might play a major role in the continuance or otherwise of life on earth.gatobart on April 15, 2018 , · at 12:29 pm UTCTwo days ago Vladimir Putin was handed the worst and most humilliating political (and military) defeat of his entire life, something that in other, more normal times, would have immediately forced a man in his stature to resign his post and go away (Chamberlain anyone ?) yet his own adoring fans seem to be the only ones who haven`t noticed it, preferring instead to keep living in that universe of denial they have been dwelling in for years already. What shows best the extent of this attitude of denial is the fact that they were gloating about the fact that Russia didnt even intervene–contrary to what the man himself had promised he would do only a month ago if one of Russia`s allies was attacked. By now is evident that his word is not worth the saliva that was wasted in saying it and that the US has absolutely no respect for him or for Russia. There are just two things to notice to see the truth in these words: a gloating, exulting Nimrata in the UNO, knowing well how cheap was for her and her country, or rather her neocon masters, this victory was (Russia didnt do a thing, so no WW3) and the headlines in the web "Russia furious". If there is still any doubt about this conclusion, well, beware, the Gang Of Three now plans to present to the UNSC a proposition celebrating the illegal attack on Syria of the 14th and they intend to invite ALL members of it, including Russia, to accept it and take it as a fait accompli. But that will be only a prelude for what is to come, which is of course the demand by the U.S. that the UNO accepts her way of conducting business as the norm, as something they will be able to do in every possible occasion they will wish to do it. Which means, more fake chemical attacks and more bombing in Syria until Russia is thrown out of the country. So much for our master chess player in the Kremlin. Only last year he was still insisting, against all caution and the warning of people as knowledgeable as PCR, that his first priority in foreign policy was a good relationship with Amerika, see how well he has done in this regard (Chamberlain anyone, again ?) All in all, things wont become better but much worse after this devastating defeat of the master chess player, they will only become worse until they get him and Russia cornered and with only two possible options, which we all know well. This is not about Russia being alone or being weaker than the US NATO gang, it is all about Putin`s deliberate policy of putting above everything else his vain and useless attempts at being respected and even liked by his worst enemies, the Western elites.one minion on April 16, 2018 , · at 9:48 am UTCI thank the gods that Mr Putin is not as simple minded as the picture you have just painted.Nano Bagonghi on April 15, 2018 , · at 12:30 pm UTCRegarding China. China it's a great and powerful nation with a vision and a strategy that span far in the future. His policy has always been to go on with extreme caution and as low as possibile exposure. First and foremost she takes care of his own interest, as any other, however. His main opponent is, that for sure, the "western" empire. In this long term fight, China finds herself in company of other nations who are fighting the same long term struggle. Yes, China doesn't share the same cultural, historical, ethnical heritage with Russia, wich in that regard is part of the Euro family, but shares a vital, long term surviving fight with Russia (and Iran, Syria). This is a matter of fact that can not be underestimated. So, in long term, and in spite of some annoying behavior, I'm quite sure that China will stand with Russia. I read that Chinese warships were placed in front of Syria together with Russian navy, maybe someone forgot that, this is a strong message to me.one minion on April 16, 2018 , · at 9:51 am UTCTo me also, "This is a matter of fact that can not be underestimated."Jean Lasson on April 15, 2018 , · at 12:31 pm UTCDid you read this post from Paul Craig Roberts :Ozzie on April 15, 2018 , · at 10:12 pm UTC
https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2018/04/14/russias-humanity-moral-conscience-leading-war/ ?I side with PCR. Only a public military humiliation can stop the Empire. Russia had a golden opportunity to inflict such an humiliation yesterday and she missed that opportunity.
Let's suppose that Russia downed as many attacking warplanes as possible, whatever their location was, plus a few ships like the USS Donal Cook. What would happen next ? Would the USA launch their strategic missiles on Russia ? I very much doubt it, since the US know as a hard fact that they would be destroyed in retaliation. MAD has been restored. The would have no military response at all and the whole world would see it. And this would have been the end of the Empire, with many vassals leaving it.
Of course, such strikes will happen again. Let's hope that Russia will strike back then.
The public is brainwashed because they are hooked to the mass media and they are the product of our "educational" system. Americans are about sports and shopping. A good portrait is the rabbits of Watership Down.mundanomaniac on April 15, 2018 , · at 12:32 pm UTCIn 1958, I still believed that there was a significant intellectual difference between the American bourgeosie and the cattle one sees peering between the slats of large trucks as they contentedly munch hay on their way to the abattoir.–R. Oliver
Donald T' s inheritance was a loose canon. I'm sure he knew it when he ran, as a proved tower – builder, against floating sands and the satanic Hillary-fan-club.Anonymous on April 15, 2018 , · at 12:34 pm UTCAmerica is in psychiatric treatment since 2014 by the spirit of the north.
April 14 was a peace of the art of political wisdom, 'taking two to tango
above the triggers of the planet's doomLondon to Pressure Financially Russian Businessmen With Assets in UK – ReportsHank on April 15, 2018 , · at 12:35 pm UTChttps://sputniknews.com/europe/201804151063587256-uk-russian-oligarchs-assets/
US to Impose Sanctions on Russia Over Support of Assad – Envoy to UN
https://sputniknews.com/us/201804151063584536-haley-us-troops-syria/
More sanctions against Russia to be announced on Monday – Haley
Saker, no it is not over by a long shot. Haley again today (it appears she is running US foreign policy by herself) says empire gonna sanction Russia again via Treasury tomorrow. It looks like empire trying to ride the false flag chem thing to build a coalition of the "fools" against Russia or some kind of mass movement to give them cover for military action. They are furiously trying to bring massive pressure on the Russian leadership so they will back off and let them have Syria, admit US is almighty god and so they can then go after Iran. It seems US and Brits so knocked off balance by Putin and his election victory and weapons announcement that empire frantically trying to reassert that they and only they are the "decider" of right and wrong and what is moral and immoral. This will go on all of April and into May as Trump backs out of nuke deal with Iran. Then things will really get ugly and fast. And that doesn't even factor in North Korea.Anonymous on April 15, 2018 , · at 3:44 pm UTCI notice that Russian MOD states that the "allies" were configured to launch 300 missiles not the 110 that were sent. He indicates that they had poor planning and that no one was in charge. But, it may be that they have decided to come back for another hit when the next false flag chem attack is perpetrated probably soon. The chem thing is all they have that is working for them and that isn't much. I finally got emails announcing anti-war protests by ANSWER and I hope they will continue. I have been to some strong street actions with ANSWER in the past although impacting these monsters is nearly impossible.
I agree with you that Russia should flood both Syria and Iran with anti missile systems and they should do it now.
It looks like the Duma gonna finally sanction the US back with some pretty good things including stuffing US "intellectual" property rights in the US ass by turning Russian companies loose to use patents without paying license fees. They can also fuck up US space program and rocket programs.
Actually, Saker, I think what US empire is really up to is to create enough mass hysteria globally that they think they can build some kind of "coalition of the truly stupid" to attack Russia and take it. I honestly think they are that stupid and desperate. Because if that is not it then at some point they are going to have to back off, admit defeat and be seen as the losers they really are. They just don't have the basic decency to do that.
Best
Yes you are right about the U.S. intention to create mass hysteria , and a " coalition of the truly stupid."eagle eye on April 15, 2018 , · at 7:14 pm UTC
The lead item on RNZ news at 5 a.m. this morning referred to the silly little girl who is currently P.M. of N.Z. condoning the U.K. /France / U.S. strike; presumably she will also support the Israel strike against Iranian assets in Syria.
Every day , the lies and propaganda start in NZ, and are halfway around the world before the truth gets out of bed.
Count on it. Thank you Rupert.And Rupert's whores are at it in Australia as well, reporting on the grovelling snot bag Turnbull's obsequious offering of more Australian lives to lubricate the Anglo Zionist machine. I say lets put his kids in the first jet to attack Syrian positions and see if he still thinks it is worth the cost.Anonymous on April 16, 2018 , · at 12:31 am UTCIn 2001 Australians have marched in their thousands to protest the imminent strike on Irak.lizzie dw on April 15, 2018 , · at 12:35 pm UTC
Today they blabbered non stop about the the 'tampered ball' and protesting the punishment of the cheaters and hounding the pedophile clergy.I appreciate your comments but do not share you perceptions. Reportedly, the USA informed Russia before they dropped the bombs. Does that make sense? Reportedly, they bombed a factory which has not been in use since 2013. Reportedly, either no one was killed or 4 unfortunate civilians were killed. Reportedly, no Russian personnel or equipment was affected. Reportedly, the 3 attacking countries dropped 103 bombs and 71 or 73 or whatever were intercepted, yet the USA said the complete opposite. "We are confident ..". Amazingly, the USA has developed a bomb, or a method of bombing, which, if it hits a factory producing chemical weapons and therefore is full of lethal substances, will not, repeat not, dissipate these into the air, thereby insuring that no one will be affected!!! (emphasis mine) I agree that some people might think that the attack actually did something, but who are they? Nobody I know. My perception is that people working in the our government are isolated and out of touch and they are the ones who had to be satisfied(?). I also think that Mr. Trump is so surrounded by liars that he can trust no one. He stated he wanted the US to leave Syria, then, shortly after, the USA performed this inane bombing attack. Maybe this is Mr. Trump's response to the immense pressure I think he gets from those around him. It was very confusing but certainly did not make me feel that our country is great again – I am just embarrassed. I feel very badly for the citizens of Syria who unfortunately live in a country located in the center of the world, surrounded by all that gas and oil.ProtoSec on April 15, 2018 , · at 2:43 pm UTCI have seen reports that said they did, and I have seen reports that Moscow was furious because they were not given notice on the deconfliction channel.metamars on April 15, 2018 , · at 12:39 pm UTCIts anyones guess which version is the truth,
"The western general public is so terminally zombified that false flag attacks can now be announced 4 weeks in advance"DannyO on April 15, 2018 , · at 12:44 pm UTCEven though you live in the US, you seem sadly out of touch with what Americans know and believe. "America" is NOT your blog audience, any more than "America" is Donald Trump and the US State Department.
I found out last Thursday that my own mother took seriously the idea that Assad gassed people in Douma. So, yesterday I asked 4 of my coworkers what they thought about the US led missile attack. I was actually more interested in finding out whether they believed Assad had any culpability in Douma.
It turns out that everybody approved, including a guy that I knew for a fact was a Trump supporter (who, as a candidate, would not have approved of meddling in Syria, or at least pretended to be such). This particular guy explained by asking a question: "If you saw your neighbor beating his wife to a pulp, would you jump in to stop him, or just stand around and let it happen?"
The sense I got from everybody is that intervention was a moral act. Most zombies that I have seen in movies are, at best, amoral (assuming they have no agency).
Consequently, you are misusing the term "zombified"!
The appropriate term is "brainwashed". They believe in a pseudo-reality.
That is why the absence of a 4th category in your graph is potentially tragic. You are missing the category of communication/education, which would encompass benign (truthful) propaganda and benign (truthful) psyops, targeting the American public directly (American elites more indirectly). While this was better done as prevention, the resultiing de-legitimization of the American War Party could be thought of as retaliation.
To a person looking at things in a detached manner, prevention (going forward) is better than retaliation (looking backwards), but such considerations are secondary to solving the problem of the ignorance and brainwashing of American citizens. Doing so would provide at least fertile soil for the emergence of corrective political pressure from the bottom, up.
Do you SERIOUSLY think your own efforts, plus Russian government efforts in the form of rt.com and sputniknews.com, are sufficient to deprogram and educate Americans? (There is no disrespect for you efforts intended by asking this question.)
Then please do the following: learn how to use the video feature on your smart phone, or tablet; then do a walking video poll of passersby on some crowded street near you. (You probably won't be allowed to do so in a shopping mall, but it might be worth a try.) I suggest you use the same technique I used when doing a video poll of TPP awareness amongst the public (which proved, to my satisfaction, that polls showing popular acceptance were a complete fraud; most American HAD NEVER HEARD OF THE TPP, Pew notwithstanding). I asked people "May I ask you 1 yes/no question?" About half the people won't give you the time of day, even for that. Of those that do, maybe 1/3 will be interested in talking about it; typically, they they will ask the same question of you.
Afterwards, tabulate the results, upload the video to youtube, and write it up here.
Better yet, do this and ask you audience to do the same. Then, include the links to their youtube channels in your write-up.
You should try to get your results (which are almost sure to be similar to mine) to the Russian government, because they act AS IF they had the same viewpoint as you.
Putin could reach millions of Americans by tweeting to @realDonaldTrump, but doesn't bother. I have to wonder, why? If he assumed that the American public are all "zombies", instead of containing moral but brainwashed citizens in their 10's if not 100's of millions, then his lack of action would make more sense.
He'd be wrong, but at least his actions would logically follow from his mistaken notions.
It is over. It was over in 2000 and the hammer came down in 2006. With the defeat of the anglo/zionists in Lebanon by Hezbollah it marked the beginning of the end for the occultists. Hezbollah was not actually fighting the iof but rather the combined forces of western zionist imperialism. And they won.Izaates bar Monobazeus on April 15, 2018 , · at 12:49 pm UTC
Iraq, Libya and now Syria are a direct result of the ouster of the baby killers from Lebanon. The chaos in the ME – the Arab bullshit spring – the propping up of the gulf monarchy muppets is panic mode by the zionist oligarchy. There is no policy only blind reactionary behaviour – this is evidenced even in the propaganda of the MSM which not only makes no sense but speaks continuous transparent lies.
The west has been forced to use moderate and not so moderate head chopper orc mercs to fight its battles. Proxy war by orc is a sign of desperation and with the collapse of the hegemon on the horizon.
The Russians and the axis of resistance is simply trying to mitigate the damage that the oligarchy can still do and keep the US and the western vassals from imploding.I think the UK is exhibiting signs of genuine fear because it has dawned on the UK elite after the miserable performance of their Three Amigo's missile strike that Russia has a special present for instigators of ww3.ProtoSec on April 15, 2018 , · at 2:36 pm UTCThe great harlot is going to fall. A smoking ruin no man will ever wish to tread. England has whored itself to the gallows.
Mystery Babylon comes down in one hour.Francis Lee on April 16, 2018 , · at 2:07 am UTC
One hour, that is all.Yes, I also think that Russia is reserving a special treatment for the UK. Unfortunately I live in London!Den Lille Abe on April 15, 2018 , · at 12:50 pm UTCN, it is not over, that much , we agree on. But the Chinese, I believe are not short sighted nor are they stupid. The will probably not do much for Syria, but I think they will raise their voice immediately if Russia is seriously threatened. China knows if Russia falls, she is next. Iran knows this too. So I cant see other than these three will have to stand together. But other may join India, possibly, Pakistan, possibly. And possibly further some smaller countries.Anonymous on April 15, 2018 , · at 9:25 pm UTC
But I am 100 % certain that in all these countries, the people, the knowledgeable of the people, we know that if we end up, in a unipolar world, we will be slaves and remain slaves, forever.
And those countries I just summed up are more than 3 Billion.
Brazil, Argentina, Peru, Who knows. But
Better die standing, than live crawling.I think you underestimate how hated and despised the US is around the world. In most of the non western world, the United States story of oppression and murder is very well known and it is not forgotten. But fear keeps people in bondage, and the US has shown it will spare no excesses to reach its goal, so when the battle comes it will be long bloody and brutal.
And yes it will come.From today's Global Times editorial, semi-official organ of the Chinese politburo:"However, the stronger a country is, the greater the responsibility it has to maintain world peace and order. The military actions of the US and its allies have breached the framework of the United Nations and violated the foundation of modern international relations. If the will of Washington and the West represents the will of all mankind and they can punish whoever they want, why do we need the UN, or international law?
Without UN authorization, the US, UK and France behaved like rogues. No matter how touching the excuses they find for themselves, they cannot change the fact that they were lynching Syria without due evidence "
More of this in the UNSC please.
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Apr 18, 2018 | thesaker.is
Paul II on April 15, 2018 , · at 10:40 am UTC
What about a fourth type of retaliation, cleaning out the financier/Zionist/pro-Western/liberal infestation inside Russia? This wouldn't require China's approval, and would lead to a much healthier and stronger Russia in the long run.Martin Giuffrida on April 15, 2018 , · at 12:12 pm UTCIn my view, China has done far more to get itself out of AZ control and on the path to pursuing its national interests than Russia has. It is depressing to read most Russian blogs as they keep harping on what needed to be done years ago.
Yes and this Russian show with Yakov Kedmi really surprised and disturbed me:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwYcItJp4O8&t=1s
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Apr 18, 2018 | thesaker.is
Anonymous on April 15, 2018 , · at 9:55 am UTC
The Chinese newspaper the Global Times agrees with the Saker:Graeme - Australia on April 15, 2018 , · at 5:28 pm UTC"Washington's attack on Syria where Russian troops are stationed constitute serious contempt for Russia's military capabilities and political dignity. Trump, like scolding a pupil, called on Moscow, one of the world's leading nuclear powers, to abandon its "dark path." Disturbingly, Washington seems to have become addicted to mocking Russia in this way. Russia is capable of launching a destructive retaliatory attack on the West. Russia's weak economy is plagued by Western sanctions and squeezing of its strategic space. That the West provokes Russia in such a manner is irresponsible for world peace Western countries continue bullying Russia but are seemingly not afraid of its possible counterattack. Their arrogance breeds risk and danger."
Yes, I also follow the Global Times editorials, and have friends in ChinaSarmis2014 on April 15, 2018 , · at 11:30 pm UTCSimon Chow nails it, in my opinion
America is playing checkers (or some other child's game). Russia is playing Chess, and we know how good they are at that. China is playing Chinese Chess and that is fking impossible to understand for a westerner subtle does not cover it .. and China has the father (godfather?) of all generals and military strategists, Sun Tzu . go figure
I agree, the fat lady is out there somewhere warming her vocal chords.
Talking about chess In my humble opinion all the suffering and foreign occupation of Syria could end in less than a month if Russia would have the guts to threaten (behind closed doors or overtly) that if the attacks and occupation of Syria will not stop Russia will provide the weapons necessary to nullify the military superiority of Israel to all relevant enemy of Israel and of course to Syria. The timed leak in the news that Russia considers providing S-300 to Syrian is a good start but obviously not firm and strong enough, According to Paul Craig Roberts "to restate the point once again, the passivity of the Putin government in the face of Washington's aggressiveness is leading directly to nuclear war and the end of life on earth". I think Russia can be "passive" by not attacking US but can be very engage by threatening were it hurts the most the safety of Israel. CheersAnonymous on April 15, 2018 , · at 11:33 pm UTCIt is an old metaphor. I think it was used on Atimes years ago: Americans play Monopoly, Russians play chess. Someone added (it could have been me) and Chinese play Go! That was a response: Americans play poker, the game of the 'achievers'. The response was: Americans play poker with loaded dices' and if their bluff is called, they pull the gun and 'take it all'. If I am not mistaken, the verbal joust originated in Australia!Graeme - Australia on April 16, 2018 , · at 1:13 am UTCYes, Go 围棋Anonymous on April 16, 2018 , · at 1:56 am UTCFrom the rules:
• Sacrifice: Allowing a group to die in order to carry out a play, or plan, in a more important area.Interesting
From the Global Times
'Drill a warning to secessionist forces'
The news that the People's Liberation Army will conduct live-fire military exercises in the Taiwan Straits on April 18 has shocked Taiwan. It is a clear warning against recent pro-independence activities on the island, especially head of Taiwan's administrative authority Lai Ching-te's advocacy for independence.
Secessionists should not fantasize that the US will come to their rescue, even though the US had passed the Taiwan Travel Act. National unity is in the core interest of China, which is determined and capable of shattering any foreign intervention. Once Beijing decides to take action, it won't be stopped by any other force.
We believe that if the mainland were to take a military strike against "Taiwan-independence" forces, Washington would have no effective means other than protest.
The planned military drills will be a reconfirmation of Beijing's bottom line. Let the bombing and shooting drills alert Taiwan, rather than letting them actually occur on the island. The mainland does not wish to end the Taiwan question with a military showdown, however, how the situation develops depends on how much rationality remains in the Taiwan administration.
The Ukraine, North Korea .. Sth China Sea .. Syria
Russia, cold war
China, trade warAmerica is somewhat busy at the moment.
Could it take on a direct confrontation over Taiwan?
I think Syria is too strategically important to be 'allowed to die' .. but, then, I cannot play Go
Interesting ..
What about the 'rumors' that China will build a base in Vanuatu? "We would view with great concern the establishment of any foreign military bases in those Pacific Island countries and neighbours of ours," Mr Turnbull said. Ahem!Graeme - Australia on April 16, 2018 , · at 4:20 am UTCYes, I wonder what Mr Turnbull would say if it was America doing the same thing?Anonymous on April 16, 2018 , · at 10:54 pm UTCOh that's right . does not need to . already has a base here in Australia
Although, Australia has little choice, I believe. We still need a big brother. Although that is getting very very complicated.
Australia's geography will determine its future .. IS determining its future
Australia has a 'Big Moma' already, the owner of it, actually.Anonymous on April 16, 2018 , · at 2:36 am UTCCould America take on a direct confrontation over Taiwan?Graeme - Australia on April 16, 2018 , · at 4:30 am UTCIf Taiwan is 500 kilometers off the coast from California, America just might give it a try. But alas, Taiwan is 500 kilometer off the coast from Fujian Province. Only a deranged America would take the bite. Let's see if America is deranged. Lately there are signs it is down that slippery slope.
What I meant, is the China is choosing its timing and confrontation very carefullyAmerica is the next door neighbour who has watched the plum ripen every day, fearing that pesky Chinese neighbour will steal it and eat it
Not being careful, or just being plain dumb, the American knocked over a hornets nest and and now too busy dealing with the angry hornets to keep an eye on the plum
Timing is everything
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Apr 18, 2018 | thesaker.is
Serbian girl on April 15, 2018 , · at 10:17 am UTC
Excellent analysis by the Saker!Anonymous on April 15, 2018 , · at 1:28 pm UTCHere is a list of the non-permanent members of the UNSC: (the year indicates the end of their two year term)
Bolivia (2018)
Côte d'Ivoire (2019)
Equatorial Guinea (2019)
Ethiopia (2018)
Kazakhstan (2018)
Kuwait (2019)
Netherlands (2018)
Peru (2019)
Poland (2019)
Sweden (2018)Every single country (!) on this list- except for Bolivia – abstained in the latest UNSC vote to stop aggression against Syria Russia, China, Bolivia voted in favor. USA, UK, France vited against. With just ONE vote the resolution would have passed
Kazakhstan is a member of the SCO..why did they not join Russia and China to support this resolution?? I am beginning to think the SCO is just hype.
One thing's for sure: I'm going to miss Bolivia when their term ends this year
Incorrect analysis.Serbian girl on April 15, 2018 , · at 3:20 pm UTCThe resolution was never going to pass. The US, the UK and France all posses the veto power of a permanent member of the UNSC. Thus, it does not matter how many voted in favor. The resolution was defeated.
I think I remember seeing at least one statement from another country that said that there was purpose of voting in favor of a veto'd resolution. Why bother. Especially when the US is infamous for blackmailing and armtwisting nations that vote against them. It was only a few months ago that Nutti Nikki declared the US was 'taking names' of those who opposed the.
There isn't any reason to vote for a resolution that is already and certainly veto'd. Actually, you see this alot also in bodies like the US Congress. Once a side has the votes to know they won (or lost), then a single vote doesn't mean anything. Thus a congressperson can vote a way that pleases the voters (or the lobbyists) and know that they are doing so with no impact on whether the measure passes or fails. You sometimes see members of congress voting for and against the same bill so they can take either position in the next campaign!
Anonymous, you are of course correct. It's the SC and not the GA so any veto will bring down the resolution. Thank you for correcting my mistake. I also understand perfectly your point about tactical voting.tomo on April 15, 2018 , · at 6:36 pm UTCHowever:
It would send a powerful message to the empire (and the world) if Russia were not so isolated in her diplomatic efforts, even if a resolution is vetoed!..As Saker mentioned above noone seems to care about the higher values of international law. By keeping a low profile and abstaining these countries are basically confirming that there is no diplomatic way to stop the aggression.
what is happening to Russia funnily reminds me of what happened to me as a kid – I was maybe 9.Anonymous on April 15, 2018 , · at 1:33 pm UTC
there was a bully in our neighborhood park where we used to play – he was 3 or 4 years older than most of us. He used to beat all of us individually (I was the youngest in the group) – but then I would come behind him when he was not looking and hit him with a brick etc.
so one day all the kids gathered (not sure whose idea it was – not mine – but I approved and joined them) and agreed to circle the bully and at 1..2..3..we were all to jump at him and to start beating him I thought it was a great idea.
so we went there and did that – 1..2..3 – I jumped on the bully and started kicking him – only to realize that everybody else just stayed where they were. I was the only one fighting him Even my brother didn't join me.
I hope the same thing does not happen to Russia – but if it does – just be prepared – and never trust psychopathic Anglo – westBolivia has a democracy that has elected governments that actually favor their people over corporations, and god forbid, that don't favor foriegn (American) corporations over their own people.Anonymous on April 15, 2018 , · at 1:46 pm UTCThus, the US has already declared Bolivia an enemy. They don't seem to be number 1 on the American kill list, but they are already on the list.
At this point in time, the UNSC is blocked to both sides. Neither side can pass a UNSC resolution against the other. One side had 2 and now 3 vetos. The other side has 2 vetos. Nothing is passing.Anonymous on April 15, 2018 , · at 2:17 pm UTCWhich means that neither side can claim UNSC sanction for their wars. Which in turn really makes any war illegal. Not that any of the Axis of Evil care about that. For the record, Trump violated the US Constitution in two ways (at least) by attacking Syria, thus, if the system were honest, he would now be impeached. Of course, the system is not honest, but it is highly rigged.
Since Russia and China don't seem to be starting any wars of aggression, that lack of ability to get a UNSC certificate for wars of aggression won't matter much to them. But, also don't expect them to pass anything condemning the Axis of Evil through the UNSC.
The UNSC is now only for making speeches. Both sides then use these messages in their psyOps operations. PsyOps is the right word because both sides now view propaganda as warfare by other means.
Vietnam brought forth the term "hearts and minds." That's what they psyOps wars are fighting over. The hearts and minds of everyone. Or at least those who are paying attention, and of course getting more to pay attention to your psyOps is a part of the battle as well.
The UNSC is thus a tool in these psyOps wars. The Russians make their case. Nutti Nikki screams, rants and threatens. Each is then used as propaganda both at their own people at home and at the rest of the world. It will stay that way as long as no one repeats the Soviet mistake of the Korean War era and gets so fed up with it that they don't bother to show up and cast their veto.
One interpretation of these comments is that diplomacy is just a bunch of fancy talk to create fodder for psyops. While NATO and other military organizations may view it that way, from another perspective, making speeches in a public meeting like this, where a resolution is on the line, can serve to entrench or resolve conflict. As part of a larger diplomatic strategy.one minion on April 16, 2018 , · at 12:37 am UTCThe 'hearts and minds' concept originated in the Malaya campaign in the 50's–counter-insurgency–and it was never about hearts and minds, it was about 'killing people in order to save them'– a precursor of 'humanitarian intervention' –basic BS, in other words.Francis Lee on April 15, 2018 , · at 1:55 pm UTC
Part of the so-called psyop then was head-chopping of communist Chinese by the British soldiers, I seem to recall.Kazakhstan is one of the founding members of the Eurasian Economic Union. But it has always made its position clear that its membership is based upon economic and not political union. So its vote was not all that surprising. It's called hedging your bets.
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Apr 18, 2018 | thesaker.is
Lysander on April 15, 2018 , · at 9:48 am UTC
Saker,Amir on April 15, 2018 , · at 10:36 am UTCRussia has a lot of options and none of them involve attacking US/NATO forces directly. And General Rudskoy already hinted at one of them, the S300 to Syria and to possibly some other countries. A great idea, but only one of Russia's options.
Following from that, the first thing Russia should do, a long with Iran, Hizbullah and Syria, is exactly what it has been doing: securing more and more of Syria. Since the last time AZ axis did this, Syria's situation on the ground is much improved. By the next time they try, it will be much better still. Eyes on the prize.
Next, the S300. Russia has to impose a painful cost to the enemy without triggering a war. That's where Israel comes in. Russia needs to help Syria (Russia should not do this herself) to bring down a handful of Israeli jets and capture their pilots alive. You will see immediately of the situation changes once 2, 3 or 4 of those most precious of souls are captured. Your head will spin. They will trade whatever they have to to get them back. Capturing American pilots would not have anywhere near the same effect. And British or French pilots? Don't make me laugh. Nobody really cares about the hired help.
Russia also has the option of soft retaliation. The empire has troops all over the world and faces insurgencies in many places. I'm just sayin'. Sometimes accidents happen when you are fighting insurgencies.
Believe me, I understand how disgusted you are by the situation. But this has been Russia's role in the world forever. Defending Europe and the world from the mongols, the Prussians, the Swedes, Napoleon, the Turks, Hitler has earned Russia zero gratitude. But nevertheless, many of us see. Even I, who am not a Christian, can see the analogy clear as day.
Sinking gas/oil platforms of Levithian field by "unknown assistants" might be a similar "symbolic" response. Similar to US attack of uninhibited buildings, this response by a third party against an ally of US (nominally ally, in reality the master) would send the message, without too much of a risk.pogohere on April 16, 2018 , · at 8:24 pm UTCYour comments about the Israeli reaction to the loss of its planes and the capture of their pilots is right. Read the Israeli press and especially the comments that follow the stories. Israeli hubris is not to be believed. The commenters (much less the article authors) can´t acknowledge that US missiles were shot down (albeit, with integrated modern radars, electronic interference, etc, acknowledged) by Syrians with Soviet era junk.
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Apr 18, 2018 | thesaker.is
Anonymous on April 15, 2018 , · at 9:40 am UTC
The consequence has not come yet. Those that expected that Russia would sink every American vessels and fire of off thermonuclear weapon at Washington, has no real connection to reality.Such an action would be the dream of neocons and liberals in the western world. Russia will win as long as they can avoid a full on attack on Syria by USA and getting themselves dragged into a conflict with USA or one of its clients.
Yes it is annoying that USA keeps bombing Syria, and yes it ruins the lives of the families that lose loved ones in such attacks. But they do not hinder the progress of the Syrian army. Which likely will have wrapped up everything that is politically easy to wrap up in Syria this year. The border with Israel, Idlib and the kurds being the last more politically difficult parts.
In reality, Russia and Assad won from this attack I think, it made them look good internationally, it made USA look bad, Trumps supporters are in an uproar right now.. This is not like last year when the democrats supported his attack and his base kinda thought it was acceptable..
This time everyone thinks Trump is a lunatic, even his most fanatic supporters such as Alex Jones that has been being over backwards to protect Trump have lost hope in him
Here Alex actually cries when he finds out what Trump did
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Myz5vBDPH6cWhen Russia unified with Crimea, it lost the international moral initiative which it had, now, it is absolutely regained it. This attack while it caused no damage to Russia or the war effort for Syria also gives Russia an excuse to do whatever it wants back.
The consequence of the USA strike could be something like.
1. Giving Syria better and "forbidden" in the style of S400 or S300.
2. Giving Syria more and more advanced pansirs.
3. Giving Syria advance anti-ship missiles, enabling them to take out every USA ship off their coast.
4. Arming groups that oppose USA over the world state actors or non-state actors, either covertly or openly with advanced weapons.
5. Revealing classified information about USA that perhaps USA got Russia to agree it would not reveal. Could be anything, proof perhaps that the USA gold reserve is empty perhaps that USA did 9/11, anything really.
6. A purge of USA backed fifth columnists inside of Russia.The consequence will be something alone the line of causing long term severe consequence for USA but causing no problem for Russia or even being beneficial.
"Russia's ambassador to the U.S. warned there would be "consequences" for the strike on Syria, and that a "pre-designed scenario" was underway."
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/13/russia-warns-of-consequences-for-us-led-strike-on-syria.html
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Apr 18, 2018 | www.moonofalabama.org
Valtin | Apr 17, 2018 2:36:59 PM | 131
These skirmishes (not skirmishes to those who live or die because of them), even ones that are war crimes, as this was, seem to me to be in large part ways in which the major powers test out their combat systems. I would think the Pentagon would like to test the Russian defense systems, and the Russians can't be completely sorry they got the opportunity to see how those new systems worked under operational conditions. The winners are the arms manufacturers. The losers are everybody else.
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Apr 18, 2018 | blogs.rediff.com
Actually, there is nothing like "American policies" in the Trump era. The Washington Post carried two reports this week underlining the utter confusion within the Trump administration. Even the president is not necessarily the last word.
One of these two astonishing reports titled Trump a reluctant hawk has battled his top aides on Russia and lost (here) narrates shocking details on how the former NSA in the White House HR McMaster simply hoodwinked a bumbling Trump into approving the proposal to expel 60 Russian diplomats from the US last month:
The next day, when the expulsions were announced publicly, Trump erupted, officials said. To his shock and dismay, France and Germany were each expelling only four Russian officials The president, who seemed to believe that other individual countries would largely equal the United States, was furious that his administration was being portrayed in the media as taking by far the toughest stance on RussiaGrowing angrier, Trump insisted that his aides had misled him about the magnitude of the expulsions. "There were curse words," the official said, "a lot of curse words."
The second WaPo report (here) narrates how even the famous Nikki Haley can no longer pretend to be Trump's authoritative voice.
I'm reminded of Roman Emperor Caligula (AD 37-41). He had a favorite horse by name Incitatus whom he once planned to designate as Roman consul. Caligula used to hold parties for friends in the steed's grand stables. In a fit of exuberant joy, he once named Incitatus a Minister of State.
The Trump presidency has not quite reached that point yet, but bizarre things are happening in the Washington Beltway – like in Caligula's decadent Rome in decline and fall. India will be well advised to keep distance.
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Apr 18, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com
Update : Interfax reports that the Russian military has discovered a rebel-owned chemical weapons lab in Douma.
The Russian Defense Ministry says that components for Mustard Gas production were discovered along with cylinders of chlorine at a alb belonging to militants in Douma.
Additionally, Moscow has said it is stunned by a French statement that Russia is obstructing OPCW experts from entering Syria's Douma (echoing Ambassador Ward's). the Russian foreign ministry confirms OPCW expoerts are already in Douma.
* * *
And on the game goes...
While Russia's foreign ministry warns that Western powers are interfering with OPCW's work in Syria (noting that the chemical weapons experts' access to Douma is being hampered by remaining militants, supported by Washington), as Caitlin Johnstone details , we are now being told by US officials (and I assure you I am not making this up) that if the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons doesn't find evidence that the Syrian government conducted a chemical weapons attack in Douma last week, it's because Russia hid the evidence .
"It is our understanding the Russians may have visited the attack site," reports U.S. Ambassador Kenneth Ward.
"It is our concern that they may have tampered with it with the intent of thwarting the efforts of the OPCW Fact-Finding Mission to conduct an effective investigation."
I guess the idea is that this international top-level investigative team on which tremendous credibility has been placed by the western world can be thwarted by Russians showing up with a Hoover and spraying some Febreze in the air like a teenage stoner when mom comes home? I'm not sure, but given the immense dearth of evidence we've been seeing in support of the establishment Douma narrative and the mounting pile of evidence contradicting it, it sure does sound fishy.
Now that the jihadist-occupied suburb of Douma has been retaken by the Syrian government, western journalists have been allowed in to poke around and start asking questions, and so far it isn't looking great for the propaganda machine .
The Independent 's Robert Fisk has published a report which affirms the story so many westerners have been dismissing as Kremlin propaganda for days now after interviewing a doctor from the hospital of the area where the Douma attack was supposed to have occurred. Dr Assim Rahaibani told Fisk that what was in actuality an outbreak of respiratory distress among occupants of a dusty oxygen-deprived tunnel was made to look like the aftereffects of a chemical weapons attack when a member of the White Helmets started shouting about a gas attack in front of a bunch of video cameras. Everyone panicked and started hosing themselves down, but in the video, according to Rahaibani, "what you see are people suffering from hypoxia -- not gas poisoning."
This report was independently backed up by a reporter from One America News Network named Pearson Sharp, who gave a detailed account of his interviews with officials, doctors, as well as many civilians on the street Sharp says he deliberately selected at random in order to avoid accusations of bias. Many people hadn't even heard that a chemical weapons attack had taken place, and the ones who had said it was staged by Jaysh al-Islam. The staff at the hospital, including a medic-in-training who was an eyewitness to the incident, gave the same story as the account in Fisk's report.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/lSXwG-901yU
The increasing confidence with which these unapproved narratives are being voiced and the increasing discomfort being exhibited by empire loyalists like Ambassador Ward indicate a weakening narrative in the greater propaganda campaign against the Assad government and its allies, but don't hold your breath for the part where Fox News and the BBC turn around and start asking critical questions of the governments that they are meant to be holding to account.
The journalists who have been advancing the establishment narrative on Syria aren't about to start reporting that they've gotten the entire Syria story assballs backward and have been promoting a version of events manufactured for the benefit of CIA-MI6-Mossad agendas. You're not about to see CNN, who last year staged a fake scripted interview with a seven year-old Syrian girl to manufacture support for escalations against Assad, suddenly turn around and start asking if we're being told the full story about what's happening Syria.
Watch them closely. Watch how they steadfastly ignore the growing mountain of evidence and keep promoting the Syrian regime change agenda that the western empire has been working toward for decades . Watch them dismiss all evidence they can't ignore as Kremlin propaganda and shift the narrative whenever things start to look bad for them. Those riding the crest of the wave of establishment media are too far gone into the blob to ever admit error and change. The least among us aren't about to stop constructing a public reality tunnel which depicts them as heroes of truth, tear it all down, and start advancing a narrative which makes them look like fools at best and villains at worst. It will not happen.
Luckily for us, it doesn't need to. Internet censorship is still far from closing the door on our ability to network and share information, and we've been very effective at sowing skepticism among the masses. The war propagandists are not nearly as good at their jobs as they want to believe, and we can beat them.
They work so hard to manufacture support for war because they require that consent. If the oligarchs try to launch a war against a disobedient nation amidst very clear opposition from the public, they will shatter the illusion of freedom and democracy that their entire empire is built upon, and then they're exposed. Corporatist oligarchy has succeeded in weaving its web of dominance because its oppression has thus far remained hidden and its depravity disguised as humanitarianism. They cannot expose themselves by transgressing a loud NO from the public or else the masses will realize that everything they used to believe about their country, their government and their world is a lie.
They won't risk that. We can force them into retreating from open war by circulating facts and information and keeping a healthy level of skepticism circulating among the public. Watch them squirm, move goalposts and shift narratives, and point and yell about it whenever it happens. We can win the media war against the propagandists. We have truth on our side.
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Internet censorship is getting pretty bad, so best way to keep seeing my daily articles is to get on the mailing list for my website , so you'll get an email notification for everything I publish. My articles and podcasts are entirely reader and listener-funded, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook , following my antics on Twitter , checking out my podcast , throwing some money into my hat on Patreon or Paypal , or buying my new book Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers .
Give Me Some Truth -> Dickweed Wang Tue, 04/17/2018 - 12:42 Permalink
adonisdemilo -> Give Me Some Truth Tue, 04/17/2018 - 13:02 PermalinkThat fact-finding body (OPCW) could change the whole paradigm IF it finds conclusive evidence this was a false flag event, and IF they trumpet their findings to the world, and IF people get all the real ramifications of such a potential finding/announcement.
This said, I fully expect their "findings" to be a masterpiece of ambiguous language and weaslespeak.
This body after all is a creation of politicians and bureaucrats answering to many governments. They, almost certainly, will "punt."
... But if by some miracle they don't ...
BarkingCat -> Give Me Some Truth Tue, 04/17/2018 - 13:03 Permalink@Give Me Some Truth,
The OPCW had better release their findings if they contradict the "official" narrative before they fly out from Douma as they could well end up like the passengers on MH17.
That in itself will be another problem because the "good guys" will know within minutes that Russia did it.
"No conlusive evidence was found" will be the finding which either side can spin to their desire.
Russia - there is no evidence so there was no attack
US - the evidence was no conclusive but only because enough time has passed that it degraded to the point where a good sample could not be located.....and Russia kept the inspectors from the site in order for this to happen.
No minds will be changed.
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Apr 18, 2018 | www.moonofalabama.org
dh | Apr 17, 2018 8:47:50 PM | 65
Confused!!! How dare Larry Kudlow suggest Nikki got confused!!!
>White House press secretary Sarah Sanders insisted more sanctions were merely under consideration. On Tuesday, top White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said Haley "got ahead of the curve."
"She's done a great job," Kudlow said of Haley. "She's a very effective ambassador. There might have been some momentary confusion about that. But if you talk to Steve Mnuchin at Treasury and so forth, he will tell you the same thing. They're in charge of this. We have had sanctions. Additional sanctions are under consideration but not implemented, and that's all."
Haley, speaking for the first time since the White House dialed back her claims, rejected the idea that she was confused.
"With all due respect, I don't get confused," Haley said in a statement read by Fox News' Dana Perino and confirmed by CBS News Tuesday.
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Apr 17, 2018 | nationalinterest.org
You and the Atomic Bomb ," which he wrote two months after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, George Orwell coined the term "cold war" to describe the new epoch that he saw emerging after the fall of Nazi Germany and the rise of the Soviet Union and the United States. He predicted that the bomb would "put an end to large-scale wars at the cost of prolonging indefinitely a 'peace that is no peace.'" It was this very scenario that he depicted in his dystopian novel 1984 , which drew on James Burnham's Managerial Revolution and features Eurasia, Oceania and Eastasia in a permanent standoff several decades after an atomic war. Any actual conflicts or skirmishes take place in borderlands that are located well away from the three main empires.This cold peace was pretty much what obtained after 1945 in international affairs. The two superpowers, the Soviet Union and United States, avoided direct conflict. Instead, they used proxy powers and national liberation movements, mostly located in the Third World, to try and shift the correlation of forces, as the Kremlin used to call it, in their favor, whenever and wherever they could. The territory under their direct control was off limits -- the United States did not intervene during uprisings in the eastern bloc in East Germany, Hungary or Poland. The Kremlin confined itself to helping to fund communist parties in France and Italy, and to supporting the peace movement clandestinely. The peril of an atomic exchange was so immense that neither the Soviet Union nor the United States went to war over flashpoints such as Cuba and Berlin. What Orwell did not anticipate was that one side, the Soviet Union, would collapse completely, leaving the other as Mr. Big.
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The war in Iraq was a fiasco. Afghanistan is a quagmire. In America, terms such as "regime change" have fallen into disrepute. The West has lost its confidence. Populists are looking for a way to escape the iron cage of modernity. The era of Reagan and Thatcher proclaiming the verity of the free market and the expansion of freedom seems almost as remote as the scientific laws of history that Marxists once propounded.
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...President Donald Trump explained that he seeks to curb a new arms race that is "getting out of control," but also boasted that "we will never allow anybody to have anything even close to what we have." Already Trump has vastly expanded the American military budget, raising outlays to $700 billion for the fiscal year 2019. Trump, in a decision first approved by President Barack Obama, intends to devote $1 trillion to modernizing the American nuclear force over the next three decades.
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With his combination of bluff and bombast, Trump could stumble into a calamitous two-front war in Asia and the Middle East.
Jacob Heilbrunn is editor of the National Interest.
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Apr 17, 2018 | failedevolution.blogspot.gr
Donald Trump's far-right loyal fans must be really pissed off right now after permanently switching himself to pro-war mode with that evil, warmongering triplet in charge and the second bombing against Syria. Even worse, this time he has done it together with Theresa May and the neoliberal globalist Emmanuel Macron.
We can tell that by watching the mind-blowing reactions of one of his most fanatic alt-right media supporters: Alex Jones. Jones nearly cried(!) in front of the camera, feeling betrayed from his 'anti-establishment', 'anti-interventionist' idol and declared that he won't support Trump anymore. Well, what did you expect, Alex? expect, Alex?
A year before the 2016 US national elections, the blog already warned that Trump is a pure product of the neoliberal barbarism , stating that the rhetoric of extreme cynicism used by Trump goes back to the Thatcherian cynicism and the division of people between "capable" and "useless".
Right after the elections, we supported that the US establishment gave a brilliant performance by putting its reserve, Donald Trump, in power, against the only candidate that the same establishment identified as a real threat: Bernie Sanders. Right after the elections, we supported that the US establishment gave a brilliant performance by putting its reserve, Donald Trump, in power, against the only candidate that the same establishment identified as a real threat: Bernie Sanders.Then, Donnie sent the first shock wave to his supporters by literally hiring the Goldman Sachs banksters to run the economy. And right after that, he signed for more deregulation in favor of the Wall Street mafia that ruined the economy in 2008!
The only hope that has been left, was to resist against starting a war with Russia, as the US deep state (and Hillary of course) wanted. Well, it was proven to be only a hope too. Last year, Trump bombed Syria under the same pretext resembling the lies that led us to the Iraq war disaster. Despite the fact that the US Tomahawk missile attack had zero value in operational level (the United States allegedly warned Russia and Syria, while the targeted airport was operating normally just hours after the attack), Trump sent a clear message to the US deep state that he is prepared to meet all its demands - and especially the escalation of confrontation with Russia. Indeed, a year later, Trump already built a pro-war team that includes the most bloodthirsty, hawkish triplet.
And then, Donnie ordered a second airstrike against Syria, together with his neo-colonial friends.
It seems that neither this strike was a serious attempt against the Syrian army and its allies. Yet, Donnie probably won't dare to escalate tension in the Syrian battlefield before the next US national elections. That's because many of his supporters are already pissed off with him and therefore, he wants to go with good chances for a second term.
Although we really hope that we are are wrong this time, we guess that, surrounded by all these warmongering hawks, Donnie, in a potential second term, will be pushed to open another war front in Syria and probably in Iran, defying the Russians and the consequent danger for a WWIII.
Poor Alex et al: we told you about Trump from the beginning. You didn't listen ...
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Apr 17, 2018 | www.theamericanconservative.com
Last week, John Bolton ascended to the office of National Security Advisor, following in the hurried footsteps of Michael Flynn and H.R. McMaster. Two peculiar characteristics set Bolton apart from most folks in D.C.: an unabashedly luxurious mustache and an unmatched penchant for unjustified preemptive violence.
At the University of Chicago in 2009, Bolton warned , "Unless Israel is prepared to use nuclear weapons against Iran's program, Iran will have nuclear weapons in the very near future." Thankfully, Israel didn't take Bolton's advice and, as most predicted, Iran never lived up to his expectations. Similarly, in a 2015 op-ed in the New York Times , Bolton opined , "The inescapable conclusion is that Iran will not negotiate away its nuclear program. Nor will sanctions block its building a broad and deep weapons infrastructure . Time is terribly short, but a strike can still succeed." Three short months later, a non-proliferation deal wherein Iran agreed to a 98 percent reduction in its enriched uranium stockpile and a 15-year pause in the development of key weapons infrastructure was negotiated.
More recently in February, Bolton advised in the Wall Street Journal that "Given the gaps in U.S. intelligence about North Korea, we should not wait until the very last minute . It is perfectly legitimate for the United States to respond to the current 'necessity' posed by North Korea's nuclear weapons by striking first."
By this point Bolton's record of calling for war in every possible situation had lost the ability to shock. Still, the Founding Fathers would probably be appalled.
A comparatively irenic vision pervades the philosophy of the founders. James Wilson, in his Lectures on Law, wrote that when a nation "is under an obligation to preserve itself and its members; it has a right to do everything" that it can "without injuring others." In Federalist 4, John Jay advised that the American people ought to support steps that would "put and keep them in such a situation as, instead of inviting war, will tend to repress and discourage it." And in his Farewell Address, George Washington asserted that the United States should be "always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence."
A preemptive nuclear strike justified on the flimsy basis of "gaps in U.S. intelligence" hardly seems concordant with such military restraint and "exalted justice." And lest it be thought these ideals were mere lofty notions, consider how, as American history proceeded, they became enshrined in American diplomacy.
In 1837, Canadian rebels sailing aboard the Caroline fled to an island in the Niagara River with the help of a few American citizens. British forces boarded their ship, killed an American member of the crew, and then set the Caroline ablaze before forcing it over Niagara Falls. Enraged, American and Canadian raiders destroyed a British ship. Several attacks followed until the crisis was at last ended in 1842 by the Webster-Ashburton Treaty. In the aftermath, the Caroline test was established, which stipulates that an attack made in self-defense is justifiable only when, in the words of Daniel Webster, the necessity is "instant, overwhelming, and leaving no choice of means, and no moment for deliberation." This principle remains the international standard, though some like Bolton think it's outdated.
With the Caroline test in mind, Bolton wrote while arguing in favor of a preemptive strike against North Korea, "The case against preemption rests on the misinterpretation of a standard that derives from prenuclear, pre-ballistic-missile times." In other words, Bolton believes that we can no longer afford to wait for the situation to be "instant" and "overwhelming," and makes an offense out of abstaining from immediate preemptive action, regardless of the potential costs involved.
Relatedly, one of Bolton's most colorful jabs at President Obama involved likening him to Æthelred the Unready, a medieval Anglo-Saxon king remembered for his tragic indecisiveness. Yet given the costs of groundless preemption, indecisiveness is often a midwife to careful contemplation and peace. Had Prime Minister Netanyahu or Obama been persuaded by Bolton's retrospectively warrantless calls for preemption in Iran, tragedy would have followed.
In that vein, it is Bolton who merits historical comparison: to Cato the Elder, a conservative-yet-eccentric Roman statesman who, according to Plutarch, would often and invariably call for the destruction of Carthage, even though the Carthaginian threat was neither imminent nor apparent. Eventually, Cato's words wended their way into the ears of power and hundreds of thousands of Carthaginians were pointlessly slaughtered. According to the Greek historian Polybius, Scipio Aemilianus, the young Roman General who led the attack, at seeing the carnage of a great people, "shed tears and wept openly."
In order that we never find ourselves standing alongside Scipio knee-deep in unjustly spilt blood, Bolton should reconsider whether the flimsy merits of rash preemption truly outweigh the durable wisdom of the Founding Fathers and the lessons of history.
Michael Shindler is an Advocate with Young Voices and a writer living in Washington, D.C. Follow him @MichaelShindler .
Janwaar Bibi April 17, 2018 at 4:28 pm
From the Wikipedia article for Bolton:connecticut farmer , says: April 17, 2018 at 4:53 pmDuring the 1969 Vietnam War draft lottery, Bolton drew number 185. (Draft numbers corresponded to birth dates.) As a result of the Johnson and Nixon administrations' decisions to rely largely on the draft rather than on the reserve forces, joining a Guard or Reserve unit became a way to avoid service in the Vietnam War. Before graduating from Yale in 1970, Bolton enlisted in the Maryland Army National Guard rather than wait to find out if his draft number would be called. (The highest number called to military service was 195.) He saw active duty for 18 weeks of training at Fort Polk, Louisiana, from July to November 1970.
After serving in the National Guard for four years, he served in the United States Army Reserve until the end of his enlistment two years later.[1]
He wrote in his Yale 25th reunion book "I confess I had no desire to die in a Southeast Asian rice paddy. I considered the war in Vietnam already lost." In an interview, Bolton discussed his comment in the reunion book, explaining that he decided to avoid service in Vietnam because "by the time I was about to graduate in 1970, it was clear to me that opponents of the Vietnam War had made it certain we could not prevail, and that I had no great interest in going there to have Teddy Kennedy give it back to the people I might die to take it away from."
Why is it that the US leads the world in production of chicken-hawks? Even these mangy ex-colonial countries like the UK and France do not have as many chicken-hawks as we do.
Cato the Elder: "Carthago dalenda est!" ("Carthage Must Be Destroyed!")Kent , says: April 17, 2018 at 5:02 pmJohn Bolton: "Syria dalenda est!" "Iran dalenda est!" Russia dalenda est!" And etc etc.
Connecticut Farmer: "Bolton dalenda est!"
"In order that we never find ourselves standing alongside Scipio knee-deep in unjustly spilt blood,"JonF , says: April 17, 2018 at 5:08 pmThat ship sailed awhile back.
Comparing Obama to Athelred is absurd. Athelred's problem was not that he was indecisive, but rather that he refused to listen to advice from anyone (the moniker "Unready" actually meant "Uncounseled" in Old English) and that he was extremely impulsive and deeply bigoted. Hence he ordered a general massacre of the Danes in England. Luckily it was only carried out in a limited region, unluckily the victims included the King of Denmark's sister and her children, leading to an open blood feud war, and also cost Aethelred any support he might have had from his wife's kinsman, the Duke of Normandy. If anyone is a good match for old Aethelred, it's Donald Trump.
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Apr 17, 2018 | www.moonofalabama.org
CE , Apr 15, 2018 12:38:18 PM | 34
@16 "The long hand of Bolton"I've posted the following deep in the previous thread, so here for those who missed it:
As to the OPCW making "political decisions", The Intercept had an interesting piece by Mehdi Hasan recently, about a certain John Bolton.
In 2001, then-Secretary of State Colin Powell had penned a letter to [OPCW head José] Bustani, thanking him for his "very impressive" work. By March 2002, however, Bolton -- then serving as under secretary of state for Arms Control and International Security Affairs -- arrived in person at the OPCW headquarters in the Hague to issue a warning to the organization's chief. And, according to Bustani, Bolton didn't mince words. "Cheney wants you out," Bustani recalled Bolton saying, referring to the then-vice president of the United States. "We can't accept your management style."Bolton continued, according to Bustani's recollections: "You have 24 hours to leave the organization, and if you don't comply with this decision by Washington, we have ways to retaliate against you."
There was a pause.
"We know where your kids live. You have two sons in New York."
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Apr 17, 2018 | www.rt.com
Danielle Ryan is an Irish freelance journalist. Having lived and worked in the US, Germany and Russia, she is currently based in Budapest, Hungary. Her work has been featured by Salon, The Nation, Rethinking Russia, Russia Direct, teleSUR, The BRICS Post and others. Follow her on Twitter @DanielleRyanJ, check out her Facebook page, or visit her website: danielle-ryan.com Published time: 16 Apr, 2018 15:49 Get short URL
FILE PHOTO: U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell holds up a vial that he described as one that could contain anthrax © Ray Stubblebine / Reuters Use of the term 'false flag' is often met with raised eyebrows and accusations of conspiracism. But false flags are a very real and very present feature of geopolitics -- and denying that is simply denying reality. Last week, the United States, along with the United Kingdom and France, bombed Syrian government targets, ostensibly in retaliation for an alleged chemical attack which was carried out one week before in the city of Douma.
The story we're told is simple: Syrian President Bashar Assad is an evil maniac who uses poison gas on his citizens for the sheer entertainment value. As neocon think tank the Atlantic Council put it last week, when Assad gasses people, he is simply " indulging an addiction " -- an addiction which he seems to have only recently acquired, given the fact that before Syria's war began, American journalists were busy praising the " educated " and " informed " Assad and marveling at the " phenomenal " levels of peace and religious diversity within Syria.
In 2006 Diane Sawyer praised Assad during a trip to Syria for the "phenomenal" levels of religious tolerance and peace in Syria. Funny how he turned into a monster at the exact moment Washington decided it was time for regime change. https://t.co/24qy6UtFez
-- Danielle Ryan (@DanielleRyanJ) April 14, 2018Anyway, so intense is Assad's newfound desire for watching Syrian babies foaming at the mouth, that he is willing to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by deciding to use these weapons despite knowing it would provoke worldwide outrage and potentially a major US military effort to oust him. So, that's the story. Assad is a monster and the world must unite to stop him.
There are plenty of people who are less than convinced by this narrative, however. One of them is Peter Ford, the former British ambassador to Syria. Ford told BBC Radio Scotland that " in all probability " the alleged chemical attack never happened and that the video and image evidence used as proof by the US and its allies was falsified. There are others who believe that the attack could have been real, but that the perpetrators were anti-Assad rebels trying to provoke fresh military action from the US -- in other words, it was very possibly a false flag event which served its purpose perfectly.
One of the best questions to ask when something like this happens, is: Who benefits? Very clearly in this case, Assad has not benefited at all, but the rebel groups fighting against him have.
Whatever the truth about this alleged chemical attack, the notion of false flag events being used to prompt military action should not be met with such skepticism. The US has a long history of using lies (or 'fake news' you might call it) as a pretext for war. It is important to look at recent events in Syria within that context.
Nayirah testimonyPerhaps the most famous of all examples was the heart-wrenching testimony to Congress of a 15-year-old Kuwaiti girl, identified only as Nayirah, which was used to sell the first Gulf War to the American people in October 1990. An emotional Nayirah told the Congressional Human Rights Caucus that she had witnessed Iraqi soldiers taking babies out of incubators and leaving them on the floor to die.
What Americans did not know, was that Nayirah was the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the US and she had been coached by the American PR firm Hill and Knowlton. But before the details of the stunt and false testimony became widely known, it had already been used to sell America's war against Iraq in 1991.
Operation NorthwoodsIn 1990 young Nayirah told of seeing Iraqi soldiers pull Kuwaiti babies out of incubators. Today our delivery of atrocity propaganda is more sophisticated, yet public credulity remains about the same. pic.twitter.com/l7UYmByl5D
-- U.S. Dept. of Fear (@FearDept) April 8, 2018In the 1960s, American military leaders devised plans to bomb US cities and blame Cuban leader Fidel Castro in order to manufacture public and international support for a war.
The plan was codenamed Operation Northwoods and what it advocated was nothing short of horrendous. The American military suggested sinking boatloads of Cuban refugees, hijacking planes and bombing Miami. The goal was to convince Americans that Castro had unleashed a reign of terror upon them.
The top brass were even willing to cause US military casualties by blowing up an American boat in Guantanamo Bay and blaming Cuba. Why? Because, as they put it, " casualty lists in US newspapers would cause a helpful wave of national indignation " and help manufacture support for war. The plans were quashed by President John F. Kennedy, who was assassinated one year later, leading some to speculate on a link between those events.
Gulf of TonkinTop US officials also distorted the facts in the lead-up to the Vietnam War and the media dutifully reported the official narrative as absolute fact, helping launch perhaps the most disastrous war in America's history.
On August 2, 1964, North Vietnamese torpedo boats attack the USS 'Maddox' while it was on " routine patrol " in international waters in the Gulf of Tonkin. Two days later, the US Navy reported a second " unprovoked " attack on the 'Maddox' and the USS 'Turner Joy' -- a second destroyer which had been sent in after the first attack. President Lyndon B. Johnson told the American people on TV that " repeated acts of violence " against the US ships must be met with a strong response. Soon after Johnson appeared on TV, Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which pre-approved any military action that he would take from that moment on.
The only problem was, there was no second attack on the US ships at all -- and the allegation that the first attack had been " unprovoked " was also a lie. In reality, the USS 'Maddox' had been gathering intelligence and providing it to South Vietnamese boats which were attacking North Vietnam. As for the second attack, the US boats had misinterpreted radio signals and radar images and spent two hours firing at nothing. Nonetheless, the " attack " was used to convince the American people to support war.
Soviet aircraft false flags3. Given the folly of the British government over Iraq and Libya, and its undoubted misleading of the public over Iraq, it is perfectly reasonable to suspect it of doing the same thing again. Some of us also do not forget the blatant lying over Suez, and indeed the Gulf of Tonkin https://t.co/GLzyoPWaDG
-- Peter Hitchens (@ClarkeMicah) April 12, 2018Recently declassified documents show yet more American false flag plotting, this time against the Soviet Union. A three-page memo , written by members of the National Security Council, suggested that the US government should acquire Soviet aircraft which would be used to stage attacks and provide the pretext for war.
Such aircraft, the memo said, " could be used in a deception operation designed to confuse enemy planes in the air, to launch a surprise attack against enemy installations or in a provocation operation in which Soviet aircraft would appear to attack US or friendly installations to provide an excuse for US intervention. "
The government even considered producing the soviet planes domestically in a massive covert operation. They went so far as to acquire estimates from the Air Force on the cost and length of time such an operation would take.
In a memo of undisclosed date, the US National Security Council suggested the government should either buy or covertly produce Soviet aircraft and use them to launch fake attacks, providing pretext for war https://t.co/d7fPLW6Fxw pic.twitter.com/tVnqbValPP
-- Danielle Ryan (@DanielleRyanJ) April 15, 2018This is by no means an exhaustive list. Is there even any need to rehash the lies which were told in the lead-up to the Iraq war? The media here again swallowed the government's lies, one by one -- and 15 years later, the region is still suffering the consequences and very few lessons appear to have been learned.
These are not conspiracy theories. They are cold, hard evidence that the US has no qualms whatsoever about using false flag events and fake evidence to provide pretext for military action.
Continued lack of critical inquiry from the media, given the severe potential consequences of escalating the conflict in Syria, is tantamount to a crime.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
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Apr 17, 2018 | www.theamericanconservative.com
April 16, 2018, 9:55 PM "Ten days ago, President Trump was saying 'the United States should withdraw from Syria.' We convinced him it was necessary to stay."Thus boasted French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday, adding, "We convinced him it was necessary to stay for the long term."
Is the U.S. indeed in the Syrian Civil War "for the long term"?
If so, who made that fateful decision for this republic?
U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley confirmed Sunday there would be no drawdown of the 2,000 U.S. troops in Syria, until three objectives were reached. We must fully defeat ISIS, ensure chemical weapons will not again be used by Bashar al-Assad and maintain the ability to watch Iran.
Translation: whatever Trump says, America is not coming out of Syria. We are going deeper in. Trump's commitment to extricate us from these bankrupting and blood-soaked Middle East wars and to seek a new rapprochement with Russia is "inoperative."
The War Party that Trump routed in the primaries is capturing and crafting his foreign policy. Monday's Wall Street Journal editorial page fairly blossomed with war plans:
The better U.S. strategy is to turn Syria into the Ayatollah's Vietnam. Only when Russia and Iran began to pay a larger price in Syria will they have any incentive to negotiate an end to the war or even contemplate a peace based on dividing the country into ethnic-based enclaves.
Apparently, we are to bleed Syria, Russia, Hezbollah, and Iran until they cannot stand the pain and submit to subdividing Syria the way we want.
But suppose that, as in our Civil War of 1861-1865, the Spanish Civil War of 1936-1939, and the Chinese Civil War of 1945-1949, Assad and his Russian, Iranian, and Shiite militia allies go all out to win and reunite the nation.
Suppose they choose to fight to consolidate the victory they have won after seven years of war. Where do we find the troops to take back the territory our rebels lost? Or do we just bomb mercilessly?
The British and French say they will back us in future attacks if chemical weapons are used, but they are not plunging into Syria.
Defense Secretary James Mattis called the U.S.-British-French attack a "one-shot" deal. British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson appears to agree: "The rest of the Syrian war must proceed as it will."
The Journal 's op-ed page Monday was turned over to former U.S. ambassador to Syria Ryan Crocker and Brookings Institute senior fellow Michael O'Hanlon: "Next time the U.S. could up the ante, going after military command and control, political leadership, and perhaps even Assad himself. The U.S. could also pledge to take out much of his air force. Targets within Iran should not be off limits."
And when did Congress authorize U.S. acts of war against Syria, its air force, or political leadership? When did Congress authorize the killing of the president of Syria whose country has not attacked us?
Can the U.S. also attack Iran and kill the ayatollah without consulting Congress?
Clearly, with the U.S. fighting in six countries, Commander in Chief Trump does not want any new wars, or to widen any existing wars in the Middle East. But he is being pushed into becoming a war president to advance the agenda of foreign policy elites who, almost to a man, opposed his election.
We have a reluctant president being pushed into a war he does not want to fight. This is a formula for a strategic disaster not unlike Vietnam or George W. Bush's war to strip Iraq of nonexistent WMDs.
The assumption of the War Party seems to be that if we launch larger and more lethal strikes in Syria, inflicting casualties on Russians, Iranians, Hezbollah, and the Syrian army, they will yield to our demands.
But where is the evidence for this?
What reason is there to believe these forces will surrender what they have paid in blood to win? And if they choose to fight and widen the war to the larger Middle East, are we prepared for that?
As for Trump's statement Friday, "No amount of American blood and treasure can produce lasting peace in the Middle East," the Washington Post on Sunday dismissed this as "fatalistic" and "misguided." We have a vital interest, says the Post , in preventing Iran from establishing a "land corridor" across Syria.
Yet consider how Iran acquired this "land corridor." The Shiites in 1979 overthrew a shah our CIA installed in 1953. The Shiites control Iraq because President Bush invaded and overthrew Saddam and his Sunni Baath Party, disbanded his Sunni-led army, and let the Shiite majority take control of the country. The Shiites are dominant in Lebanon because they rose up and ran out the Israelis, who invaded in 1982 to run out the PLO.
How many American dead will it take to reverse this history?
How long will we have to stay in the Middle East to assure the permanent hegemony of Sunni over Shiite?
Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of a new book, Nixon's White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever. To find out more about Patrick Buchanan and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators website at www.creators.com.
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Apr 16, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com
Current and former FBI agents are furious after former Director James Comey gave his first interview since President Trump fired him last year to ABC's George Stephanopoulos on Sunday night, reports the Daily Beast - which was privy to a play-by-play flurry of text messages and other communications detailing their reactions.
Seven current or former FBI agents and officials spoke throughout and immediately after the broadcast. There was a lot of anger, frustration, and even more emojis -- featuring the thumbs-down, frowny face, middle finger, and a whole lot of green vomit faces .
One former FBI official sent a bourbon emoji as it began; another sent the beers cheers-ing emoji. The responses became increasingly angry and despondent as the hourlong interview played out. - Daily Beast
" Hoover is spinning in his grave ," said a former FBI official. " Making money from total failure ," in reference to Comey plugging his book, A Higher Loyalty .
Jana Winter of The Beast adds that when a promo aired between segments advertising Comey's upcoming appearance with The View , the official "grew angrier." " Good lord, what a self-serving self-centered jackass ," the official said. " True to form he thinks he's the smartest guy around ."
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Comey was fired by President Trump on May 9, 2017, after which he leaked memos he claims document conversations with Trump to the New York Times, kicking off the special counsel investigation headed by Robert Mueller - whose team started out looking at Russian influence in the 2016 election, and is now investigating the President's alleged decade-old extramarital affairs with at least two women. Truly looking out for national security there Bob...
... ... ...
Prior to becoming the DNC's most wanted, Comey and his team notoriously let Hillary Clinton off the hook for her private server and mishandling of classified information - having begun drafting Clinton's exoneration before even interviewing her, something which appears to have been "forgotten" in his book.
Oldguy05 -> nmewn Mon, 04/16/2018 - 20:54 Permalinkhxc -> Oldguy05 Mon, 04/16/2018 - 21:57 PermalinkCumey is nothing but a small man in a big car.
Fish Gone Bad -> FireBrander Mon, 04/16/2018 - 19:43 PermalinkI would rather have RP if he had the charisma/gusto and also tactical genius of DT. However, I worry that Ron, as a guy that delivered babies and educated people on nonagression, as opposed to running a something-billion dollar cutthroat RE empire, might be more at risk of A) being unable to overcome political roadblocks and destabilization, and B) something bad happening to him.
NoDebt -> Bitchface-KILLAH Mon, 04/16/2018 - 18:00 PermalinkI once saw this on a T-shirt: Those who think they are the smartest person in the room, really piss off those of us who are.
Comey is a narcissistic traitor .
Bitchface-KILLAH -> NoDebt Mon, 04/16/2018 - 18:03 PermalinkComey was always the most enigmatic figure to me in this sad, troubling series of events involving the FBI.
THE GOOD NEWS: Everyone hates him now. The Rs hate him, the Ds hate him. Who's Christmas party did he get invited to last year? I'm guessing the invitations were few. His own ego has turned him into plutonium. And he deserves even worse than that.
JimmyJones -> Bitchface-KILLAH Mon, 04/16/2018 - 18:55 PermalinkEvery agency has a Jim Comey in it... you know the guy. Their CV just has an implied "team skills and natural ability to get a deep brown nose" at the very top of it.
FireBrander -> Bitchface-KILLAH Mon, 04/16/2018 - 19:41 PermalinkHe really is a traitor
nmewn -> NoDebt Mon, 04/16/2018 - 18:19 PermalinkComey reminds me of all the "executives" I've known that married the owners daughter prior to getting hired.
So, to review.
Comey was the FBI Director when warrants were issued to spy on Trump and his associates. Warrants gained in part or in whole by, false evidence (the Steele dossier) presented to a FISA court judge(s), gathered by, a foreign national former spy (Steele) who was in contact with his old Kremlin pals, who (Steele) was then paid by the DNC, Fusion GPS via Perkins Coie to give Hillary Rodham Clinton (affectionately known here as The Bitch of Benghazi) some distance from the fake "evidence".
Now besides Comey knowing the source of "the dossier" one of his deputies (McCabe) was at the same time "colluding" with a couple FBI agents (Strzok & Page) in a "counter-intel operation" (on the taxpayers dime) to gather dirt on candidate Trump. McCabe's wife (we might recall) got a sizable "donation" from Terry McAuliffe (another Klinton sleezebag) for her political run in Virginia.
And we haven't even touched on Comey's theft of government documents or his turning over those documents to his friend so the friend could turn them over to the Alinsky NYT's for the purposes of...getting his mentor Grand Inquisitor Mueller a gig as "special prosecutor" (as he admitted to under oath).
He should be arrested and sent to Gitmo.
???ö? -> nmewn Mon, 04/16/2018 - 18:27 Permalink
The First Rule -> nmewn Mon, 04/16/2018 - 18:51 PermalinkMueller's investigation is tainted with fruit of the poisonous tree and the entirety of seized evidence will be unceremoniously thrown out by a 5-4 US Supreme Court.
Ajax-1 -> The First Rule Mon, 04/16/2018 - 20:32 PermalinkThere is only one thing keeping Comey out of Prison: Jeff Sessions. If we someday get a real AG, who is willing to man up and appoint a second special prosecutor, Comey is finished. But for the moment, Mr. Magoo is saving his ass.
Hulk -> nmewn Mon, 04/16/2018 - 19:04 PermalinkDon't hold your breath. The clock on the statute of limitations is ticking away. I wish someone could provide me with an honest rational as to why Trump hasn't fired Jeff Sessions.
Boxed Merlot -> nmewn Mon, 04/16/2018 - 20:02 PermalinkHe is one stupid ass. ALways stuns me to hear him speak...
Dilluminati -> nmewn Mon, 04/16/2018 - 20:03 Permalink...Comey was the FBI Director when...
And if he wasn't aware of every fact as stated, the whole enchilada is even more bogus than you have represented.
Shut it down.
jmo.
GreatUncle -> nmewn Mon, 04/16/2018 - 20:08 Permalinkhttps://translate.google.com/m/translate?client=ob&hl=en&ie=UTF8&sl=en&
Duc888 -> nmewn Mon, 04/16/2018 - 20:17 PermalinkBut ... but .. but this is the new normal.
We all need to take a leaf out of Comeys behavior ... that's the way to play this game.
Honesty and integrity no longer needed ... time for everybody to lie to the government.
NumberNone -> nmewn Mon, 04/16/2018 - 20:25 PermalinkYou left out the fact that he was instrumental in the formation of the Clinton Foundation.
Problem is that a sizable portion of the US population view Comey's actions in the 'if you could go back in time and kill baby Hitler...' perspective. Yes it's illegal, yes it's unconstitutional...but was trying to save the 'World' so it's justified.
I think you framed it similar...this is the same as injecting bleach into our veins in the hope in clears up a pimple on our nose.
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Apr 16, 2018 | stephenlendman.org
n ( stephenlendman.org – Home – Stephen Lendman )
How much more US hostility toward Russia will it tolerate before declaring unacceptable red lines were crossed?
Washington and Moscow are on opposite sides of endless war in Syria – a US imperial project from day one of hostilities.
According to neocon Russophobe Nikki Haley and US ambassador to Moscow Jon Huntsman, further (illegal) Trump administration sanctions on Russia are coming, likely Monday.
They'll be imposed for Kremlin involvement in combating US-supported terrorists in Syria – cutthroat killers falsely called "rebels."
According to Haley, Russian enterprises allegedly "dealing with equipment related to Assad and any chemical weapons use" will be targeted.
No Syrian CWs exist, the nation's entire stockpile destroyed in 2014, confirmed by the OPCW. Yet according to Haley (and other lunatic fringe Trump administration Russophobes), Damascus has undisclosed CWs. Moscow is "covering this up."
The Big Lie persists. No evidence supports it. Facts on the ground never deter Washington from pursuing it diabolical imperial agenda.
US administrations and bipartisan congressional members consistently blame sovereign independent nations for US high crimes committed against them.
Haley falsely accused Moscow of aggressive behavior, turning truth on its head, claiming the Kremlin facilitated the alleged Douma CW incident.
Medical personnel on the ground treated no one for toxic poisoning, no one killed, ill or harmed, no CW residues found by Russian technical experts at the alleged site.
The false flag incident was staged to blame Syria and Russia for a nonevent – the Big Lie used as a pretext for US-led terror-bombing of Syrian sites, followed by more illegal sanctions on Moscow coming Monday.
On Sunday, OPCW inspectors arrived in Douma to inspect the site of the alleged CW attack, according to Syria's Deputy Foreign Minister Ayman Soussan.
AMN news said following US-led terror-bombing of Syrian sites, Russia is sending government forces more weapons and heavy equipment.
According to Southfront, the Pentagon lied, claiming all missiles fired struck Syrian targets – at the same time expressing concern about mission results.
An internal probe will be conducted to produce a more accurate after-action report, including why Syrian air defense systems downed most incoming missiles – reportedly 71 of 103 fired.
Washington intends permanent occupation of Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. According to Assad UN envoy Bashar al-Jaafari, one-third of the country is illegally occupied by US forces, adding:
Security Council debates omit discussing this key issue. Along with terrorists permanent SC members America, Britain and France support, Damascus faces "three aggressors:" Washington, London and Paris. "We are a state," Jaafari stressed, "the sovereignty of which has been violated by a permanent member of the UNSC."
The international community ignores this core issue of the conflict, along with US-led aggression, using terrorists as foot soldiers, pretending endless war is "civil."
After the latest US-led aggressive incident on a sovereign state, what's next? Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said the Kremlin has "obvious red lines," adding Moscow will do all it can to pull East/West relations out of a dangerous "political nosedive." Addressing the issue diplomatically assures continued failure, along with weakness, encouraging Washington to slam Russia and Syria harder.
Dealing with hegemonic America requires using the only language it understands – challenging it forcefully. Pursuing failed policies assures making a bad situation worse ahead. Washington isn't likely to step back from the brink unless pushed. Diplomacy is futile, accomplishing nothing, encouraging greater US hostility, including endless aggression in Syria and tough anti-Russia actions.
Washington's rage for global dominance likely assures an eventual East/West showdown. Responding weakly to hostile US actions assures more to come, likely harsher than already. When will Russia respond with toughness – better to risk it in Syria than be forced to act in defending its heartland.
VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: stephenlendman.org ( Home – Stephen Lendman ). Contact at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net .
My newest book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."
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Apr 16, 2018 | www.theamericanconservative.com
In fact, just how "ugly" the relationship has become is fast becoming a matter of public debate. During his March visit, Scaparrotti appeared before the Senate Armed Services Committee to give testimony on the challenges facing his command. While most members focused on Russia and cyberwar issues, Virginia Senator Tim Kaine explored the U.S.-Turkey dust-up, hinting that it might be time for the U.S. to dampen its YPG ties. Scaparrotti didn't disagree, while soft-pedaling the disagreements over the issue that he's had with Votel and Centcom. "Where do we want to be in a year, two years and five years?" he asked. "With a close NATO ally like Turkey, we know that we want to maintain and strengthen our relationship. So that's the long-term objective and if we look at the long-term objective, it can begin to inform what we're doing today with respect to NATO." The senior military officer with whom I spoke proved a willing translator: "What Scaparrotti is saying is that the real marriage here is between the U.S. and Turkey. The YPG is just a fling."
But convincing James Mattis of that is proving difficult, in part because Scaparrotti is outgunned. Every defense secretary surrounds himself with people he can count on and who he listens to. But for Mattis almost all of them have had experience in the Middle East -- and at Centcom. There's Mattis himself (a former Centcom commander), JCS Chairman Joseph Dunford (who served with Mattis in Iraq), Joint Staff Director Lieutenant General Kenneth McKenzie, Jr. (a Marine who served in both Afghanistan and Iraq), retired Rear Admiral Kevin M. Sweeney (the former Centcom executive officer), Rear Admiral Craig S. Faller (a Mattis advisor, and a Navy commander during both the Afghan and Iraq wars), and current Centcom commander General Joseph Votel -- the former commander of the U.S. Special Operation Command ("a trigger puller," as he was described to me by a currently serving officer). Votel is the most outspoken YPG supporter of any of them, and because he's the combatant commander, his support carries weight.
"This is clientism," the senior military officer with whom I spoke explains. "All of these guys have served together and trust each other. And, you know, this is the way it works. The U.S. Central Command has the Middle East as a client and the European Command has the Europeans and Turkey as clients. But if you take a look at Mattis and the people around him, well, you know, it's all Centcom. So Scaparrotti is worried, and he ought to be. We don't want to be sitting around 30 years from now reading historical pieces with titles like 'Who Lost Turkey?'"
Even someone as careful in his public utterances as Admiral James Stavridis, who once held Scaparrotti's command and is now the dean of the Fletcher School at Tufts University, is raising concerns. While he waves off the "who lost Turkey" formulation as "a trope that is moving around the Internet," he told me in an email exchange that "it would be a mistake of epic proportions to allow Turkey to drift out of the transatlantic orbit" -- a repeat of the warning issued by Scaparrotti to Mattis in March. But like Scaparrotti, Staviridis is slow-rolling his disagreement. "This is a distinction without a difference," the senior officer and NATO partisan with whom we spoke says. "By drifting out of NATO, Stavridis means leaving. He's as worried as anyone else."
Concerns over Turkey are probably a surprise in the White House, given its almost daily crisis over the looming Russia-gate investigation, but they shouldn't be. The president has had extended telephone exchanges with Turkish President Tayyip Erodogan twice in the last three weeks. While the White House has refused to give details of these conversations, the Turkish official with whom we spoke told TAC that in both conversations (on March 23 and again on April 11), Erdogan emphasized three growing concerns he has that America's temporary and "transactional" support for the YPG is becoming permanent. This same official went on to note that, in his opinion, it's not a coincidence that Trump floated the idea of withdrawing U.S. troops from Syria ("I want to get out," he said. "I want to bring our troops home") -- a suggestion that did not go over well with Centcom partisans at the Pentagon.
On April 3, the same day Trump issued his let's-get-out statement, Joseph Votel and Brett McGurk appeared at the U.S. Institute of Peace, arguing that the U.S. needed to stay in. "The hard part, I think, is in front of us," Votel said, "and that is stabilizing these areas, consolidating our gains, getting back to their homes. There is a military role in this," he went on to say. "Certainly in the stabilization phase."
The Votel appearance was exasperating for those worried about NATO's future, and for those concerned that the endless conflicts in the region are draining the defense budget of badly needed funds to rebuild U.S. military readiness. For them, a group that now includes a growing number of very senior and influential military officers, "stabilization" is not only a codeword for "nation building," it signals support for a mission that is endangering the future of NATO, the institution that has guaranteed peace in Europe for three generations.
"It's not worth it," the senior military commander who spoke with TAC concludes. "On top of everything else, it puts us on the wrong side of the political equation. This whole thing about how the enemy of my enemy is my friend is a bunch of bullshit. The enemy of my enemy is now making an enemy of our friend. I don't know who we think we're fooling, but it sure as hell isn't Turkey. And it isn't the American people either."
Mark Perry is a foreign policy analyst, a contributing editor to The American Conservative, and the author of The Pentagon's Wars (2017).
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Apr 16, 2018 | nationalinterest.org
This week John Bolton assumes the job of national security adviser. Given that a key function of that position is to ensure that the bureaucracy provides the relevant options and most accurate information to the president before major national security decisions, it is hard to think of anyone more ill-suited to that duty. Bolton's method of policy formation has been to try to bully any part of the bureaucracy that does not subscribe to his personal agenda, and to try to bully away any part of the truth that does not serve his objectives. Bolton's objectives are characterized by never meeting a war or prospective war he didn't like. He still avows that the Iraq War -- with all the costs and chaos it has caused, from thousands of American deaths to the birth of the group that we now know as ISIS -- was a good idea. That someone with this perspective has been entrusted with the job Bolton now has is a glaring example of how there often is no accountability in Washington for gross policy malpractice.
Appointments as national security adviser are not subject to Senate confirmation. If they were, it would be appropriate for the Senate to react as it did the last time Bolton came before that body as a nominee for a job that does require confirmation. In 2005 the Senate turned down his nomination to be ambassador to the United Nations. The Senate review brought to light some of the uglier aspects of Bolton's conduct in his previous job as an undersecretary of state. President George W. Bush gave him a recess appointment to the U.N. job, but fortunately that meant there was a time limit to the destruction Bolton could wreak in that position.
The Senate is about to have an opportunity to weigh in on another highly important foreign policy position, that of secretary of state, for which President Trump has nominated Mike Pompeo. Senators ought to consider that nomination in tandem with the appointment of Bolton as national security adviser, even though the Senate formally has a role with only one of those appointments and not with the other. Senators should consider the two as a package deal. They should not vote to confirm Pompeo if they are uncomfortable with either part of the package.
The main reason to approach the Pompeo nomination this way is that the nation currently has a president who, sad to say, needs restraint. He will need restraint all the more during the coming months as troubles of his own making increase the chance that he will lash out in destructive ways . The copious commentary during the fifteen months of the Trump presidency about having "adults in the room" to restrain the worst urges of an inexperienced and impulsive president speaks to an important truth. Whether adult supervision of this sort succeeds or fails depends on the collective impact of all of the president's senior subordinates. To the extent any one subordinate is especially influential in this regard on foreign policy, it probably is the national security adviser who is best positioned either to accentuate or to restrain Trump's impulses. Having Bolton in that job makes the restraining ability of the secretary of state all the more important.
But both Pompeo and Bolton are more likely to accentuate Trump's impulses than to restrain them. Bolton got his job because the sort of things he says on Fox are more what Donald Trump likes to hear than the briefings that H.R. McMaster gave him, which evidently were too long for Trump's taste or for his short attention span. P
Pompeo's winning of favor with Trump, during what reportedly has been lots of face time with him at the White House during the past year, has a similar dynamic. Pompeo did not rise so quickly from being a relatively junior congressman functioning as a partisan attack dog to where he is now, on the verge of occupying Thomas Jefferson's chair, by telling Trump what he needs to hear rather than what he wants to hear.
Senators hold up confirmation of nominees, and sometimes vote against them, for all kinds of reasons unrelated to the resumé of the nominee. It would be proper for them to vote against a nominee for secretary of state partly because of who the national security adviser is, given that both of them are in service to an unstable president.
There are other reasons to consider Pompeo and Bolton in tandem. In several respects they are two hazardous peas in a pod. On North Korea, Bolton's bellicose posture is matched by Pompeo's statements about seeking ways to "separate" Kim Jong Un from his nuclear weapons , suggesting a priority to regime change over keeping a volatile situation on the Korean peninsula from blowing up. Both Pompeo and Bolton, along with Trump, have sworn eternal hostility to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the multilateral agreement that closed all possible paths to an Iranian nuclear weapon. Neither man bothers to explain how destruction of the agreement, which would free Iran to produce as much fissile material as it wants and would end the intrusive international inspections of the Iranian program, could possibly
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Apr 15, 2018 | www.unz.com
Let's begin by a short summary of events.
About a month ago Nikki Haley announces to the UNSC that the USA is ready to violate the rules of this very self-same UNSC should a chemical attack happen in Syria Then the Russians announced that they have evidence that a chemical false flag is being prepared in Syria Then a chemical attack (supposedly) takes place (in a location surrounded and, basically, controlled by government forces!) The OPWC sends investigators (in spite of western powers loudly proclaiming that no investigation was needed) The AngloZionists then bomb Syria Next, the UNSC refuses to condemn the violation of its own rules and decisions Finally, the US Americans speak of a 'perfect strike'Now tell me -- do you get a sense that this is over?
If you tell me that 32/103 is hardly perfect, I will reply that you are missing the point. In fact, if anything, 32/103 is further incentive to bomb again!
Let's look at the differently for a second and ask this: what has the AngloZionist attack actually demonstrated?
The western general public is so terminally zombified that false flag attacks can now be announced 4 weeks in advance The Europeans now live by the motto " my honor is called solidarity " (a variation of the SS motto " my honor is loyalty ") Led by the USA, western countries have no objections to wars started in violation of their own national laws The UN Security Council has no objections to wars started in violation of the UN Charter and International Law The PRC leaders, in their infinite wisdom, act as if they have nothing personal at stake and act like bystanders The Israelis, via the UN Neocons, are now in total control of the Empire and use it to "clean house" next doorOh, I hear the objections. They go something like this:
But the attack was a dismal failure! So what? the Empire did not pay any price for executing it. But the US Americans did blink! The attacked from Jordanian airspace and from the Red Sea! They avoided the Russians completely! They are afraid of them! So what? They still bombed a Russian ally with total impunity. But, surely you are not suggesting that the Russians should have started a war against the USA over a strike which did not even kill a single person?No, of course not, but by not taking any action the Russians also failed to deter any future attacks. But what could the Russians have done?
Now *that* is the right question!
Let's look at it a little closer. Roughly speaking, the Russians have a choice of 3 types of retaliatory measures: political, economic and military. However, each one of them has a specific set of prerequisites which are currently problematic to say the least:
Measures Political Economic Military Prerequisites Assumes a minimal amount of decency, integrity and respect for the rule of law by the rest of the planet. Assumes that other countries, especially China, would be willing and able to support such measures. Assumes that Russia has the military capability to defeat the AngloZionist "coalition". Current reality Russia can moan, bitch, complain, protest, appeal to higher values, logic or facts -- nobody gives a damn. The Chinese and the rest of them are not willing to do anything at this time to support Russia. Russia can militarily defeat the AngloZionists, but only by risking the future of our planet. This really can be summarized a simple sentence: the AngloZionist Hegemony is a threat for the entire planet, but nobody besides Russia and Iran is willing to take it on. Ain't that an irony!
The so-called "Christian West" has become a willing host for its Zionist parasite and the only ones with the courage and moral integrity to take it on are Orthodox Christians and Muslims! Sic transit gloria mundi indeed
But what is even more important is this: while it is true that the US Neocons did not succeed in delivering the kind of massive attack they would have wanted to, and while it is true that the US attack was just about as lame as can be, you need to completely forget about these facts. Facts simply don't matter. And neither does logic. All that matters are perceptions!
And the perception is that "we" (the AngloZionist rulers and their serfs) "kicked" Assad's "ass" and that "we" will "do it again" if "we" feel like it. That is all that matters in the Empire of Illusions which the AngloZionist Hegemony has become.
As soon as you understand that, you also will have to agree that Trump was right: it was a "perfect strike" (again, not in reality, but in the world of illusions created around it).
So now we come full circle.
The AngloZionist Hegemony demands that the entire planet bows down and worships it . Except for Russia and Iran, everybody meekly goes down on their knees or, at most, meekly looks away. In their own delusional reality, the 'Mericans feel empowered to smack down Russia or Iran at anytime. There is nothing Iran can do to stop them, and while Russia can, she can only do that at the risk of the future of our entire planet.
Now you tell me -- do you really think this is over?
aleksandar , April 15, 2018 at 3:02 pm GMT
Antonio , April 15, 2018 at 3:05 pm GMT" There is nothing Iran can do to stop them "That's clearly a civilian assertion. By no way, the US can defeat Iran, unless they are ready to send 500 000 grunts there. And they are not. No US president will survive a 10 000 body bag return.
They can use air power for sure, but that will never be enough to force Iran to bow.And I'm quite sure the Russian will provide them everything they have to help Iran.And China probably too.
Without even mentioning destruction of Barbaric Saudi and closin Ormuz strait. It's clearly not over but the US are not as powerful as you think.
Well, firstly, I don't think the future of our planet is at risk, if you mean by that extinction of life on Earth. Current arsenals can't do that, even in the worst case scenario. Nor even can they extinct human race either. Lots of deaths? Yes, sure. Extinction? Nope.Diversity Heretic , April 15, 2018 at 3:16 pm GMTSecondly, there is no rule of law because there is no punishment. Once punishment is delivered, things will change quickly. I agree with you that political or economical punishment will not work. But military punishment will do. Sink some US carriers or destroy some Israel bases, and you will see how they become well-behaved.
(BTW, the EU stopped being Christian long ago.)
The best advice that I could give Russia would be what Reese says to Sarah Connor about the Terminator (substitute AngloZionist Empire).WorkingClass , April 15, 2018 at 3:36 pm GMTTrump demonstrated that the U.S. can still bomb non nuclear countries without regard for the Constitution, international law or common decency. The Deplorables demonstrated that elections will not change anything. Only the death of the U.S. dollar will end Anglo/Zio Imperial aggression.Anonymous [392] Disclaimer , April 15, 2018 at 3:52 pm GMTUhhh no.El Dato , April 15, 2018 at 7:56 pm GMTIt is not only Russia and Iran that does not bow down. North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, Phillipines, China etc. Etc. These countries have done as much as the Russians have. Its not like Russia sank a carrier or anything and it's not like Russia is defender of the world on a crusade to defend the planet. They are only acting because they are in the crosshairs.
If America was targeting Cuba, Russia would not say or do anything against America.
The Scalpel , Website April 15, 2018 at 8:17 pm GMTIf you tell me that 32/103 is hardly perfect
True if true. US says this was all in the pipe, 5 by 5:
Warship ruse and new stealth missiles: How the Syria attack unfolded
While both vessels [USS Winston Churchill, USS Donald Cook] carry as many as 90 Tomahawk missiles -- the main weapon used in the Friday evening strike on Syria -- neither ship in the end fired a shot. Instead, according to a person familiar with White House war planning, they were part of a plan to distract Russia and its Syrian ally from an assault Assad's government could do little to defend itself against.
It worked. Pentagon officials on Saturday said they faced little resistance to their targeted attack on what they said were three Syrian chemical weapons facilities. Most of the Syrian countermeasures, including defensive ballistic missiles, were fired after U.S. and allied weapons hit their targets, Lieutenant General Kenneth McKenzie said Saturday.
"No Syrian weapon had any effect on anything we did," McKenzie said. He described the joint U.S., French and U.K. strike as "precise, overwhelming and effective."
Where can I get correct assessments? For, umm . research yeah.
Russia was outgunned, so they did not respond. It was probably a wise decision. They did damage control admirably, and now have an opportunity to improve the Syrian arsenal with obvious justification.JR , April 15, 2018 at 8:54 pm GMTSlowly but surely, Russia is tightening the noose in Syria. Air defenses are improving. The next step is likely to be an arsenal of anti-ship missile's. If necessary ICBMs might follow some sort of mutual defense treaty.
At some point, Syria itself will be able to deliver the bloody nose to the USA that is so necessary for justice and world peace. That point will be reached when Syrian abilities to inflict pain outweigh the costs of escalation
Probably Saker didn't see this yet.Antonio , April 15, 2018 at 8:55 pm GMThttp://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1098059.shtml
China supporting Russia using reasoning in line with the Saker.
@El DatopeterAUS , April 15, 2018 at 9:26 pm GMT@ElDato: Try borrowing some observation time from these guys
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spot_Image https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RapidEyealeksandar , April 15, 2018 at 10:06 pm GMTFacts simply don't matter. And neither does logic. All that matters are perceptions!
Yup.
There is nothing Iran can do to stop them, and while Russia can, she can only do that at the risk of the future of our entire planet.
Not quite. Or, the regime in Kremlin could've stopped all this had it acted, properly , a couple of years ago. Opportunity missed.
Now you tell me -- do you really think this is over?
Of course not. This is just a starter.
@El DatoSmeagol , April 16, 2018 at 12:16 am GMTNowhere, stay tuned to Radio Pentagon, that's all you can understand anyway.
My precious, too many players want to start a real war between the Mercans and Russians. Aside from the casual suspects (KSA and Israel), Chinese also objectively benefit from the confrontation, which explains their aloofness. Should this come to a nuclear war, Chinese will be the one and only winner. For this old smart monkey is still sitting on the tree, and nothing has changed since Chairman Mao times.Linda , April 16, 2018 at 4:52 am GMTFor Iran, this war will certainly enhance the Iran-Russia axis and thus may postpone the US aggression. Turkey loves it too because it can play both sides.
Ironically, only the USA and Russia will be the biggest losers regardless of the outcome. It seems they both realize that and are treading carefully. But can they manage to get out of the clinch? And for how long they can be avoiding the all-out conflict? So no, -- it's definitely ain't over. We hates it, but the best is yet to come.
You forget ballsy little Bolivia defends Russia in UN with both votes and condemnation of barking Nikki. It looks like they are offering all they have -- moral condemnation of Empire and her vassals.Linda , April 16, 2018 at 5:21 am GMTThis is a very interesting post from Zaid Fadel at Syrian Perspective. https://syrianperspective.com/2018/04/attack-on-syria-big-flop-air-defenses-robust-massive-failure-for-trump-may-macron-and-the-usual-gang-of-idiots.htmlhunor , April 16, 2018 at 7:27 am GMTThe reason I give it a lot of weight is that the night before the bombing, either Vanessa Beasley or Eva Bartlett called in to Israeli News Live and gave 12 points explaining what Syria was expecting to happen and it seems it pretty well went down as they had said. I'm sorry I can't find the broadcast link. Apparently the Russians said if the strike went into a second day they would strike back even if Russians were not hit. Looks like the "strike" was pretty well pre-determined by both sides.
Gave each side a look at the others capabilities and allowed US a chance to waste missiles and Northrup sell new ones. Same old, same old.
Every time my country says or does something insane (which is often) this Lee Greenwood song goes thru my mind with modified lyrics. "Ashamed to be an American, where I'm duped to think I'm free".
" This is far from over ! "Robert Magill , April 16, 2018 at 10:50 am GMTHow can it be over ? It is a war in progress. One side of the warring party is creating they own reality, and present it on the world stage with absolute conviction, and determination. This fake reality is part of the war game , it should not be considered as lies or staged events. It is war ! Fake reality is part of the repertoire , just like the missiles. It is war , no rules just brutal conflict.
The other side not understanding any of it. They are running around , like chickens in the rain. UNSC talk , talk and talk some more. Nobody give a them. They are counting how many missiles they intercepted , they are analyzing , they are theorizing . Do something you are about to be wiped off !
This is theatre;TT , April 16, 2018 at 1:36 pm GMTAct 2 . China sells tickets. Total now of two hundred missiles used; nothing much destroyed. Top brass satisfied. Neocons, mollified. Audience, US, asleep in our seats as usual.
Act 3 . The big love scene: Trump and Putin do Romeo & Juliet, audience confused. Back to sleep. China offers no refunds.
https://robertmagill.wordpress.com/2018/04/15/women-of-the-world-summit-2/
TT , April 16, 2018 at 1:51 pm GMTMeasures Political Economic Military
Prerequisites
Current reality
The Chinese and the rest of them are not willing to do anything at this time to support Russia. Russia can militarily defeat the AngloZionists, but only by risking the future of our planet.Saker correctly pointed out Russia is showing unnecessary weakness in only moaning & bitching with empty threats that nobody bother, relegating itself to a weakling gas station.
But to falsely accused China & the rest not willing to do anything at this time to support Russia is too far fetch, a foolish remark like a whining self pitied child blaming everyone for his own spilled milk.
Does Saker expect its few allies China, NK, Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, SAA to launch attack on US Nato when RuA refused/not permit?
Economically, China is known to have financially back the entire costly war, signed numerous huge deals worth hundreds of Bil with Russia to booster its sanctioned economy, deliver re-construction materials, medicine & food for tens of millions soldiers & Syrians. A astromical cost.
Military, it has also supply lot of weapons & ammunition under so called old contract with SAA, sent in its most senior advisors & Special forces to help fighting & get train, esp to mop up Uyghur ISIS terrorists(CIA assets).
It even cut short a mammoth 40 vessels Liaoning a/c strike group drill in SCS to declare a unprecedented proximate live firing drill in Taiwan Straits, literally forcing existing USN three strike groups to tied down in SCS. This sent a very clear signal that if US start a hot war in Syria with Russia, China might open another war front to take back Taiwan which USM will be overstretched to defend.
Also China despatched its Defense Minister in a high profile visit to Russia, declaring its military solidarity with Russia against US tyranny (a rare glaring mentioned of US name directly) . This sent a very strong signal to USM, China may intervene directly or asymmetrically.
China also took an unusual hard stand in a looming trade war, threatened to fight at all cost without slight compromise, hence refusing Trumps any leeway to back down while he up ante to save face.
China foreign ministry further declare the trade war will not limit in trade but shall utilize all asymmetric tools, including non cooporation in strategic issues, sanction of US hugely profiting investments in China. Also Trumps redneck farming vote bank was purposely targeted to pressure him in coming Nov election. With China $4T war chess & US people resistance, US can ill afford to fight China if Syria war breakout. Every major war will see USD artificially hike >30% historically for expenditure mileage.
In UNSC, China has surprisingly took abstained neutral stand, allowing it to play the coordinator role & denying US UK Fr to get any legit for attack. This avoid relegating UNSC into two sides shouting. Nikki Harley was thus preempted her wish of striking with or without UNSC mandate since all ended agreed to let UN conduct independent inspection. Overall, this continue to lock US UK Fr inside UNSC framework.
China Prez Xi also in Baao seminar announced expedite opening of China huge financial market. This stirred the world into frenzy to prepare for huge investment, skillfully denied US ability to pull EU, Jp & others to joint US trade war. All US financier & trade bodies will loathe any trade or hot war that will derail their golden opportunity.
What else happen behind door we won't know. But whatever we can see now, China has done every heavy lifting it could, very comprehensive & well plan, short of attacking USM in Syria which it can't with limited projection force.
Yet Saker is accusing China & others are doing NOTHING to help Russia, when Putin is refusing to even take down a Israel airfield as a warning to USM. Killing a chicken to frighten the monkey.
Is Saker demonstrating a typical Russian nature, unappreciative & endless blaming, always ready to throw ally under bus? This might explain why Russia has few or no true trusted ally, even ex-Soviet countries. Assad Syria & Iran interest are seen routinely been sacrificed.
Will China one day decided Russia is not a trusted ally afterall to reconsider US G2 invitation?
@Lindac matt , April 16, 2018 at 2:51 pm GMTI think one US ally in ME also abstained to refuse support of US proposal, Qatar?
@aleksandaranonymous [187] Disclaimer , April 16, 2018 at 2:56 pm GMTI think the point of the article was precisely that the US is not as strong as it thinks. Hence, the attack was all for "show" so the US can perpetuate the delusion it can handle Russia/Iran. The danger is that this delusion may cause a major misstep, especially if (when) the US starts believing it's own bullshit and really pokes the bear.
The general idea seems to be containment of Russia, hemming them in within their own borders and cutting them off from being able to extend their influence outward.Linda , April 16, 2018 at 3:18 pm GMTAs part of this any allies of theirs such as Syria come under attack; if the west can't own them then they're to be reduced to chaos and rendered into costly burdens for the Russians.
It's all a very cynical and calculated plan that fits into the overall picture of encircling the Russians to stymie their development and influence. NATO expansion up to their borders, the Ukraine coup, encirclement, picking off vulnerable allies, economic warfare and political subversion without end, the pattern is clear. At some point an actual clash might come about, not necessarily now with Syria as the trigger but somewhere all along the entire line of points of friction. Unfortunately it seems inevitable that something bad is going to happen somewhere down the line as the irresistible force meets the immovable object.
The problem here is that moving to a multi-polar world will require many countries to contribute what and where they can as we fight a very entrenched international Cabal. But, the largest responsibility lies with the people living within the Evil Empire and its vassal states. Those whose counties are committing these atrocities need to step up and call foul on their own governments. This is difficult to do since the Project Mockingbird press continues to spew unbelievable lies on a non-stop basis. But those lies are getting more and more difficult to believe. Unless your brain is totally disconnected, you have to realize that what they are saying is inconsistent and illogical.Besides calling and berating my representatives, signing petitions, etc. I have taken to wearing a teeshirt with a picture of Putin and the Russian bear (Putin in a suit, not riding the bear bare chested).
I wear it to all social events for the purpose of starting a discussion. Most Americans are not engaged. They have little trust in their government and most feel like there is nothing they can do about it. I live in the mountain west where people are more libertarian and more willing to fight. I try to provide them with ammunition and point them to places to go to get "real" news. I tell them not to "believe" any news, but get a variety of points of view and use their own minds to determine what is true.
A few years ago, I was very disturbed when I kept hearing Dr. Stephen Cohen say that Putin was the greatest statesman of our time. As I had studied Soviet history in school, I had sort of kept abreast of what was happening in Russia. As an economist, I was aware of how the West, especially the USA, came to help Russia with Democracy and "free markets". It was obvious to me that we were just assisting in selling Russia by the pound to the moneyed class. I had followed Dr. Cohen over the years as well. But sceptical of his assessment of Putin, I have gone back and watched and read almost everything Putin has said and watched what Russia has done and I believe Dr. Cohen is correct.
As a fervent anti-war activist since the sixties, I have been appalled at all the regime change the US has and continues to do around the world including both military covert operations and economic warfare. Well Putin had me at his 2007 Munich speech. The one the West called a rant.
Finally someone was calling out this criminal behavior on an international stage! Putin has continued with these messages and as far as I can see, Russia is operating accordingly. No one country, not Russia, not China, no one can destroy this international Cabal on its own. It will take a concerted effort of all peace seeking people from around the world to force their governments on a different path. Starting in my case with the people of the USA.
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Jackrabbit | Apr 15, 2018 5:57:58 PM | 105
To Trump apologists: Trump is the Republican Obama. The follow the same model of government: faux populist leader dogged by crazy critics that want to derail a righteous agenda.
Obamabots gave similar excuses. Real populists simply don't get have a chance of being elected in US money-driven elections.
Why was there only two populists running for President in 2016? Sanders, Hillay's sheepdog, destroyed the movement that would been the best check on the establishment and the rush to war. That movement was never going to be allowed to take root. Trump, a friend of the Clinton's was probably meant to prevail.
Rome had bread and circuses. We've got crumbs and tweets.
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Occams_Razor_Trader Sun, 04/15/2018 - 16:32 Permalink
FBaggins -> Occams_Razor_Trader Sun, 04/15/2018 - 16:33 PermalinkLindsey Graham with tits. Those who want war never have to fight it!
Adolph.H. -> FBaggins Sun, 04/15/2018 - 16:34 PermalinkI Am a Syrian Living in Syria: "It was Never a Revolution nor a Civil War. The Terrorists are sent by your Government"
American People, Please Help Us
by Mark Taliano
https://www.globalresearch.ca/i-am-a-syrian-living-in-syria-it-was-neve
It would be legitimate to wonder if the U.S. MIC will stealthily add to the long list of sanctimonious sanctions the interdiction for any western vassal state to buy the vastly superior Russian weapon systems in a not so distant future. One can feel it coming. Needless to say this kind of short sighted vision will be the straw that will break the camel's back.
These sanctions are ultimately going to hurt more the USA than Russia because little by little countries are leaving the American sphere of influence for the more balanced and reasonable Eurasian one. Nobody wants to stay with a maniac like Nikki or a fool like trump...
The Americans will be begging to be integrated once they hit the bottom.
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Apr 16, 2018 | www.counterpunch.org
Gore Vidal preferred chaos to order. According to his wisdom centrifugal forces create gaps and spaces in which freedom can fornicate.
As things stand that's probably the best we can hope for. Indeed we might as well embrace what's happening all around us. Because the Anglo-American gang that filled the last 200 years with liberal imperialism is losing the mendacious plot. The grand illusion is falling apart.
The grand chessboard isn't in the best of shape either. The Anglo-American game plan to dominate Euro-Asia is being ripped apart by the Euro-Asians. The grandfather of ISIS – Zbigniew Brzezinski – must be rolling in his grave. According to him geopolitics is all about hegemony. And that's something no one possesses at the moment – least of all the Anglo-Americans.
The consequence is that there's space for an Assad and an Ali Khameini in the Middle East; for a Kim Jong-un and a Xi Jinping in the East. And for a Putin everywhere. And in Latin America there's room for a Maduro. And a Castro is still there.
And the chaotic spaces aren't disappearing. As Steve Bannon said recently – in the context of North Korea but which can be applied generally: there is no military solution. And he may as well have added that there isn't an economic solution. There's not even an ideological solution.
A few years ago the Anglo-Americans would've invaded and carpet bombed the chaotic spaces without a second thought. And only yesterday the use of proxies was the tactic. Russia though has unilaterally thrown a spanner into the workings of all this naked Anglo-American aggression.
The net result is that the UN Security Council will no longer back anymore "humanitarian wars". And the use of "Islamic fundamentalism" has been check mated. All the Anglo-Americans can do now is nuke the world or shut up.
A few years ago the Anglo-Americans could have also used economics to eliminate or control the chaotic spaces. Sanctions, shock therapy and structural adjustment policies were their alternative WMD. But even these bombs from Bretton Woods are now of limited or no value. Why? The BRICS. Or in another word – China.
Today the English speaking way is not as omnipotent as before. Back in 1955 the Bandung Conference in Indonesia was an attempt to create a space for chaotic freedom but it hadn't the military or economic power to establish itself. Today is different.
The non-aligned countries that emerged from the Bandung Conference now in the early 21st Century have accumulated and generate enough capital to give substance to their 1955 desire.
And as well as that significant fact is the connection these countries have made to a born again Russia. The latter has dramatically added to whatever military power the non-aligned movement has had in the face of the Anglo-American Empire.
The passing of time has seen the passing away of the Empire's military and economic monopolies. The non-aligned movement plus Russia, the Third World, BRICS or whatever you want to call it has at last a sufficient industrial base upon which to construct a liberating chaos.
Alternative banking systems and alternative trading systems have slowly but surely emerged on top of the National Liberation struggles of the 20th Century – to the detriment of Wall Street and London.
And the anchors of this New World Disorder are proving to be the great Russian and Chinese Revolutions of the last century. The radical independence these world changing events gave to Russia and China was – to say the least – no short term phenomenon.
In the long term the universal values of the Enlightenment have successfully taken root. Despite the cynicism, fatalism and pessimism (the postmodernism) in the Anglo-American sphere – reason has found fertile ground in the lands despised by the original Enlightenment.
Its now the Anglo-Americans (and their European clones and clowns) who rely upon religion, hysteria and lies. Its they who are building great walls. And it is they who want to hide behind protectionism. Liberalism had its chance a long time ago to live up to its ideals but for the love of money it chose to do otherwise.
The extremely influential American planner George F. Kennan best expressed this ideological sellout in 1948 (Memo PPS23) when he officially recommended that the US forget about democracy, living standards and human rights in the world if it wanted to maintain its control of global wealth.
The intention of liberalism was top secret back then but is common knowledge now (outside the mainstream media, that is). It has always been Anglo-America and financial wealth first – Trump makes it crystal clear today. The Anglo-Americans severed their ideological links to the world a long time ago – if they were ever there in the first place.
The unprincipled ruthlessness Kennan demanded and got from Anglo-America was – around 1950 – dressed up in the clothes of freedom. Today however its clothes are nothing but farce.
Uncomfortable laughter, embarrassment and disbelief are the feelings associated with Anglo-America now around the non-NATO world. Its not just Trump, Russia-gate, Bolton, Theresa May, the Skripal poisoning-case and the chemical stories in Syria. Each one more fake than the next. Its the stock market bubble and the military bubble as well. Each one more irrational and ripe for revolution than the other.
And underlining it all and the insurance for us all is the cowardice of the Anglo-Americans. Like school yard bullies they only pick on the weak and defenseless. Or its probably more apt to say that like psychopathic serial killers they only pick on the weak and defenseless.
So the chances of Washington D.C. and London confronting head on the Russians, Chinese, Iranians, North Koreans, Venezuelans and Syrians are slim. Against a well organized defense the Empire is a coward.
The Anglo-Americans can rant and rave as much as they like – the rest of the world will work around them and NATO – like the way we avoid the insane on the street. There are roads, bridges and railways to be built across Euro-Asia and across Africa too. And in Latin America there's still time for Bolivar and Che to build something new.
The Anglo-Americans are very much redundant today. The Empire is empty. Its authority in every way has shrank rapidly in the last two decades. It preaches with blood on its hands. Its lectures are lies. And its precious money is nothing but paper. Its New World Order is in chaos. And the world is better because of it. Finally the free world is emerging. Join the debate on Facebook More articles by: Aidan O'Brien
Aidan O'Brien lives in Dublin, Ireland.
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Oct 14, 2017 | theduran.com
The claims give insight into Trump's apparent defiance of his most senior Cabinet officials, Rex Tillerson and James "Mad Dog" Mattis.
by Adam , 14:09 4.8k Views
The US media outlet Politico has published claims based on internal White House leaks, which report that the controversial US Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, is the author of Trump's anti-JCPOA and broader anti-Iran policies, which were conveyed in his speech form the White House, yesterday evening.
Everything you need to know about Trump's de-certification of the JCPOA (Iran nuclear deal)
Haley is known to be among the most hardened neo-cons in the Trump administration, with strong ties to the anti-Iranian American Israel lobby. Her role as US Ambassador has been far more public than that of most of her predecessors. Many, including myself, suspect that Haley who has no previous foreign policy experience, is using her position at the UN to promote a future entry into elected politics at a Federal level.
According to Politico, in July of this year, Trump grudgingly certified the JCPOA under advice from Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Defense Secretary James "Mad Dog" Mattis. However, at the time, Haley was said to have volunteered to author an argument which could be employed in the future, which would attempt to justify a US de-certification of the JCPOA.
Politico reports ,
"At a mid-day meeting in the Oval Office in late July, U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley came to President Donald Trump with an offer.
Trump had grudgingly declared Tehran in compliance with the 2015 Iran nuclear deal earlier in the month, at the urging of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Secretary of Defense James Mattis. Trump hated the deal. But the two men pushed him to certify it, arguing in part that he lacked a strong case for declaring Iran in violation. A refusal to do so would have looked rash, they said, convincing Trump sign off for another 90 days.
Haley, in that July meeting, which also included National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster and Vice President Mike Pence, asked the president to let her make the case for decertification'Let me lay a foundation for it', she said, according a source familiar with the proceedings. The president agreed.
Haley would become the administration's most vocal public proponent of decertification -- and Trump's favorite internal voice on Iran -- further boosting her standing with the president at a time when she is seen as a potential successor to Tillerson, whose tense relationship with Trump has burst into the open in recent days.
A month after her talk with Trump, Haley flew to Vienna to visit the headquarters of the International Atomic Energy Association, where she pressed officials about Iranian compliance with the deal. Soon after, she delivered a speech at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C., airing her "doubts and concerns" about the agreement.
Haley's role was described by a half-dozen administration officials who took part in the Iran policy review. While many of the president's cabinet members, aides, and advisers work to restrain his impulses, when it came to Iran deal Haley did the opposite -- channeling what many Democrats and even some Republicans consider the president's destructive instincts into policy".
The story from Politico which also argues that arch neo-con John Bolton pushed for a full withdrawal from the JCPOA from his position outside of the White House, follows may well known trends. This helps explain why Mattis recently stated that Iran is in compliance with the JCPOA and why Rex Tilleron's State Department has officially said the same.
Nikki Haley has often defied the moderate voice of Rex Tillerson and even James "Mad Dog" Mattis on a number of issues. Haley for example has repeatedly said that 'Assad must go', while Tillerson and Mattis have been far more realistic about the fact that President Assad will in all likelihood, continue to govern Syria for the foreseeable future.
She has also echoed Donald Trump's aggressive statements about North Korea, whereas Rex Tillerson has often repeated his view that the US does not and should not seek regime change in Pyongyang and instead will continue to pursue a diplomatic process.
Nikki Haley also famously said that Russians cannot be trusted, while Rex Tillerson has worked closely (albeit usually through phone calls rather than grandiose public meetings) with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and was seen as instrumental in creating the joint Russian-US-Jordanian de-escalation zone in south western Syria.
At one point, Rex Tillerson was said to have privately reprimanded Haley for inventing her own foreign policy without consulting her superiors at the State Department. However, it seems that in respect of Iran, Trump has overruled Tillerson and allowed Haley to take charge.
Haley later told journalists that she was offered the position of Secretary of State but turned it down, before being offered the position of Ambassador to the UN. Haley further attested that she sent Trump a list of demands that she never expected to be agreed upon, as a precondition for accepting her current position.
Nikki Haley was offered Secretary of States job and turned it down
Haley who has long been seen as a rogue figure in the Trump administration and one who is widely exceeding her authority, is apparently doing so with Donald Trump's approval.
With rumours swirling that Rex Tillerson planned on resigning, even before it emerged that he allegedly called Trump a "fucking moron", there is now an increased possibility that a hyper-neo-con, might soon become the chief foreign policy maker in a Trump administration that was elected on the basis of opposing the neo-con ideology.
With many Trump administration officials coming and going in short order, there is a very worrying possibility that Nikki Haley's role will only be enhanced in future months. This is dangerous not only for the United States, but for the wider world. Haley's inexperience is only matched by her zeal for bellicose measures against countries which have not done any harm to the American people. Such a person should not be anywhere near power, but it seems as though she has Trump's ear, far more than the vastly more mature Tillerson and Mattis.
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Apr 15, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com
serotonindumptruck -> Janet smeller Sun, 04/15/2018 - 16:44 Permalink
Russia knows that this diplomatic, economic, and military aggression will never stop. These military strikes and economic sanctions from the West represent the death throes of a dying empire. A dying empire is like a gravely wounded, cornered animal.
This is an extremely dangerous animal, because it is willing to arbitrarily kill anyone and anything before it dies.
serotonindumptruck -> spyware-free Sun, 04/15/2018 - 17:00 Permalink
GoinFawr -> serotonindumptruck Sun, 04/15/2018 - 17:07 PermalinkI still believe that the USA and its European allies will be the first to use nuclear weapons.
Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping no doubt recognize the grave circumstances, and they are using the utmost restraint to avoid the provision of a military pretext that the West/USA is seeking in their effort to greatly escalate hostilities.
dirty fingernails -> serotonindumptruck Sun, 04/15/2018 - 17:12 Permalink" I still believe that the USA ... will be the first to use nuclear weapons . "
Eg. Nagasaki and Hiroshima
Chupacabra-322 -> dirty fingernails Sun, 04/15/2018 - 17:38 PermalinkThe US will only use nukes to secure their dominance. The people in change aren't beholden to any country or continent being filthy rich and/or dual citizens. So the plan is to deny the US an excuse to use nukes while cutting the empire off at the knees.
Otherwise, I agree it'll be a NATO country that nukes first. That's part of the desire to make smaller nukes. "Small" nukes are seen as a way to nuke but not start a global exchange. Fucking insane people gambling with all higher life forms.
dirty fingernails -> spyware-free Sun, 04/15/2018 - 17:01 Permalink"Small Nuke."
You make it sound like she's just "a little pregnant."
serotonindumptruck -> dirty fingernails Sun, 04/15/2018 - 17:22 PermalinkRussia will tolerate it as long as possible. The delay only weakens the US and allies. All have serious issues domestically and even alliances are strained. Don't interrupt when your enemy is making a mistake
Pernicious Gol -> serotonindumptruck Sun, 04/15/2018 - 17:48 PermalinkThat is certainly some excellent Sun Tzu advice.
However, Sun Tzu never calculated criminal insanity into his logical strategems.
When your enemy refuses to concede defeat, and is willing to suicide the entire world in their obstinance, the only winning move is not to play.
dirty fingernails -> serotonindumptruck Sun, 04/15/2018 - 17:50 PermalinkHe did talk about that.
serotonindumptruck -> dirty fingernails Sun, 04/15/2018 - 18:01 PermalinkTrue, but look around us. There is no need to nuke cities and military targets in the US. Shut down the electrical grid and the population would lose it in a matter of hours. Within days it would be chaos on so many levels that it would take a long time to recover. We really are our own worst enemies because we are so fractured and polarized of the stupidest shit.
Sid Davis -> serotonindumptruck Sun, 04/15/2018 - 16:55 PermalinkIf limited global depopulation is the ultimate goal, then yes, the USA will suffer the most due to the prevalence of firearms and the general hostility that is clearly evident within its citizenry.
That's obviously not the main objective for the warmongers and neocons in DC.
The ultimate objective is global dominance, and the complete and total subjugation of humanity.
Like I said, criminal insanity is the paradigm that rules the West.
Cosmicserpent -> Adolph.H. Sun, 04/15/2018 - 16:42 PermalinkCornered animal; that sounds like Trumps modus operandi. Notice that anyone who criticizes him gets lambasted with personal attacks instead of a reasoned response.
We need a President who understands freedom and who is a reasonable person, neither of which traits are possessed by Trump. He didn't win the election on his own qualification but on Hillary's lack of qualification. This speaks to the point, "The lesser of two evils is still evil".
spyware-free -> Adolph.H. Sun, 04/15/2018 - 16:43 PermalinkWe won't hit bottom without taking everyone with us. The Republic was lost when JFK was assassinated.
khnum -> I woke up Sun, 04/15/2018 - 16:51 PermalinkThis will work out about as good as Obama "isolating" Russia. Nothing more than a ziocon jerkfest.
veritas semper -> FBaggins Sun, 04/15/2018 - 17:43 PermalinkThat proposition plus a ban on all US agricultural produce is currently being put up in their parliament
Jumanji1959 -> FBaggins Sun, 04/15/2018 - 18:26 PermalinkThis is very clear path toward a confrontation with Russia. America is not going to stop . Russia continues to be punished because does not leave Syria and does not bow to America.
This recent American fiasco in Syria is just the opening overture. In May we have the moving of American embassy to Jerusalem and the unilateral withdrawal from Iran nuclear deal. I think we will not reach the end of the year without a big war : America is losing power and needs it.
keep the basta -> FBaggins Sun, 04/15/2018 - 20:25 PermalinkActually the terrorists were sent by Israel and more specifically, the Mossad, who trained them. Israel wants to expand its territory by committing a GENOCIDE.
Occams_Razor_Trader -> Occams_Razor_Trader Sun, 04/15/2018 - 16:38 PermalinkThe chemical weapons organisation in Damascus and elsewhere in Syria found NO chemical weapons at the site the USA UK And FR bombed for that. The only chemical weapons are those found in the tunnels in East Ghouta after Syria bussed the militant occupiers away. The 40 tons of chemicals have manufactuer names, serial numbers and addresses eg Porton Down Salisbury.
Cui Bono? Trump says he's going to pull out of Syria -- Things never looked better for Assad -- and he gets the bright idea, to turn the world against him by gassing gassing his own people? I'm not buying it. I-F-F (Israeli False Flag)
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Apr 15, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com
JohninMK -> Lumberjack Sun, 04/15/2018 - 16:52 Permalink
Lore -> JohninMK Sun, 04/15/2018 - 17:14 PermalinkThe sanctions will no doubt apply to the supplier of that high tech stuff in that chemical lab that the SAA discovered last month in Ghouta.
Just remembered, it was US made and sold through Saudi.
JohninMK -> Lore Sun, 04/15/2018 - 17:54 PermalinkTrump's in deep over his head. It was an open question whether he posed any genuine obstacle to the pathocracy, but it seems more clear now that, one way or another, he has been brought more tightly under their control. THAT, much more than any individual false-flags or other deceptions or wrongs, should be cause for the rational world to fear. The psychopaths are still on the march, and Trump is at least paying lip service to their chicanery. The further out on a limb he goes, the more reluctant and then helpless he will be to backtrack as pathology becomes more extreme and events escalate under their own momentum. With markets looking more precarious than ever, how long will it be before the psychopaths commit more and bigger false flags?
dirty fingernails -> JohninMK Sun, 04/15/2018 - 17:59 PermalinkForgot to say that theses sanctions are downright embarrassing.
So we illegally attack a different country, that country's ally doesn't respond to our act of aggression, and we're now slapping sanctions on that country... for not responding to our attack? Not only sanctions but sanctions on products that both parties actually know aren't there. Unless the US is sanctioning the supply chain of swimming pool and industrial/domestic cleaning agents based on chlorine.
Brilliant just the way to get an agreement from them next time.
veritas semper -> Lore Sun, 04/15/2018 - 18:04 PermalinkThey don't want any agreements except submission. Anything less is unacceptable.
the phantom -> chumbawamba Sun, 04/15/2018 - 16:48 PermalinkTrump had 1 BILLION $ in debt to the chosen banks ; maybe this can point toward whether or not he was part of the deep state from the beginning ? But ,does it matter any longer ?
r0mulus -> Whoa Dammit Sun, 04/15/2018 - 16:41 PermalinkSanctions... act of war. Dropping bombs on a sovereign country (without UN approval even)... act of war. Insulting foreign leaders and creating false flags to justify your illegal actions... act of war. Don't be fooled into thinking that just b/c Russia did not respond to the US actions, that "nothing happened". War has started, this is just the beginning.
If you think otherwise, you are a fool.
veritas semper -> r0mulus Sun, 04/15/2018 - 18:16 PermalinkHere we go again- the ever-plotting West trying to create reality on the fly -- attempting to make the alleged chemical weapons attack into a fait accompli, painting the tape of reality with the shadow-puppets of the operation mockingbird-controlled, corporate (MIC) media!
Any good reason we shouldn't just start calling the 5(+1)-eyez media environment the Oceania State News Network (OSNN) right now?
America starts the war on Syria, by financing, training, paying the terrorists . America builds military bases there.
And Syria , with help from her allies , still wins the war.
America asks her remaining terrorists there to plan, execute a false flag . As a casus belli.
America attacks , the coalition is small .
Syria stuns the world with her courage and old Soviet era air defense . The aftermath for America is embarrassing .
America gives sanctions to Syria because Syria defended herself , to Russia because Russia still doesn't bow .
Iran is next .
In May we will have further escalation.
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Apr 15, 2018 | www.moonofalabama.org
Anon , Apr 15, 2018 11:48:39 AM | 16
Putin: Further Western Strikes in Syria Contrary to Int'l Law Will Lead to Chaos https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201804151063585034-syria-actions-violations-chaos/Haley responds: US to Impose Sanctions on Russia Over Support of Assad - Envoy to UN https://sputniknews.com/us/201804151063584536-haley-us-troops-syria/
Best wore if Haley catch a brain stroke, that would save peace.
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Apr 15, 2018 | www.moonofalabama.org
Peter AU 1 , Apr 15, 2018 4:09:16 PM | 72
From what I can make of Trump, he wants to return the US to its general prosperity that it has enjoyed in the past, a country with world leading infrastructure, were average workers are better of than workers of other countries. He is not interested in wars that are detrimental or costly to the US. If a war is profitable for the US, he may be interested.Anon , Apr 15, 2018 4:12:18 PM | 74Like Erdogan in Turkey, Trump is heading for the multi-polar world. Personally I don't like the US culture of full blown capitalism and privatization that is US culture and gave rise to the neo-cons, but that is not the point. Trump wants the capitalism of the likes of Henry Ford whose innovation? of production line produced good quality cheap products but paid workers two to three times the going rate.
The neo-cons, with their never ending wars for total dominance are destroying the world and the US. It is starting to look like they will also destroy Trump.
Peter AU1Peter AU 1 , Apr 15, 2018 4:28:53 PM | 79Considering Trump kick out Tillerson and so forth and added many neocons one can't deny the reality of what is going on. Trump knows perfectly well what he is doing and did in Syria. He isn't pushed by anyone.
A further thought to my post @72Peter AU 1 , Apr 15, 2018 4:31:07 PM | 80The photographs of Trump with his arms folded and the general look. Defensive or beaten type look. In Trump's book, Art of the Deal, what he respects most is people that deliver what they promise. He uses hyperbole to sell a product, but above all he must deliver what the people want. He campaigned on pulling US out of foreign entanglements and useless expensive wars.
The choreographed attack on Shayrat airbase preempted the neocons and took the wind out of their sails. This latest strike, rather than being pre-emptive, was forced on him. He has not been able to deliver the product he promised and what people bought when they elected him.
The reaction of the likes of Alan Jones and other Trump supporters on Twitter and elsewhere is evidence of that failure.Anon 74ben , Apr 15, 2018 4:59:27 PM | 82The neo-con world butters Tillerson's bread. I suspect he was a snake in the grass like Obama.
Peter AU1 @ 79 said: "In Trump's book, Art of the Deal, what he respects most is people that deliver what they promise."Trump must not respect himself much, because according to people who have followed his entire career say he never delivers things promised..
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Apr 15, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com
With the country's attention focused on James Comey's
book publicity galainterview with ABC at 10pm ET, the former FBI Director has thrown former President Obama and his Attorney General Loretta Lynch under the bus, claiming they "jeopardized" the Hillary Clinton email investigation.Comey called out Obama and Lynch in his new book, A Higher Loyalty , set to come out on Tuesday. In it, he defends the FBI's top brass and counterintelligence investigators charged with probing Clinton's use of a private email server and mishandling of classified information, reports the Washington Examiner , which received an advanced copy.
" I never heard anyone on our team -- not one -- take a position that seemed driven by their personal political motivations . And more than that: I never heard an argument or observation I thought came from a political bias. Never ... Instead we debated, argued, listened, reflected, agonized, played devil's advocate, and even found opportunities to laugh as we hashed out major decisions .
("Guys, LMAO, we totally just exonerated Hillary! My sides! Hey Andy, how's Jill's Senate race going?")
Comey says that multiple public statements made by Obama about the investigation "jeopardized" the credibility of the FBI investigation - seemingly absolving Clinton of any crime before FBI investigators were able to complete their work .
" Contributing to this problem, regrettably, was President Obama . He had jeopardized the Department of Justice's credibility in the investigation by saying in a 60 Minutes interview on Oct. 11, 2015, that Clinton's email use was "a mistake" that had not endangered national security," Comey writes. "Then on Fox News on April 10, 2016, he said that Clinton may have been careless but did not do anything to intentionally harm national security, suggesting that the case involved overclassification of material in the government."
" President Obama is a very smart man who understands the law very well . To this day, I don't know why he spoke about the case publicly and seemed to absolve her before a final determination was made. If the president had already decided the matter, an outside observer could reasonably wonder, how on earth could his Department of Justice do anything other than follow his lead." - Washington Examiner
Of course, Comey had already begun drafting Clinton's exoneration before even interviewing her, something which appears to have been "forgotten" in his book.
" The truth was that the president -- as far as I knew, anyway -- he had only as much information as anyone following it in the media . He had not been briefed on our work at all. And if he was following the media, he knew nothing, because there had been no leaks at all up until that point. But, his comments still set all of us up for corrosive attacks if the case were completed with no charges brought."
"Matter" not "Investigation"
Comey also describes a September 2015 meeting with AG Lynch in which she asked him to describe the Clinton email investigation as a "matter" instead of an investigation.
"It occurred to me in the moment that this issue of semantics was strikingly similar to the fight the Clinton campaign had waged against The New York Times in July. Ever since then, the Clinton team had been employing a variety of euphemisms to avoid using the word 'investigation,'" Comey writes.
" The attorney general seemed to be directing me to align with the Clinton campaign strategy . Her "just do it" response to my question indicated that she had no legal or procedural justification for her request, at least not one grounded in our practices or traditions. Otherwise, I assume, she would have said so.
Comey said others present in the meeting with Lynch thought her request was odd and political as well - including one of the DOJ's senior leaders.
" I know the FBI attendees at our meeting saw her request as overtly political when we talked about it afterward . So did at least one of Lynch's senior leaders. George Toscas, then the number-three person in the department's National Security Division and someone I liked, smiled at the FBI team as we filed out, saying sarcastically, ' Well you are the Federal Bureau of Matters ,'" Comey recalled.
That said, Comey "didn't see any instance when Attorney General Lynch interfered with the conduct of the investigation," writing "Though I had been concerned about her direction to me at that point, I saw no indication afterward that she had any contact with the investigators or prosecutors on the case."
In response, Loretta Lynch promptly issued a statement in which she said that if James Comey " had any concerns regarding the email investigation, classified or not, he had ample opportunities to raise them with me both privately and in meetings. He never did."
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Apr 14, 2018 | www.theamericanconservative.com
It begins: Trump announces a series of joint air strikes on Syrian targets Friday. An explosion after an apparent US-led coalition airstrike on Kobane, Syria, as seen from the Turkish side of the border, near Suruc district, 24 October 2014, Sanliurfa, Turkey Shutterstock/orlok UPDATE 9 p.m.ET : President Trump announces joint air strikes with the UK and France against Syrian targets in retaliation for suspected chemical attack a week ago in Douma.One year since the U.S. illegally launched 59 cruise missiles at Syrian government forces in response to an alleged chemical weapons attack, the Trump administration is preparing to take similar military action despite an increased risk of escalation that could lead to the start of a wider war.
The U.S., France, and Britain have been preparing to strike the Syrian government over the last several days, and Syria's Russian patron has threatened the "gravest consequences" in response to an attack. Russia didn't respond to last year's one-off airstrikes, but Moscow isn't likely to tolerate a larger U.S. attack carried out with other governments. Syria's government and its allies seem more willing to fight back than they were a year ago, and that should give the Trump administration and our European allies pause. There is a greater risk of great power conflict erupting in Syria than there has been at any time since the end of the Cold War, and if Russian military personnel are killed by U.S. or allied strikes there is no telling how quickly things could deteriorate there and in other parts of the world.
President Trump's public statements have strongly suggested that an attack will be happening soon, going so far as to taunt Russia on Twitter that they should "get ready" for the "new" and "smart" missiles that the U.S. would be using. Some members of Congress have insisted that the president lacks the legal authority to launch an attack on Syria without their authorization. As Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Virginia) put it , "[I]f this president can decide unilaterally to bomb Syria, I worry that he can make the same decision about North Korea or Iran or other nations. And these decisions are not supposed to be made without consultation and voting by Congress." Unfortunately, Congressional leaders have shown no signs of wanting to hold a debate or have a vote before the attack takes place.
The Trump administration has not offered a public legal justification for last year's strikes, and it seems unlikely to offer one this time. That is probably because there is no plausible interpretation of the law that permits the president to initiate hostilities against foreign governments on his own when the U.S. has not been attacked. There is no provision in international law that allows a U.S. attack on another government without explicit Security Council authorization, and we know that this authorization that will never be forthcoming in this case because of Russia's veto. While the attack is being sold as the enforcement of a norm against chemical weapons use, it isn't possible to uphold an international norm while violating the most fundamental rule of international law.
To date, the U.S. and its allies have presented no definitive evidence to support their claims against the Syrian government. It is entirely plausible that the Syrian government is guilty of using chlorine or sarin against its enemies and the civilian population, but there has been no real effort on the part of the U.S. and its allies to prove their accusation before deciding to act as executioners. Regardless, the U.S. and its allies have no authority to punish the Syrian government, and in doing so they may do significant harm to international peace and security.
A U.S.-led attack on the Syrian government could lead to war with Russia or Iran or both at once, and there is also a danger that it could help set off a war between Israel and Iran. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said earlier this week that Israel would not "allow" an Iranian military presence to be established in Syria. The prime minister's threat came on the heels of Israeli strikes inside Syria that reportedly killed seven Iranians serving alongside the Syrian regime's forces. Iran has threatened retaliation for the attack, and it has the ability through Hizbullah to make good on that threat if Israel carries out additional strikes. Israel might use a U.S.-led attack on Iran's allies in Syria as an excuse to strike more Iranian targets, and Iran might then respond in kind with missile attacks on Israel. Lebanese, Syrian, and Israeli civilians would all suffer if that happened, and it would make an already chaotic international situation even worse.
It is a measure of how divorced from U.S. and allied security our Syria policy has become that our government is seriously preparing to launch another illegal attack on a government that hasn't attacked us and doesn't threaten us or our allies. Attacking the Syrian government won't make the U.S. or any other country more secure, and it will likely weaken the government just enough to prolong Syria's civil war and add to the suffering of the civilian population. It is a perfect example of a military intervention that is being done for its own sake with no connection to any discernible interests or strategy. No one stands to gain from such an attack except for the ideologues that have incessantly demanded deeper U.S. involvement in Syria for the last six years.
Daniel Larison is a senior editor at TAC, where he also keeps a solo blog . He has been published in the New York Times Book Review, Dallas Morning News, Front Porch Republic, and The Week . He holds a PhD in history from the University of Chicago. Follow him on Twitter .
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Apr 14, 2018 | thesaker.is
Authored by Peter Koenig via The Saker,
Poison gas is not only deadly, it often provokes a slow suffocating death. That, perpetrated on innocent children, is particularly cruel.
But when such poison gas attacks are mere false flags, or by the new term, "false news", and are used to provoke war, perhaps an all annihilating war, then humanity has turned to what it never should have become – a lowly-lowly herd of brainless zombies.
Is that what we have become – brainless, greedy, selfish beings, no sense of solidarity, no respect for other beings; I am not even talking about humans, but any living being.
Poison gas, the weapon of choice for fear.
Poisoning in Salisbury of the former Russian double-agent, Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, visiting her dad from Moscow. Poisoning with a nerve gas, called Novichok that was allegedly made in Russia. In the meantime, we know that nerve gas made in the former Soviet Union, now non-existent in Russia, was military grade and deadly. The gas used for the alleged attack was not deadly. We also know by now that the UK – all of their highest officials, from PM May down the ladder, lied so miserably that they will have a hard time recovering. It will backfire. Unlike the foreign secretary, Johnson boy pretended their secret bio-gas / bio-weapon laboratory Porton Down, just 13 km down the road from Salisbury, where the pair was allegedly found unconscious on a park bench, assured him the gas was made in Russia. Alas, the laboratories chief chemists testified later to the media that they could not be sure that the substance was made in Russia. No, of course not.
In fact, Porton Down, working in close collaboration with the CIA, is a highly sophisticated chemical warfare facility that can easily make the gas themselves – at the grades they please, deadly or not so deadly, if it should serve a "false news" purpose – which this did.
Were father and daughter indeed poisoned? – This is a legitimate question. Who has seen them since the alleged poisoning occurred on 28 March? – They disappeared from the public eye. Apparently, they are both recovering, Yulia having been released from hospital a few days ago, but has not been seen by anyone in public, nor been able to talk to the media, lest she could say "something" the public is not allowed to know. Her father is also recovering and may be released soon – released from where? – Is this all a farce?
An aunt talked to Yulia from Moscow, where she noticed that Yulia was not free to talk. The aunt wanted to visit her niece in the UK but was obviously denied a visa.
Where are father and daughter? – Washington has "offered" them a new home and new identity in the US, to avoid further poisoning attempts how ridiculous! A blind man or woman must see that this is another farce, or more correctly, an outright abduction. The two won't have a chance to resist. They are just taken away – not to talk anymore to anyone ever. – That's the way the story goes. The lies are protected, and the "Russia did it" syndrome will prevail – prevail in the dumb folded public, in the herd of pigs that we all have become, as Goebbels would say.
And the saga continues. The saga to drum up war. That's the purpose of it all. Nothing else – Russia, the evil nation, led by an evil leader, must be subdued and conquered. But the empire needs the public for their support. And the empire is almost there. It disposes of a vicious media corporate army – that lies flagrantly about anything that money can buy. It's like spitting in the face of the world, and nobody seems to care, or worse, even to notice.
* * *
On the other side of the Mediterranean is Syria. A vast and noble country, Syria, with a leader who truly loves his people and country, a leader who has despite a foreign induced war – not civil war – a proxy war, instigated and funded by Washington and its vassal allies in Europe and the Middle East; Syria, a highly educated socialist country that has shared the benefit of her resources, free education, free medical services, free basic infrastructure, with her people. This Syria must fall. Such strength cannot be tolerated by the all-dominating west. Like Iraq and Libya, also socialist countries once-upon-a-time, and like Syria, secular Muslim nations, sharing their countries wealth with the people, such countries must fall.
According to Pentagon planners and those Zion-neofascist thinktanks that designed the PNAC (Plan for a New American Century), as the chief instrument of US foreign policy, we know since Wesley Clark, the former Supreme Allied commander and Chief of NATO in Europe (1997-2000) talked to Democracy Now in 2007, saying that within 5 years seven countries must fall, one of them is Syria.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/r8FhZnFZ6TY
Since 2011, the Syrian people have been bombarded by US and NATO and Saudi funded terrorists, causing tens of thousands of deaths, and millions of refugees. Now, even more blatantly, US bases are vying to occupying the northern third of Syria, totally illegally, but nobody says beep. Not even the UN.
The recent fake gas attack on Douma outside of Damascus, has allegedly killed 80 to 120 people, mostly women and children.
Of course, that sells best in the propaganda theatre – women and children. Strangely, like last time the infamous White Helmets discovered the gas victims, including a gas canister-like bomb laying on a bed, having been shot through the roof of a house a totally and unprofessionally staged event. As Russian military quickly discovered and reported. They called on an independent investigation, one that could not be bought and corrupted by Washington. President Assad invited a team of investigators to inspect the scene.
Instead of heeding this invitation, Trump, the bully, calls Mr. Assad an "animal" and a "monster", twittering his brainless aggressions throughout the world. Tell you what, Mr. Trump, Bashar al-Assad is a far better human being than you are a monster. You and your dark handlers don't even deserve being called human. Mr. Assad has regard and respect for his people, attempts to protect them and has so far succeeded with the help of Russia, Iran and Hezbollah, recovering the last bits of Syrian territory from the terrorist, except of course, the northern part, where the chief terrorist and the world's only rogue state has itself installed, the US of A. – Why in the world would Mr. Assad choose to gas his own people? Especially, when he is winning the war? – People, ask yourself, cui bono (who benefits?) and the answer is simple: The western aggressors, who seek a reason to mass bomb Syria into even more rubble, causing even more death and destitution . That's who.
While you, Donald, and those monsters that direct you from behind the scenes, have no, but absolutely no respect for your people, for any people on this globe, for that matter, not even for your kind, for your greed-no-end kind of elite, as you bring the world to the brink of an all-destructive, all killing annihilating war.
Since the other fake event, 9/11, we are, of course, already in a "soft version" of WWIII, but that's not enough, the United States needs a hard war, so badly it doesn't shy away from destroying itself. That's how blinded your own propaganda has made you Americans, you generals, you corporate "leaders" (sic-sic) – and all you Congress puppets. That is the sheer truth. You better read this and wake up. Otherwise your dead sentence is hastened by your own greed and ignorance.
Both Russia and the US drafted a Security Council Resolution – which of course are both not approved, with Nikki Haley lambasting Russia, accusing them of being responsible for the countless deaths in Syria – pointing again to the children and women, making up the majority. Again, it sells best in the world of psychological propaganda, while evil Nikki Haley knows very well who has caused all these deaths by the millions, destitution and refugees by the millions, tens of millions throughout the Middle East and the world – her own country, directly or through NATO, the European puppets allies and proxy wars, paid and funded by Washington and by elbow-twisting her vassals.
On 9 April – UNSC – while Nikki Haley, repeats and over-repeats her lies and fake accusations, the Russian Ambassador to the UN, Mr. Vassily Nebenzia, listens. And then in a twenty-minute statement of sheer intelligence, he dismantles all the lies, and lays bare the truth, about all the fakeness being played out internationally. The depth with which he addresses the assembly is concise and so brilliant, none of his UK, French and German counterparts could have ever come close to a statement of this magnitude and excellence. Even Ms. Haley can't help glancing over ever-so often to Vassily Nebenzia, as he speaks . Her eyes reveal some kind of hidden admiration for what he says. – After all, she can't be as dumb as she is paid for to look and sound.
By now anybody who dares not just reading and listening to the mainstream presstitute "fake news", but has the courage to dig into the truth news, RT, TeleSur, CGTN, PressTV – and a few others, or websites like Global Research, The Saker Blog, ICH, NEO, Greanville Post CounterCurrent, Dissident Voice and many other trustworthy sources – knows about the lies and the only, but the very only purpose these false flags cum false news serve: Provoking a war with Russia, subjugating and dividing Syria, and the Middle East and becoming the hegemonic masters of the universe.
For the simple reason, and hardly anybody talks or writes about it – the US economy is based on war, is based on weapon manufacturing and international banking which finances weapon manufacturing and the exploitation of mineral resources coveted by weapon manufacturing.
The entire war industry with all its associated civil services and industries, of banking, electronics, aviation, mining . makes up more than half of the US GDP – but of course, it's never broken down that way. The chosen people will control the world. Well, they do already – financially at least the western part of our globe. But it's not enough. They will not stop, before they burry themselves in their own-dug graves, or rather in one massive mass-grave. But, please, do take all your fakeness, from money, to lies, to hypocrisy and more lies and coercion and sanctions and blackmail with you – never to surface again. And give peace a chance – for those who survive your (almost) terminal assault on humanity.
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Apr 14, 2018 | www.zerohedge.com
Yet here is the even more unexplainable part of this sorry episode that amounts to the Deep State waging the Donald. The remaining rebels capitulated on Sunday and the government re-upped the evacuation deal. That is, the remnants of Jaish al-Islam are now all dead or have boarded busses--along with their families---and are already in Idlib province.
That's right. There is no opposition left in Douma and it has been liberated by the Syrian army, including release of the 3,200 pro-government hostages who had been paraded around the town in cages by the Saudi Arabia funded warriors of Islam who had terrorized it.
According to the Syrian government, no traces of chemicals or even bodies have been found. They could be lying, of course, but with the OPCW investigators on the way to Douma who in their right mind would not wait for an assessment of what actually happened last Saturday?
That is, if you are not caught up in the anti-Russian hysteria that has engulfed official Washington and the mainstream media. Indeed, the Syrian government has now even welcomed the international community to come to Douma, where the Russians claim there is absolutely nothing to see:
Speaking with EuroNews, Russia's ambassador to the EU, Vladimir Chizov, said "Russian military specialists have visited this region, walked on those streets, entered those houses, talked to local doctors and visited the only functioning hospital in Douma, including its basement where reportedly the mountains of corpses pile up. There was not a single corpse and even not a single person who came in for treatment after the attack."
"But we've seen them on the video!" responds EuroNews correspondent Andrei Beketov.
"There was no chemical attack in Douma, pure and simple," responds Chizov. "We've seen another staged event. There are personnel, specifically trained - and you can guess by whom - amongst the so-called White Helmets, who were already caught in the act with staged videos."
In short, if they are lying, it would not be hard to ascertain. Presumably, the Donald could even send Jared Kushner--flack jacket and all---to investigate what actually happened at Douma.
Alas, the Donald has apparently opted for war instead in a desperate maneuver to keep the Deep State at bay.
Either way, we think he's about done, and in Part 2 we will explore why what's about to happen next should be known to the history books, if there are any, as "Mueller's War".
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Apr 13, 2018 | www.theamericanconservative.com
So what of these charges against Cohen and could they really hurt the president?
Federal election laws define a campaign contribution as "anything of value given to influence a Federal election." It is common knowledge that Mr. Cohen acknowledged that he paid porn star "Stormy Daniels" $130,000 two weeks before the 2016 election in exchange for her staying silent about her 2006 affair with Trump. No one pays for silence unless there is something to hide. The payment was made 10 years after the alleged dalliance.
The obvious purpose was to influence the outcome of the election by concealing damaging information about Mr. Trump's character. That made Mr. Cohen's payment an undisclosed campaign "contribution" to Mr. Trump vastly exceeding the individual statutory limit of $2,700.
Similarly, Democrat John Edwards was prosecuted (later acquitted) for soliciting and spending nearly $1 million in his 2008 presidential campaign to conceal his affair with Rielle Hunter, so this is not a crime normally brushed under the rug. The public record also establishes probable cause to believe Cohen was behind the payment of $150,000 to Playboy Bunny Karen McDougall to kill her story about a protracted extramarital relationship with Mr. Trump that could have torpedoed his presidential ambitions. The question remains, of course, how much this will implicate and hurt Trump, who has denied the affair with Daniels and any other "wrongdoing." Cohen said he paid Daniels out of his own pocket and was not reimbursed by Trump or the campaign.
John Edwards was acquited on one charge and a mistrial on five others w/o retrial. So there was no conviction there, these actions are not business as usual, and the DOJ lesson from that case should have been to cease such abusive prosecutorial misconduct, not to repeat it. These examples show why campaign finance restrictions are an unconstitutional burden on freedom of association. Trump is a rich man, so could afford to pay the hush money if he believed it necessary without it being a crime. As it appears, Cohen believed it important to pay w/o asking Trump, thinking he's helping a friend. Now what of Edwards? Maybe Edwards couldn't afford to pay hush money, so he needed and solicited help from friends. By making it a crime for friends to help him, the law favors rich candidates like Trump that can afford to do things others can't without breaking the law.curri , says: April 13, 2018 at 2:05 pmThere is zero chance of a jury conviction here, so DOJ shouldn't have pursued it given the incendiary effect of conducting raids on someone's attorney. Furthermore, there's zero chance of Muller getting jury convictions on the pile of horse manure prosecutions he's pursuing. The only convictions Muller is getting is from people buckling under the fiduciary extortion inherent in his tactics and copping a plea even though a jury would never convict them.
So who do we believe, Dershowitz or Fein?Similarly, Democrat John Edwards was prosecuted for soliciting and spending nearly $1 million in his 2008 presidential campaign to conceal his affair with Rielle Hunter, so this is not a crime normally brushed under the rug.
Maybe you should have picked an example where the defendant wasn't acquitted. It's easy to see how an expansive definition of the term "campaign contribution" could be dangerous.