American Exceptionalism as the USA version of nationalism

• Introduction
• Niebuhr's contribution to understanding of American exeptionalism
• Michael Ignatieff contribution to understanding of American exeptionalism
• Anatol Lieven contribution
• We create our own reality
• "Faith-based community" vs. Reality-based community
• Imperial Outreach
• Anti-Americanism as blowback of American exeptionalism
• Conclusions

Introduction

According to George Soros, the events of 9/11 renewed a "distorted view" of American supremacy that "postulates that because we are stronger than others, we must know better and we must have right on our side."  In other words 9/11 was important step to the transformation of the USA in the "National Security State" with the permanent regime of Total surveillance" over the population. The next step were events of 2008, which signified crisis of neoliberalism as an ideology. Neoliberalism now can mostly be propagated by brute force, via military intervention or some form of coup d'état (aka color revolutions) much like Trotskyites planned to propagate socialism to other countries via Permanent Revolution.  With  "Democracy promotion" instead of "liberation of proletariat".

Rise of American exeptionalism is also connected with the reaction to neoliberalism with its redistribution of wealth up by most of US population. Actually this is global phenomenon: neoliberalism gives strong impulse to the rise of neofascism in many countries, not only in the USA. As William I. Robinson noted in his article  Global Capitalism Crisis of Humanity and the Specter of 21st Century Fascism  

Yet another response [ to globalization] is that I term 21st century fascism.⁵   The ultra-right is an insurgent force in many countries. In broad strokes, this project seeks to fuse reactionary political power with transnational capital and to organise a mass base among historically privileged sectors of the global working class – such as white workers in the North and middle layers in the South – that are now experiencing heightened insecurity and the specter of downward mobility. It involves militarism, extreme masculinisation, homophobia, racism and racist mobilisations, including the search for scapegoats, such as immigrant workers and, in the West, Muslims.

Twenty-first century fascism evokes mystifying ideologies, often involving race/culture supremacy and xenophobia, embracing an idealised and mythical past. Neo-fascist culture normalises and glamorises warfare and social violence, indeed, generates a fascination with domination that is portrayed even as heroic.

American exceptionalism is unique in many ways as it does not include mass mobilization (see Inverted Totalitarism). "Go shopping" famously recommended George W Bush after 9/11. It should probably be more correctly called US-specific version of far right nationalism. The latter is  a milder variant of  one that existed in 30th of the last century in national-socialist countries of Europe, such as Italy and Spain, which does not necessarily employ physical violence against political opponents.  

The sad fact is that the America of today is even more arrogant than the America  in the days of Manifest Destiny and gunboat diplomacy. Indeed, the dissolution of the USSR cemented the national myth of superiority. The establishment of unparalleled industrial might, military victories in two world wars and on both sides of the globe, and the staggering economic defeat of Communism in the Cold War all have combined to cement America’s presumption of  chapters in a long history of escalating national illusions of pre-eminence and blind national egoism. The dominant view about the USA from most countries is that it has a split paranoid personality,  a “Jekyll and Hyde” America, “a democracy inside, an empire outside.” American policy makers, with their pretensions of global superiority after collapse of the USSR and with ever-increasing power of their military machine moved steadily toward making the whole globe a US preserve.  Despite its vulgarity and borderline obsession with pornography (or may be because of that) the US culture made inroad all over the globe, and even in Europe and Russia despite rich cultural traditions of both. While the blatant American imperialism of the turn of the last century is now only a memory, today the nations face policies evidence more insidious brands of imperialism: cultural imperialism, economic imperialism,  the imperialism of neoliberal ideology and forced globalization on the US terms.  All are spread by the same national arrogance, the same cock-sure certainly that we are right.  Many nations fear the United States practices a contemporary brand of “soft imperialism,” enslaving nations with IMF debt meachisms under  the auspice of economic globalization.  Converting  the Third World in debt slaves or simply exploit it. In spite of such fears, and despite the setbacks, Americans remain convinced that eventually all nations are destined to fall into step and adopt “the American way.” All the while, the US politicians decry the rigid fundamentalism of our enemies while we remain utterly blind to our own.

Americans have been, and are today, exposed almost from birth to a particularly virulent strain of nationalism unlike that found in other modern nations. The resulting affliction stems from an unswerving faith in national superiority and uniqueness that is deeply ingrained in the American mind. Historically, these notions of superiority sprang from myths of the visions of chosen-ness, and high destiny; from the myth of frontier self-sufficiency; and finally from the perceived universality of American ideology and dominance of US culture and English language over the globe. While in some of us, nationalist feelings are not that pronounced, few of us are immune, and that is especially visible in times of anger, or fear. In spite of, and perhaps because of, our many strengths, practically all of us as Americans share this particularly prideful, unlovely, and potentially fatal weakness. In one form or another and to some degree or another, we carry national pride across the invisible boundary that separates benign patriotism from malignant far right nationalism. Hillary candidacy demonstrates that this process went too far and became really  malignant:

Still, Americans are sure that they, like Woodrow Wilson, have seen “visions that other nations have not seen,” and that, accordingly, the United States’ mission has always been to become the “light of the world.”28 Indeed, from the very beginning, the American national identity was built on audacious visions of chosen-ness, destiny, and mission. Ronald Reagan was not the first nor the last in a long line of entrenched American visionaries to proclaim American exceptionalism, with its missionary implications of the Puritan “city on the hill,” no longer a stationary beacon, but an active force, the “leader of the free world” directing its forces against “empires of evil.”29

With such visions comes a warning: “the adoption of political and social values … as a framework for national identification is possible only if these values are based on some source of apparent ultimate truth which confers on them absolute validity — if they can claim universality.”30 If Americans unflinchingly believe that theirs is the single principle of Absolute Truth representing the universal interests of humankind, then any opposition will appear either criminal or inhuman.31 As Arthur Schlesinger Jr. puts it, “Those who are convinced that they have a monopoly on Truth always feel that they are saving the world when they slaughter heretics. Their object remains the making of the world over in the image of their dogmatic ideology — their goal is a monolithic world, organized on the principle of the infallibility of a single creed.”32 If Americans are so egotistical as to believe that their nation with its gleaming lamp of Ultimate Truth is the envy of the world, then they will perceive no wrong in trying to make the world over in America’s image, by whatever means. However, the world is a very complex and diverse place, and Ultimate Truth is a highly elusive and unstable substance. Thus, these are not only very arrogant ideas; they are also very dangerous ideas.

The way in which American elite as a whole relates with the rest of the world demonstrates a strong nationalistic (as in cultural nationalism) and chauvinistic point of view. That means that mass media presents events only from the particular  point of view, that militarism is always encouraged and defended. With the considerable part of brainwashed lemmings (aka American public) believing that their nation, or culture, is superior to all others.

This view involves a unique mixture of prejudice, xenophobia and inter-group and in-group violence, with the latter directed at suppression of dissent. Indeed, the United States’ inflated sense of eminence create additional, non-economic stimulus for the country elite to act in  fundamentally ethnocentric ways, and to to strive for unilateral rule of the world using military supremacy as door opener to resources of other nations.  And first of all oil.

The other key support of American exeptionalism are large financial institutions, which depend on the success of the US "financial imperialism". We can view imperialism as ethnocentrism in action. And "financial imperialism" is very similar to "old-style" European imperialism, where  European nations discovered new lands and imposed capitalism, their system of law and culture on the native peoples usually through violence. Like old colonies were forced to abandon their way of life and adopt a “superior” lifestyle and became resource base of metropolia, financial imperialism impose debt on other nations keeping them in a kind of debt slavery with the same result: they also became resource base for metropolia. 

American exceptionalism might also have religious overtones as "citi on the hill" metaphor implies.  It is not thus accidental that the first deep analyses of American exceptionalism was done by Niebuhr from the religious positions in his famous book The Irony of American History. Niebuhr as a theologian came to conclusion that it represents a sin that inevitably lead to the false allure of simple solutions and lack of appreciation of limits of power. In his opinion "Messianic consciousness" which constitute the core of American exceptionalism, was partially inherited form religious dogmas of early religious sects which came to colonize America.  Those views were later enhanced and developed further by Professor Bacevich. See more details exposition of his views on the subject in the page New American Militarism

Any unbiased analysis of the nationalist activities leads to a disappointing conclusion: nationalists can behave as compradors: as enthusiastic servants of a foreign occupier of their own territory. In this case international banking cartel. Ukraine is one example, Serbia and Georgia are other but very similar examples. In the same way the USA can be viewed as a country occupied by financial oligarchy with most of its citizents converted into "debt slaves".

The policy which oppose exceptionalism is often called Noninterventionism

Noninterventionism is a rather clunky and unappealing label for a set of very appealing ideas: that the U.S. should mind its own business, act with restraint, respect other nations, refrain from unnecessary violence, and pursue peace. If future administrations took just a few of these as guiding principles for the conduct of foreign policy, America and the world would both be better off.

There were several important thinkers who contributed to understand of this complex and multifaceted, like any type of nationalism,  phenomena. We will discuss (in breif) just four thinkers that made significant impact in understanding of this very complex concept. Among them: 

1. Niebuhr
2. Michael Ignatieff
3. Anatol Lieven
4. Andrew Basevich

American neo-conservatism  is a closely related phenomenon. In this case the key point is that the pre-eminence of the USA as the sole superpower needs to be maintained at all costs and with wide use of military force. Among prominent neocons we can name Hillary Clinton and most of republican candidates for the presidency in the 2016 presidential race. That means that American exeptionalism is an establishment view, the view of the US elite, not some anomaly.  

Niebuhr's contribution to understanding of American exeptionalism

In his brilliant foreword to Niebuhr's book The Irony of American History Bacevich noted:

In Niebuhr's view, America's rise to power derived less from divine favor than from good fortune combines with a fierce determination to convert that good fortune in wealth and power. The good fortune cane in the form of vast landscape, rich in resources, ripe for exploitation, and apparently insulated from the bloody cockpit of [European] power politics. The determination found expression in a strategy of commercial and territorial expansionism that proved staggeringly successful, evidence not of superior virtue but of shrewdness punctuated with a considerable capacity for ruthlessness.

In describing America's rise to power Niebuhr does not shrink from using words like "hegemony" and "imperialism". His point is not to tag the United States with responsibility for all the world's evils. Rather, it is to suggest that it does not differ from other great powers as much as Americans may imagine.

...Niebuhr has little patience for those who portray the United States as acting on God's behalf. "All men are naturally inclined to obscure the morally ambiguous element in this political cause by investing it with religious sanctity," he once observed. " This is why religion is more frequently a source of confusion then of light in the political realm.". In the United States, he continued "The tendency to equate our political [goals] with our Christian convictions cause politics to generate idolatry."

Michael Ignatieff contribution to understanding of American exeptionalism

In the introduction to American Exceptionalism and Human Rights Michael Ignatieff identifies three main types of exceptionalism:

• exemptionalism (supporting treaties as long as Americans are exempt from them);
• double standards (criticizing "others for not heeding the findings of international human rights bodies, but ignoring what these bodies say of the United States");
• legal isolationism (the tendency of American judges to ignore other jurisdictions).

I would add to it

• Absolutization of democracy as a dangerous (and totalitarian) form of idolatry. Niebuhr correctly described the "worship of democracy" as neo-fascist in its spirit, "a less vicious version of the Nazy creed." He cautioned that "no society, not even a democratic one, is great enough or good enough to male itself the final end of human existence."
• A single center of power of power and authority in the would that is "preponderant and unchalllanged, ... its would rule almost certainly violate basic standards of justice." (Niebuhr). The idea of diffusion of power between different branches of government enshrined in US constitution (which actually disappeared in 1947 with the emergence of national Security State) is applicable to international arena. Otherwise the dangers associated with hegemonic power can't be averted in the international context. Niebuhr, as a realist once noted that "no world government could possibly possess, for generations to come, the moral and political authority to redistribute power between nations in the degree in which highly cohesive national communities have accomplished this end in recent centuries." However he expressed optimism that the UN can server as forum in which national policies are subjected to some level of scrutiny of world opinion. Serving as acheck on exercising hegemonic power in the international relations. Now we know that Niebuhr is wrong in this respect and subverting UN is a trivial game for a hegemonic power. Still, the great peril for the USA is excessive hubris with comes with exeptionalism.

The contributors to American Exceptionalism and Human Rights use Ignatieff's essay as a starting point to discuss specific types of exceptionalism -- America's approach to capital punishment and to free speech, for example -- or to explore the social, cultural, and institutional roots of exceptionalism.

Anatol Lieven contribution

The second important contribution to to the studies of American exceptionalism is Anatol Lieven.  He correctly linked American exceptionalism with far right nationalism which Wikipedia defined as

Far-right politics or extreme-right politics are right-wing politics to the right of the mainstream centre right on the traditional left-right spectrum. They often involve a focus on tradition as opposed to policies and customs that are regarded as reflective of modernism. They tend to include disregard or disdain for egalitarianism, if not overt support for social inequality and social hierarchy, elements of social conservatism and opposition to most forms of liberalism and socialism. 

 "America keeps a fine house," Anatol Lieven writes in his probably best book on the American Exceptionalism (America Right or Wrong An Anatomy of American Nationalism ) "but in its cellar there lives a demon, whose name is nationalism."  In a way US neocons, who commanded key position in Bush II and Barack Obama administrations  are not that different from Israeli Likud Party. 

While neocons definitely played an important role in shaping the US policy immediately after 9/11, the origins of aggressive U.S. foreign policy since 9/11 also reflect controversial character of the US national identity, which according to Anatol Lieven embraces two contradictory features.

• "The American Creed," -- a civic nationalism which absolutize and espouses liberty, democracy, and the rule of law. While it has positive aspects,  conversion of  the "Creed" into religious belief creates a strong tendency toward a dangerous "messianic" element in American foreign policy, the desire to extend American values and American democracy to the whole world, irrespective of the needs and desires of others in a manner that closely resembles Bolshevism and especially Trotskyism with its idea of permanent war.
• Populist (or what is sometimes called "Jacksonian") nationalism, has its roots in an aggrieved, embittered, and defensive White America, centered largely in the American South. Where the "Creed" is optimistic and triumphalist, Jacksonian nationalism is fed by a profound pessimism and a sense of deep threat to white population personal, social, and religious values.

Both of those tendencies are much older then 9/11. The first aggressive, expansionist war by the US was the war of 1812. See American Loyalists, The Most Important War You Probably Know Nothing About - By James Traub Foreign Policy

The War of 1812 matters because it was America’s first war of choice. The United States did not have to declare war on Great Britain on June 18, 1812, to survive as a nation and indeed President James Madison did not want to. The newly founded United States was growing westward but the “war hawks” in Congress pressed for a conflict with America’s former colonial masters in the hopes of gaining even more territory to the north. The term “hawk” was coined in the run-up to the War of 1812 and the hawks of U.S. foreign policy have been with us ever since.

The War of 1812 was America’s first neocon war. With an audacity that would become familiar, the war hawks appealed to a combination of personal pride — the British navy was forcibly conscripting Americans — and the prospect of material gain — the absorption of British Canada — wrapped up in love of country. No one said the conquest of Canada would be a “cakewalk,” but the hawks were confident the Americans would be greeted as liberators.

These two mutually-excusive impulses caused wild oscillations of the US foreign policy, especially in the Middle East and influenced the nature of U.S. support for Israel. Due to those oscillations those two contradictory impulses are undermining the U.S. foreign policy credibility in the eyes of the worlds and complicates reaching important national objectives.

Some attribute the term “American Exceptionalism” to Alexis de Tocqueville — though he never penned the phrase. In reality this term originated by German Marxists who were trying to explain weakness of worker movement in the USA. The idiom was popularized by neo-conservative pundits (aka former Trotskyites) soon after WWII.

In reality the term "American Exceptionalism is nothing but a disguised, more "politically correct" reference to America's Janus-faced nationalism. It has some mystical components like long vanished under the hill of financial oligarchy the "American dream" and its German-style refrain "God bless America". What is interesting about "God bless America" is that most founding fathers were Deists, profoundly critical of organized religions and they sought to separate personal -- what many of them described as mythologies -- from government. They were profoundly respectful of personal religious belief, but saw government as necessarily secular if freedom was to prevail. Not until the religious revivals of the 1820s through the 1860s can you find many identifying religion as a component of American exceptionalism.

As Martin Woollacott aptly noted in his review of Anatol Lieven book America, Right or Wrong: An Anatomy of American Nationalism ( Guardian):

He cuts through the conformist political rhetoric of America, the obfuscating special language of the "American dream", or the "American exception", which infects even foreign accounts. Even to use the word "nationalism" to describe an American phenomenon is, as he notes, not normal. Americans are not "nationalist", they are "patriotic". It is a patriotism which too often leaves no room for the patriotism of others, combining a theoretical care for all humanity with, in practice, an "indifference verging on contempt" for the interests and hopes of non-Americans. Nothing could be more distant from "the decent respect to the opinions of mankind" recommended to Americans in the early years of their independent existence

Lieven first paints a picture of an in some ways admirable American "civic nationalism", based on respect for the rule of law, constitutionality, democracy, and social (but not economic) equality, and a desire to spread these values in the world. But because this nationalism unrealistically holds that such "American" values can be exported at will, it blinds Americans to the different nature of other societies, sustaining the mistaken idea that if only particular rulers or classes can be displaced, "democracy" will prevail - a "decapitation" theory which contributed to the decision to attack Saddam. The American campaign to democratize other societies, Lieven says, harshly but fairly, "combines sloppiness of intellect and meanness of spirit". But, while in part mythic and not entirely rational, this side of American nationalism is of some value not only to the United States, but to the world as a whole.

...The result, Lieven argues, is that instead of the mature nationalism of a satisfied and dominant state, American nationalism is more akin to that of late developing and insecure states such as Wilhelmine Germany and Tsarist Russia.

"While America keeps a splendid and welcoming house," Lieven writes in his preface, "it also keeps a family of demons in its cellar.

His book supports Mark Twain quite to the effect that we are blessed with three things in this country, freedom of speech, freedom of conscience and, thirdly, the common sense to practice neither one!

He also points at the very important side effect of Exceptionalism: "America's hypocrisy," (see for example Inside "democracy promotion" hypocrisy fair). An outstanding level of hypocrisy in the US foreign policy also is corroborated by other scholars, among them James Hillman in his recent book "A Terrible Love of War" in which he characterizes hypocrisy as quintessentially American (although British are strong competitors). Now after Snowden, Libya, Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, etc we might be appear to be entering an new stage on which "The era of easy hypocrisy is over."

The regime of easy hypocrisy means that America position itself as a blessed nation created by God and (here’s the rub) therefore privileged in what actions it can take around the world and the nation that can safely ignore international norms, which are created only for suckers. It is above the international law.

We create our own reality

The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." ... "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."^[2]

This is pretty precise definition of the idea of introduced by Nazi idea of “decisionism” in which action is seen as a value in itself. Decisionism is a defining feature of any totalitarian state. By extension if you find decisionism exists in particular state, it is rational to expect other F-features of such states. Umberto Eco has listed fourteen attributes along with two major features: irrationalism and decisionism. Eco has them listed as attributes 2 and 3.

The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity. In this sense Ur-Fascism can be defined as irrationalism.

3. Irrationalism also depends on the cult of action for action's sake.

Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation. Therefore culture is suspect insofar as it is identified with critical attitudes. Distrust of the intellectual world has always been a symptom of Ur-Fascism, from Hermann Goering's fondness for a phrase from a Hanns Johst play ("When I hear the word 'culture' I reach for my gun") to the frequent use of such expressions as "degenerate intellectuals," "eggheads," "effete snobs," and "universities are nests of reds." The official Fascist intellectuals were mainly engaged in attacking modern culture and the liberal intelligentsia for having betrayed traditional values.

Eternal Fascism:
Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt
http://www.themodernword.com/eco/eco_blackshirt.html

Fascism has an irrational element that rejects modern thought because it conflicts with traditional beliefs of the Christian religion and because fascism views communist ideology as a child of the Age of Reason and Jewish intellectuals. The Nazis were well aware that Karl Marx was a German Jew. Evolution is seen as modernist and is rejected in favor of Christian creationism. This debate is repeating itself today in American society with Christian fundamentalism attempting to gain control of state education.

Very closely related to irrationalism is “decisionism” in which action is seen as a value in itself. This is an existential element in fascism that elevates action over thought. Action is a sign of unambiguous power, and thought is associated with weakness and indecision. Carl Schmitt, a Nazi Law constitutional jurist, wrote that a decision is “(an actual historical event) and not within that of a norm (an ahistoric and transcendent idea).” The a priori is overshadowed by the posteriori. Actions over abstract principles, Fact over Idea, Power over pure thought, Certainty over ambiguity are the values and ideological norms that are primary in a totalitarian state.

After fleeing Germany, Marcuse wrote in 1934 a critique of German fascist society and attempted to identify those beliefs and philosophical themes found within fascist ideology. Marcuse believed that the seeds of fascism could be found in the Capitalist Democratic Liberal State, which over time mutate as Monopoly Capitalism gain control of the State as in the case of Germany. The evolution of Capitalism is also the concealed dialectic of Fascism. Those mutated liberal democratic ideas and values are betrayed by a totalitarianism based on action and force.

Using Germany as his example of a fascist society Marcuse writes:

And within the political sphere all relationships are oriented in turn toward the most extreme “crisis,” toward the decision about the “state of emergency,” of war and peace. The true possessor of power is defined as beyond all legality and legitimacy: “Sovereign is he who decides on the state of emergency.” (Carl Schmitt, Politische Theologie,1922).

Sovereignty is founded on the factual power to make this decision (decisionism). The basic political relationship is the “friend-enemy relationship.” Its crisis is war, which proceeds until the enemy has been physically annihilated.

There is no social relationship that does not in a crisis turn into a political relationship. Behind all economic, social, religious, and cultural relations stands total politicization. There is no sphere of private or public life, no legal or rational court of appeal that could oppose it.
Negations, page 36.

From what social idea in Capitalistic Liberalism did this decisionism evolve? It is none other than the economic hero, the free independent entrepreneur of industrial capitalism.The idea of the charismatic, authoritarian leader is already preformed in the liberalist celebration of the gifted economic leader, the “born” executive. Negations, page 18.

The total-authoritarian state is born out of the Liberal state and the former concept of the economic leader is transformed into a Fuhrer. We can see this mutation of the concept of the “born” executive into the leader-state (Fuhrerstaat) in George Bush’s speech and actions.

An uneducated but privileged man, George Bush, has merged the idea of the CEO with that of the State Leader. But society has also made this same concatenation of ideas. He is a president of action and seen as a “strong” president. He is doer and not a thinker and his followers are proud of this persona. His opponents are “feminine” and members of the “reality based community.” Consequently, the Bush administration has attempted to engineer the executive branch to be the strongest in American history by claiming “inherent” presidential powers. It is precisely the concept of “state of emergency” that Bush has used to grab more and more state power in the name of security.

He has instituted the hyper-surveillance of Americas with the Patriot act, which is based on the same justification Nazi Law used to empower the Fuhrer. A Bush lawyer and advisor, John Yoo, wrote, Just two weeks after the September 11 attacks, a secret memo to White House counsel Alberto Gonzales’ office concluded that President Bush had the power to deploy military force “preemptively” against any terrorist groups or countries that supported them—regardless of whether they had any connection to the attacks on the World Trade Towers or the Pentagon. The memo, written by Justice Department lawyer John Yoo, argues that there are effectively “no limits” on the president’s authority to wage war—a sweeping assertion of executive power that some constitutional scholars say goes considerably beyond any that had previously been articulated by the department. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6732484/site/newsweek/

Carl Schmitt, a Nazi Law constitutional jurist in Hitler’s Third Reich, wrote a similar justification of power for the State Leader using the concept of the “exception” in his work “Political Theology,” Hence, the thundering opening of his treatise: 'The sovereign is he who decides on the exception.' It is a disturbingly 'realistic' view of politics, which, in the manner of Hobbes, subordinates de jure authority to de facto power: autoritas, non veritas facit legem. (The law is made by the one who has authority (i.e. power) and not the one who possesses the truth (the legitimate sovereign).)

The problem of the exception, for the constitutional jurist Schmitt, can only be resolved within the framework of a decision (an actual historical event) and not within that of a norm (an ahistoric and transcendent idea). Moreover, the legal act which decides what constitutes an exception is 'a decision in the true sense of the word', because a general norm, an ordinary legal prescription, 'can never encompass a total exception'. If so, then, 'the decision that a real exception exists cannot be derived entirely from this norm.' The problem of the exception, in other words, demarcates the limit of the rule of law and opens up that trans-legal space, that no-man's land of existential exigency, which is bereft of legal authority and where the decision of the sovereign abrogates the anomaly of the legal void. …against the legal positivism of his times, Schmitt seems to be arguing that not law but the sovereign, not the legal text but the political will, is the supreme authority in a state. States are not legal entities but historical polities; they are engaged in a constant battle for survival where any moment of their existence may constitute an exception, it may engender a political crisis that cannot be remedied by the application of the rule of law. From the existential priority of the sovereign over the legitimacy of the norm, it would also follow that according to Schmitt, law is subservient to politics and not autonomous of it. The Sovereignty of the Political Carl Schmitt and the Nemesis of Liberalism http://www.algonet.se/~pmanzoor/CarlSchmitt.htm

When the Bush administration argues that increased presidential power is needed to fight terrorism by suspending or overriding the constitutional protections against search and seizures, they are arguing the principles of Nazi constitutional law. Vice President Dick Cheney on Tuesday vigorously defended the Bush administration's use of secret domestic spying and efforts to expand presidential powers, saying "it's not an accident that we haven't been hit in four years." Talking to reporters aboard his government plane as he flew from Islamabad, Pakistan to Muscat, Oman on an overseas mission, Cheney said a contraction in the power of the presidency since the Vietnam and Watergate era must be reversed. "I believe in a strong, robust executive authority and I think that the world we live in demands it. And to some extent, that we have an obligation as the administration to pass on the offices we hold to our successors in as good of shape as we found them," he said.

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/12/20/D8EK28B82.htmlAgainst these ever expanding powers of the State stand the once traditional individual freedoms upheld by the Liberal Democratic State. The theologian and philosopher of the Age of Reason, Immanuel Kant wrote…Human right must be kept sacred, no matter how great the sacrifice it costs the ruling powers. One cannot go only halfway and contrive a pragmatically conditioned right….All politics, rather, must bend the knee before sacred human right…

"Faith-based community" vs. Reality-based community

The same idea from slightly different angle is reflected in term "Faith-based community" vs. Reality-based community ( Wikipedia )

Reality-based community is a popular term among liberal political commentators in the United States. In the fall of 2004, the phrase "proud member of the reality-based community" was first used to suggest the commentator's opinions are based more on observation than on faith, assumption, or ideology. The term has been defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from judicious study of discernible reality." Some commentators have gone as far as to suggest that there is an overarching conflict in society between the reality-based community and the "faith-based community" as a whole. It can be seen as an example of political framing.

The source of the term is a quotation in an October 17, 2004, New York Times Magazine article by writer Ron Suskind, quoting an unnamed aide to George W. Bush:

The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." ... "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."^[1]

Commentators who use this term generally oppose former President Bush's policies and by using this term imply that Bush's policies (and, by extension, those of the conservative movement generally) were (or are) out of touch with reality. Others use the term to draw a contrast with the perceived arrogance of the Bush Administration's unilateral policies, in accordance with the aide's quote. Its popularity has prompted some conservative commentators to use the term ironically, to accuse the left-leaning "reality-based community" of ignoring reality^[2].

Imperial Outreach

The Republican Party — and more particularly the neo-con wing of the party — is particularly susceptible to imperial outreach. This imperial mentality is well exemplified by Fox News reporting.

For example, Matt Lewis, a conservative political Pundit on MSNBC attacked Barack Obama for saying “Any world order that elevates one nation above another will fall flat.” In response Lewis stated:

“I think that goes against the idea of American exceptionalism…most Americans believe that America was gifted by God and is a blessed nation and therefore we are better.”

For any conservative the concept of “American Exceptionalism” is rather bemusing. America is not more democratic, more free, more enterprising, more tolerant, or more anything else be it Canada, New Zealand or for that matter Australia. America is just a bigger country and due to its size, human resources and industrial potential it the leading Western country and the owner of world reserve currency, after Great Britain became financially exhausted after WWII. That means that American Exceptionalism is simply a politically correct work for a combustible mixture of nationalism (with Christian messianism component similar to Crusades with "democracy" instead Jesus) and Jingoism. In a very deep sense this is negation of the idea "all men are created equal" and as such is anti-American ;-).

America is a blessed nation as everybody in the country is an immigrant, the nation that at some point of time was freer and more prosperous than many others, but as a great Nazarene once said, “The first shall be last and the last shall be first.”

Bill Moyers Journal . Watch & Listen | PBS

sample:

BILL MOYERS:

Here is one of those neon sentences. Quote,

"The pursuit of freedom, as defined in an age of consumerism, has induced a condition of dependence on imported goods, on imported oil, and on credit. The chief desire of the American people," you write, "is that nothing should disrupt their access to these goods, that oil, and that credit. The chief aim of the U.S. government is to satisfy that desire, which it does in part of through the distribution of largesse here at home, and in part through the pursuit of imperial ambitions abroad."

In other words, you're saying that our foreign policy is the result of a dependence on consumer goods and credit.

ANDREW BACEVICH:

Our foreign policy is not something simply concocted by people in Washington D.C. and imposed on us. Our foreign policy is something that is concocted in Washington D.C., but it reflects the perceptions of our political elite about what we want, we the people want. And what we want, by and large - I mean, one could point to many individual exceptions - but, what we want, by and large is, we want this continuing flow of very cheap consumer goods.

We want to be able to pump gas into our cars regardless of how big they may happen to be, in order to be able to drive wherever we want to be able to drive. And we want to be able to do these things without having to think about whether or not the book's balanced at the end of the month, or the end of the fiscal year. And therefore, we want this unending line of credit.

Anti-Americanism as blowback of American exeptionalism

Quite logically the imperial actions is a source of widespread Anti-Americanism. As Ian Tyrrell noted in What is American exceptionalism

It is also important to realize that there is a “negative” version of exceptionalism, i.e. that the US has been exceptionally bad, racist, violent. While this is less a part of the common myths about American history, the attempt to compensate for American exceptionalism by emphasizing unique American evils is equally distorting. We need to think more about this matter, especially when we deal with racial divisions and gender prejudice. Is the US experience a variant on wider racial and gender patterns? While social history has provided new perspectives on the role of women, African Americans, and ethnics in the making of American history, has that new history discredited or qualified ideas of American exceptionalism?

The actual term “American exceptionalism” was originally coined by German Marxists who wished to explain why the US seemed to have by-passed the rise of socialism and Marxism. (Actually the US had much class conflict, some Marxist parties and theorists, and a lively socialist movement, though the latter was not on the scale of, say, France and Germany.) But exceptionalism is much more than about class conflict.

Some historians prefer the terms “differences” or “uniqueness?” Are these suitable substitutes? Whatever the terminology, the implications of American difference/uniqueness have long been debated. Some have said the difference was temporary, and eventually the US would be like other countries. Others have argued that American “specialness” stems from its political, intellectual, and even religious heritage, and is enduring.

Conclusions

Skeptic view on American Exceptionalism is valuable for different reasons some of which were listed by Stephen M. Walt in his The Myth of American Exceptionalism (Foreign Policy, November 2011)

The only thing wrong with this self-congratulatory portrait of America's global role is that it is mostly a myth. Although the United States possesses certain unique qualities -- from high levels of religiosity to a political culture that privileges individual freedom -- the conduct of U.S. foreign policy has been determined primarily by its relative power and by the inherently competitive nature of international politics. By focusing on their supposedly exceptional qualities, Americans blind themselves to the ways that they are a lot like everyone else.

This unchallenged faith in American exceptionalism makes it harder for Americans to understand why others are less enthusiastic about U.S. dominance, often alarmed by U.S. policies, and frequently irritated by what they see as U.S. hypocrisy, whether the subject is possession of nuclear weapons, conformity with international law, or America's tendency to condemn the conduct of others while ignoring its own failings. Ironically, U.S. foreign policy would probably be more effective if Americans were less convinced of their own unique virtues and less eager to proclaim them.

What we need, in short, is a more realistic and critical assessment of America's true character and contributions. In that spirit, I offer here the Top 5 Myths about American Exceptionalism.

Myth 1: There Is Something Exceptional About American Exceptionalism.

Whenever American leaders refer to the "unique" responsibilities of the United States, they are saying that it is different from other powers and that these differences require them to take on special burdens.

Yet there is nothing unusual about such lofty declarations; indeed, those who make them are treading a well-worn path. Most great powers have considered themselves superior to their rivals and have believed that they were advancing some greater good when they imposed their preferences on others. The British thought they were bearing the "white man's burden," while French colonialists invoked la mission civilisatrice to justify their empire. Portugal, whose imperial activities were hardly distinguished, believed it was promoting a certain missão civilizadora. Even many of the officials of the former Soviet Union genuinely believed they were leading the world toward a socialist utopia despite the many cruelties that communist rule inflicted. Of course, the United States has by far the better claim to virtue than Stalin or his successors, but Obama was right to remind us that all countries prize their own particular qualities.

So when Americans proclaim they are exceptional and indispensable, they are simply the latest nation to sing a familiar old song. Among great powers, thinking you're special is the norm, not the exception.

Myth 2: The United States Behaves Better Than Other Nations Do.

Declarations of American exceptionalism rest on the belief that the United States is a uniquely virtuous nation, one that loves peace, nurtures liberty, respects human rights, and embraces the rule of law. Americans like to think their country behaves much better than other states do, and certainly better than other great powers.

If only it were true. The United States may not have been as brutal as the worst states in world history, but a dispassionate look at the historical record belies most claims about America's moral superiority.

For starters, the United States has been one of the most expansionist powers in modern history. It began as 13 small colonies clinging to the Eastern Seaboard, but eventually expanded across North America, seizing Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, and California from Mexico in 1846. Along the way, it eliminated most of the native population and confined the survivors to impoverished reservations. By the mid-19th century, it had pushed Britain out of the Pacific Northwest and consolidated its hegemony over the Western Hemisphere.

The United States has fought numerous wars since then -- starting several of them -- and its wartime conduct has hardly been a model of restraint. The 1899-1902 conquest of the Philippines killed some 200,000 to 400,000 Filipinos, most of them civilians, and the United States and its allies did not hesitate to dispatch some 305,000 German and 330,000 Japanese civilians through aerial bombing during World War II, mostly through deliberate campaigns against enemy cities. No wonder Gen. Curtis LeMay, who directed the bombing campaign against Japan, told an aide, "If the U.S. lost the war, we would be prosecuted as war criminals." The United States dropped more than 6 million tons of bombs during the Indochina war, including tons of napalm and lethal defoliants like Agent Orange, and it is directly responsible for the deaths of many of the roughly 1 million civilians who died in that war.

More recently, the U.S.-backed Contra war in Nicaragua killed some 30,000 Nicaraguans, a percentage of their population equivalent to 2 million dead Americans. U.S. military action has led directly or indirectly to the deaths of 250,000 Muslims over the past three decades (and that's a low-end estimate, not counting the deaths resulting from the sanctions against Iraq in the 1990s), including the more than 100,000 people who died following the invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003. U.S. drones and Special Forces are going after suspected terrorists in at least five countries at present and have killed an unknown number of innocent civilians in the process. Some of these actions may have been necessary to make Americans more prosperous and secure. But while Americans would undoubtedly regard such acts as indefensible if some foreign country were doing them to us, hardly any U.S. politicians have questioned these policies. Instead, Americans still wonder, "Why do they hate us?"

The United States talks a good game on human rights and international law, but it has refused to sign most human rights treaties, is not a party to the International Criminal Court, and has been all too willing to cozy up to dictators -- remember our friend Hosni Mubarak? -- with abysmal human rights records. If that were not enough, the abuses at Abu Ghraib and the George W. Bush administration's reliance on waterboarding, extraordinary rendition, and preventive detention should shake America's belief that it consistently acts in a morally superior fashion. Obama's decision to retain many of these policies suggests they were not a temporary aberration.

The United States never conquered a vast overseas empire or caused millions to die through tyrannical blunders like China's Great Leap Forward or Stalin's forced collectivization. And given the vast power at its disposal for much of the past century, Washington could certainly have done much worse. But the record is clear: U.S. leaders have done what they thought they had to do when confronted by external dangers, and they paid scant attention to moral principles along the way. The idea that the United States is uniquely virtuous may be comforting to Americans; too bad it's not true.

Myth 3: America's Success Is Due to Its Special Genius.

The United States has enjoyed remarkable success, and Americans tend to portray their rise to world power as a direct result of the political foresight of the Founding Fathers, the virtues of the U.S. Constitution, the priority placed on individual liberty, and the creativity and hard work of the American people. In this narrative, the United States enjoys an exceptional global position today because it is, well, exceptional.

There is more than a grain of truth to this version of American history. It's not an accident that immigrants came to America in droves in search of economic opportunity, and the "melting pot" myth facilitated the assimilation of each wave of new Americans. America's scientific and technological achievements are fully deserving of praise and owe something to the openness and vitality of the American political order.

But America's past success is due as much to good luck as to any uniquely American virtues. The new nation was lucky that the continent was lavishly endowed with natural resources and traversed by navigable rivers. It was lucky to have been founded far from the other great powers and even luckier that the native population was less advanced and highly susceptible to European diseases. Americans were fortunate that the European great powers were at war for much of the republic's early history, which greatly facilitated its expansion across the continent, and its global primacy was ensured after the other great powers fought two devastating world wars. This account of America's rise does not deny that the United States did many things right, but it also acknowledges that America's present position owes as much to good fortune as to any special genius or "manifest destiny."

Myth 4: The United States Is Responsible for Most of the Good in the World.

Americans are fond of giving themselves credit for positive international developments. President Bill Clinton believed the United States was "indispensable to the forging of stable political relations," and the late Harvard University political scientist Samuel P. Huntington thought U.S. primacy was central "to the future of freedom, democracy, open economies, and international order in the world." Journalist Michael Hirsh has gone even further, writing in his book At War With Ourselves that America's global role is "the greatest gift the world has received in many, many centuries, possibly all of recorded history." Scholarly works such as Tony Smith's America's Mission and G. John Ikenberry's Liberal Leviathan emphasize America's contribution to the spread of democracy and its promotion of a supposedly liberal world order. Given all the high-fives American leaders have given themselves, it is hardly surprising that most Americans see their country as an overwhelmingly positive force in world affairs.

Once again, there is something to this line of argument, just not enough to make it entirely accurate. The United States has made undeniable contributions to peace and stability in the world over the past century, including the Marshall Plan, the creation and management of the Bretton Woods system, its rhetorical support for the core principles of democracy and human rights, and its mostly stabilizing military presence in Europe and the Far East. But the belief that all good things flow from Washington's wisdom overstates the U.S. contribution by a wide margin.

For starters, though Americans watching Saving Private Ryan or Patton may conclude that the United States played the central role in vanquishing Nazi Germany, most of the fighting was in Eastern Europe and the main burden of defeating Hitler's war machine was borne by the Soviet Union. Similarly, though the Marshall Plan and NATO played important roles in Europe's post-World War II success, Europeans deserve at least as much credit for rebuilding their economies, constructing a novel economic and political union, and moving beyond four centuries of sometimes bitter rivalry. Americans also tend to think they won the Cold War all by themselves, a view that ignores the contributions of other anti-Soviet adversaries and the courageous dissidents whose resistance to communist rule produced the "velvet revolutions" of 1989.

Moreover, as Godfrey Hodgson recently noted in his sympathetic but clear-eyed book, The Myth of American Exceptionalism, the spread of liberal ideals is a global phenomenon with roots in the Enlightenment, and European philosophers and political leaders did much to advance the democratic ideal. Similarly, the abolition of slavery and the long effort to improve the status of women owe more to Britain and other democracies than to the United States, where progress in both areas trailed many other countries. Nor can the United States claim a global leadership role today on gay rights, criminal justice, or economic equality -- Europe's got those areas covered.

Finally, any honest accounting of the past half-century must acknowledge the downside of American primacy. The United States has been the major producer of greenhouse gases for most of the last hundred years and thus a principal cause of the adverse changes that are altering the global environment. The United States stood on the wrong side of the long struggle against apartheid in South Africa and backed plenty of unsavory dictatorships -- including Saddam Hussein's -- when short-term strategic interests dictated. Americans may be justly proud of their role in creating and defending Israel and in combating global anti-Semitism, but its one-sided policies have also prolonged Palestinian statelessness and sustained Israel's brutal occupation.

Bottom line: Americans take too much credit for global progress and accept too little blame for areas where U.S. policy has in fact been counterproductive. Americans are blind to their weak spots, and in ways that have real-world consequences. Remember when Pentagon planners thought U.S. troops would be greeted in Baghdad with flowers and parades? They mostly got RPGs and IEDs instead.

Myth 5: God Is on Our Side.

A crucial component of American exceptionalism is the belief that the United States has a divinely ordained mission to lead the rest of the world. Ronald Reagan told audiences that there was "some divine plan" that had placed America here, and once quoted Pope Pius XII saying, "Into the hands of America God has placed the destinies of an afflicted mankind." Bush offered a similar view in 2004, saying, "We have a calling from beyond the stars to stand for freedom." The same idea was expressed, albeit less nobly, in Otto von Bismarck's alleged quip that "God has a special providence for fools, drunks, and the United States."

Confidence is a valuable commodity for any country. But when a nation starts to think it enjoys the mandate of heaven and becomes convinced that it cannot fail or be led astray by scoundrels or incompetents, then reality is likely to deliver a swift rebuke. Ancient Athens, Napoleonic France, imperial Japan, and countless other countries have succumbed to this sort of hubris, and nearly always with catastrophic results.

Despite America's many successes, the country is hardly immune from setbacks, follies, and boneheaded blunders. If you have any doubts about that, just reflect on how a decade of ill-advised tax cuts, two costly and unsuccessful wars, and a financial meltdown driven mostly by greed and corruption have managed to squander the privileged position the United States enjoyed at the end of the 20th century. Instead of assuming that God is on their side, perhaps Americans should heed Abraham Lincoln's admonition that our greatest concern should be "whether we are on God's side."

Given the many challenges Americans now face, from persistent unemployment to the burden of winding down two deadly wars, it's unsurprising that they find the idea of their own exceptionalism comforting -- and that their aspiring political leaders have been proclaiming it with increasing fervor. Such patriotism has its benefits, but not when it leads to a basic misunderstanding of America's role in the world. This is exactly how bad decisions get made.

America has its own special qualities, as all countries do, but it is still a state embedded in a competitive global system. It is far stronger and richer than most, and its geopolitical position is remarkably favorable. These advantages give the United States a wider range of choice in its conduct of foreign affairs, but they don't ensure that its choices will be good ones. Far from being a unique state whose behavior is radically different from that of other great powers, the United States has behaved like all the rest, pursuing its own self-interest first and foremost, seeking to improve its relative position over time, and devoting relatively little blood or treasure to purely idealistic pursuits. Yet, just like past great powers, it has convinced itself that it is different, and better, than everyone else.

International politics is a contact sport, and even powerful states must compromise their political principles for the sake of security and prosperity. Nationalism is also a powerful force, and it inevitably highlights the country's virtues and sugarcoats its less savory aspects.

But if Americans want to be truly exceptional, they might start by viewing the whole idea of "American exceptionalism" with a much more skeptical eye.

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• 20200725 : One way to look at the recent voting on the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) and on Mark Pocan's amendment to the NDAA (that would have reduced military spending by 10 percent) ( Jul 25, 2020 , stephensemler.substack.com )
• 20200724 : Nobel peace price hawk and other stories ( Jul 24, 2020 , www.rt.com )
• 20200723* Opinion - Defund the Pentagon- The Liberal Case - POLITICO ( Jul 23, 2020 , www.politico.com ) [Recommended]
• 20200723 : Wartime Without End, War Powers Without Check - ( Jul 23, 2020 , www.theamericanconservative.com )
• 20200723* Demorats defeat amedment ot cut Defence by 10% ( Jul 23, 2020 , news.antiwar.com ) [Recommended]
• 20200721 : When "not a fan of military spending" for some reason sounds like a military contractor or, worse, MIC lobbyist ( Jul 21, 2020 , crookedtimber.org )
• 20200720 : The US military is defending US global hegemony, and is priced accordingly. What you think of US military spending depends on what you think of the US as a hegemon. ( Jul 20, 2020 , crookedtimber.org )
• 20200719 : This sacred cow of illusion of American democracy is being threatened from all directions it seems. Democracy is great for whoever owns it, and whoever owns the media owns democracy. A cow well worth milking ( Jul 19, 2020 , www.moonofalabama.org )
• 20200719 : A trillion here, a trillion there, pretty soon you're talking real money ( Jul 19, 2020 , crookedtimber.org )
• 20200719 : The Chinese and Russian Foreign Ministers just jointly agreed in a rare published account of their phone conversation that the Outlaw US Empire " has lost its sense of reason, morality and credibility . ( Jul 19, 2020 , www.moonofalabama.org )
• 20200717 : The USA foreign policy shows a penchant for amoral deceptiveness of ALL other countries, even best allies, chronically ( Jul 17, 2020 , off-guardian.org )
• 20200716 : In Defense of Restraint by Daniel Larrison ( Jul 16, 2020 , www.theamericanconservative.com )
• 20200716 : The Vatican may be the most influential element on US foreign policy, even more so than Israel whose interests are not nearly as global ( Jul 16, 2020 , thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com )
• 20200713 : Michele Flournoy- Queen of the Blob - ( Jul 13, 2020 , www.theamericanconservative.com )
• 20200713 : Craig Murray about the glorification of war ( Jul 13, 2020 , www.moonofalabama.org )
• 20200711 : Yes, to balance China, let's bring Russia in from the cold by MATTHEW DAL SANTO ( Jul 07, 2020 , www.lowyinstitute.org )
• 20200710 : The 'Camo Economy' Hides Military Costs and Exacerbates Inequality ( Jul 10, 2020 , inequality.org )
• 20200705 : Afghanistan and the Endless War Caucus by DANIEL LARISON ( Jul 03, 2020 , www.theamericanconservative.com )
• 20200704 : It's Time to Stop Defending the Status Quo of Foreign Policy Failure by Daniel L. Davis ( Jul 04, 2020 , nationalinterest.org )
• 20200701 : Madcap Militarism- H.R. McMaster's Dishonest Attack on Restraint - ( Jul 01, 2020 , www.theamericanconservative.com )
• 20200628* Russian position for Start talks: "We don't believe the US in its current shape is a counterpart that is reliable, so we have no confidence, no trust whatsoever". ( Jun 28, 2020 , turcopolier.typepad.com ) [Recommended]
• 20200622 : MoA community discussion of Bolton book ( Jun 22, 2020 , www.moonofalabama.org )
• 20200616 : Progressive pseudo-democracy vs liberal democracy ( Jun 16, 2020 , www.unz.com )
• 20200616 : No form of the word 'democracy' is found in the US Declaration of Independence or Constitution. To the contrary, democracy is forbidden by Constitution Article IV Section 4. ( Jun 16, 2020 , www.unz.com )
• 20200615* Full Special Investigation - Donald Trump vs The Deep State ( Jun 15, 2020 , www.youtube.com ) [Recommended]
• 20200613* Korea is just another distraction: false conflicts with China, North Korea, Russia and Iran are needed to keep support for MIC and Security State which cost 1.2 trillion a year ( Jun 13, 2020 , www.moonofalabama.org ) [Recommended]
• 20200609 : How Interventionists Hijack the Rhetoric of Morality ( Jun 09, 2020 , www.theamericanconservative.com )
• 20200606 : For more than two centuries, the country which calls itself the pinnacle of freedom, has been in fact the absolute opposite of that; the epicenter of brutality and terror ( Jun 06, 2020 , www.moonofalabama.org )
• 20200603* Internet Users Who Call For Attacking Other Countries Will Now Be Enlisted In The Military Automatically ( Jun 22, 2019 , www.moonofalabama.org ) [Recommended]
• 20200602 : According to the standards set by the Trump administration when the Guaido coup first launched, the video footage of these protests is full justification for a foreign nation to directly intervene and remove Trump from office by force right now. ( Jun 02, 2020 , www.theamericanconservative.com )
• 20200602 : So we're going to tell our soldiers that we're redeploying them from the Middle East to the midwest? What do we think they're going to say, 'yeah, sure, no problem?' Guess again." ( Jun 02, 2020 , www.theamericanconservative.com )
• 20200602 : Burn Amerikastan burn ( Jun 02, 2020 , www.unz.com )
• 20200601 : Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov "We Have No Trust, No Confidence Whatsoever" in America by Jacob Heilbrunn ( May 29, 2020 , nationalinterest.org )
• 20200601 : Reminiscence of the Future... Non-Agreement Capable, Or Agreement Incapable, Or... ( Jun 01, 2020 , smoothiex12.blogspot.com )
• 20200601* This is one war party -- war party, imperial party of militarism, conquest and killing of civilians ( Jun 01, 2020 , www.antiwar.com ) [Recommended]
• 20200531* We Are Combat Vets, and We Want America to Reboot Memorial Day by Matthew Hoh and Danny Sjursen ( May 25, 2020 , www.motherjones.com ) [Recommended]
• 20200530 : Cutting our excessive defense budget post-COVID-19 will be difficult. Here's how to do it by Gordon Adams ( May 29, 2020 , responsiblestatecraft.org )
• 20200529 : A huge portion of the Pentagon's budget goes toward preparing for war with China -- and, frankly, provoking war as well. ( May 29, 2020 , www.counterpunch.org )
• 20200528 : US Public Remain the Tacit Accomplice in America's Dead End Wars Common Dreams Views by Andrew Bacevich ( May 25, 2020 , www.commondreams.org )
• 20200526 : America, Kissinger, and the Overexpansion Trap by Daniel Larison ( May 26, 2020 , www.theamericanconservative.com )
• 20200524 : Trump is mostly concerned with giving handouts to the MIC because he thinks "the economy" is based on jobs in the MIC since that is what they tell him is where US manufacturing is now based ( May 24, 2020 , www.moonofalabama.org )
• 20200523 : With a national election lurking on the horizon we will no doubt be hearing more about Exceptionalism from various candidates seeking to support the premise that the United States can interfere in every country on the planet because it is, as the expression goes, exceptional. ( May 23, 2020 , www.unz.com )
• 20200522* No US president who can withdraw the USA from the Forever Wars ( May 22, 2020 , www.unz.com ) [Recommended]
• 20200521 : The War State The Cold War Origins Of The Military-Industrial Complex And The Power Elite, 1945-1963 by Michael Swanson ( May 20, 2020 , www.amazon.com )
• 20200520* McGovern Turn Out The Lights, Russiagate Is Over by Ray McGovern ( May 19, 2020 , www.zerohedge.com ) [Recommended]
• 20200518 : Pundits with undisclosed funding from arms manufacturers urge 'stronger force posture' to counter China by Eli Clifton ( May 14, 2020 , responsiblestatecraft.org )
• 20200513* Dramatic change of direction for Syrian envoy ( May 13, 2020 , www.zerohedge.com ) [Recommended]
• 20200506 : McMaster and the Myths of Empire by Daniel Larison ( May 06, 2020 , www.theamericanconservative.com )
• 20200505 : 50 Years Of Unhinged, Televised Presidential Warmongering by Jim Bovard ( May 03, 2020 , libertarianinstitute.org )
• 20200504 : There is a disconnect between what average people feel as threats to their security and what the Beltway does ( May 04, 2020 , nationalinterest.org )
• 20200504 : Masks Over Missiles New Rules for Pentagon Funding Could Mean No New ICBMs The National Interest ( May 04, 2020 , nationalinterest.org )
• 20200503 : Never in my country: COVID-19 and American exceptionalism by Jeanne Morefield ( Apr 07, 2020 , responsiblestatecraft.org )
• 20200502 : Exceptionalism is not a mandate for the reckless pursuit of peripheral objectives at the expense of real global priorities, nor for championing short-term gains over America's long-term interest without anticipating predictable consequences ( May 02, 2020 , nationalinterest.org )
• 20200501 : 22 years ago Madeleine Albright declared the United States to be the "indispensable nation": "If we have to use force, it is because we are America; we are the indispensable nation. We stand tall and we see further than other countries into the future, and we see the danger here to all of us." ( Apr 30, 2020 , www.theamericanconservative.com )
• 20200501 : American exceptionalism marriage to "Full spectrum Dominance" doctrine proved to be especially toxic: neocons were so preoccupied with remaking the world they failed to see that our country was falling apart ( May 01, 2020 , www.theamericanconservative.com )
• 20200501 : It Took COVID To Expose the Fraud of 'American Exceptionalism' by Daniel Larison ( Apr 30, 2020 , www.theamericanconservative.com )
• 20200430 : Pompeos Cynical Attack on the Nuclear Deal by Daniel Larison ( Apr 27, 2020 , www.antiwar.com )
• 20200429* Trump, despite pretty slick deception during his election campaign, is an typical imperialist and rabid militarist. His administration continuredand in some areas exceeded the hostility of Obama couse against Russia ( Apr 29, 2020 , www.moonofalabama.org ) [Recommended]
• 20200429 : Even a Pandemic Can't Kill Threat Inflation ( Apr 29, 2020 , www.theamericanconservative.com )
• 20200428 : MoA - To Finally Kill The Nuclear Deal With Iran The U.S. Will Try To Rejoin It ( Apr 28, 2020 , www.moonofalabama.org )
• 20200428 : To end endless wars, I support 75% military spending cuts ( Apr 28, 2020 , www.moonofalabama.org )
• 20200426 : Militarization in a Time of Pandemic Crisis by Henry Giroux and Ourania Filippakou ( Apr 24, 2020 , www.counterpunch.org )
• 20200425* Did This Virus Come From a Lab? Maybe Not But It Exposes the Threat of a Biowarfare Arms Race by Sam Husseini ( Apr 25, 2020 , salon.com ) [Recommended]
• 20200425* Did This Virus Come From a Lab? Maybe Not But It Exposes the Threat of a Biowarfare Arms Race by Sam Husseini ( Apr 25, 2020 , salon.com ) [Recommended]
• 20200424* Please Tell the Establishment That U.S. Hegemony is Over by Daniel Larison ( Apr 23, 2020 , www.theamericanconservative.com ) [Recommended]
• 20200424 : Creating the enemies they need: US militarism's strange bedfellows by Danny Sjursen ( Apr 23, 2020 , responsiblestatecraft.org )
• 20200424 : Trump's Own Military Mafia by Maj. Danny Sjursen ( Apr 10, 2020 , original.antiwar.com )
• 20200424 : The Still Exceptional Empires: Neo-Imperialism, Franco-American Style by Maj. Danny Sjursen ( Apr 20, 2020 , original.antiwar.com )
• 20200419 : Many Americans cannot accept as a nation that they could ever be wrong on anything. ( Apr 19, 2020 , www.moonofalabama.org )
• 20200418 : 'Never in my country': COVID-19 and American exceptionalism by Jeanne Morefield ( Apr 07, 2020 , responsiblestatecraft.org )
• 20200417* The word socialism became just a neoliberal smear. We should talk about public sector vs private sector, not about socialism ( Apr 17, 2020 , www.moonofalabama.org ) [Recommended]
• 20200411* 'Never in my country': COVID-19 and American exceptionalism by Jeanne Morefield ( Apr 07, 2020 , responsiblestatecraft.org ) [Recommended]
• 20200408 : What Virus? Military Asks Whopping $20B to 'Deter Chinese Aggression' ( Apr 08, 2020 , www.theamericanconservative.com )
• 20200405* Esper tone deafness: a sad illustration of wildly misplaced priorities of military industrial complex ( Apr 05, 2020 , www.moonofalabama.org ) [Recommended]
• 20200404 : America, We Have To End The Wars Now by Scott Horton ( Apr 03, 2020 , www.zerohedge.com )
• 20200327 : Now's the Time to Become a Truly 'America First' Military by Doug Bandow ( Mar 26, 2020 , www.theamericanconservative.com )
• 20200321* When reading any article concerning current events (ie. Ukraine, Syria, Iran, Venezuela, or Coronavirus) consider how the The Seven Principles of Propaganda may apply ( Mar 22, 2020 , https://www.moonofalabama.org ) [Recommended]
• 20200321 : The New Dark Age ( Mar 21, 2020 , williambowles.info )
• 20200307 : Joint Chiefs Chair Retires, Immediately Becomes Paid F-35 Cheerleader ( Mar 06, 2020 , www.theamericanconservative.com )
• 20200307 : Note of Trump deals: they are not worth paper they are printed on ( Mar 07, 2020 , www.nakedcapitalism.com )
• 20200306 : The Swiss Propaganda Research Group (SPR) on syria war ( Mar 06, 2020 , www.moonofalabama.org )
• 20200305 : Here Is What Each Of The Pentagon's Air-Launched Missiles And Bombs Actually Cost by Joseph Trevithick ( Feb 18, 2020 , www.thedrive.com )
• 20200229* A very interesting and though provoking presentation by Ambassador Chas Freeman "America in Distress: The Challenges of Disadvantageous Change" ( Feb 29, 2020 , angrybearblog.com ) [Recommended]
• 20200229 : Threat Inflation: Going after hapless countries by Edward S. Herman ( Mar 01, 2003 , Z magazine )
• 20200229 : How Threat Inflation Warps Public Opinion ( Feb 29, 2020 , www.theamericanconservative.com )
• 20200229* Secret Wars, Forgotten Betrayals, Global Tyranny. Who s Really In Charge Of The US Military by Cynthia Chung ( Jan 21, 2020 , www.zerohedge.com ) [Recommended]
• 20200229 : Learning Nothing From the Ghost of Congress Past by Andrew J. Bacevich ( Dec 23, 2019 , www.theamericanconservative.com )
• 20200225 : A Worthless 'New Deal' from the Iran Hawks ( Feb 25, 2020 , www.theamericanconservative.com )
• 20200224 : Creating the Corporate Coup ( Dec 09, 2019 , caucus99percent.com )
• 20200223 : If you fire 70% of the admirals and generals you will increase the military capabilities of the US military by 40 percent ( Feb 23, 2020 , www.zerohedge.com )
• 20200223* Welcome to the American Regime ( Feb 23, 2020 , www.zerohedge.com ) [Recommended]
• 20200207* How They Sold the Iraq War by Jeffrey St. Clair ( Mar 20, 2018 , www.counterpunch.org ) [Recommended]
• 20200124* Lawrence Wilkerson Lambasts 'the Beast of the National Security State' by Adam Dick ( Jan 13, 2020 , ronpaulinstitute.org ) [Recommended]
• 20200118* The joke is on us: Without the USSR the USA oligarchy resorted to cannibalism and devour the American people ( Jan 18, 2020 , www.theguardian.com ) [Recommended]
• 20200112* MIC along with Wall Street controls the government and the country ( Jan 12, 2020 , angrybearblog.com ) [Recommended]
• 20200112* US has been preaching human rights while mounting wars and lying. ( Jan 12, 2020 , www.moonofalabama.org ) [Recommended]
• 20200106* Diplomacy Trump-style. Al Capone probably would be allow himself to fall that low ( Jan 06, 2020 , www.moonofalabama.org ) [Recommended]
• 20200106* The threat of General Soleimani - TTG ( Jan 06, 2020 , turcopolier.typepad.com ) [Recommended]
• 20191228* Senior OPCW Official Busted Leaked Email Exposes Orders To Delete All Traces Of Dissent On Douma ( Dec 28, 2019 , www.zerohedge.com ) [Recommended]
• 20191219* MIC lobbyism (which often is presented as patriotism) is the last refuge of scoundrels ( Dec 19, 2019 , angrybearblog.com ) [Recommended]
• 20191214 : Warmongeing is the national sport for the neoliberal elite in the USA ( Dec 14, 2019 , discussion.theguardian.com )
• 20191204* America's War Exceptionalism Is Killing the Planet by William Astore ( Dec 02, 2019 , www.nakedcapitalism.com ) [Recommended]
• 20191202 : A bunch of neocons in key positions in Trump administration really represents a huge threat to world peace ( Oct 28, 2016 , crookedtimber.org )
• 20191202 : The Vichy left – essentially people who are ready to sacrifice all principles to ensure their own prosperity ( Oct 24, 2016 , economistsview.typepad.com )
• 20191202* The cost of militarism cannot be measured only in lost opportunities, lives and money. There will be a long hangover of shame ( www.theamericanconservative.com ) [Recommended]
• 20191127* Could your county use some extra money? ( Nov 27, 2019 , turcopolier.typepad.com ) [Recommended]
• 20191121* The deep state is individuals INSIDE the government that do the bidding of the banksters, the military-industrial complex, the globalists and other nefarious interests ( Nov 21, 2019 , www.moonofalabama.org ) [Recommended]
• 20191024* Empire Interventionism Versus Republic Noninterventionism by Jacob Hornberger ( Oct 24, 2019 , www.zerohedge.com ) [Recommended]
• 20191022 : It's four more years of the Trumpian Reich folks, with Russian Spetsnaz patrolling the streets, gigantic banners with the faces of Trump and Putin hanging in the football stadiums, National Vodka-for-Breakfast Day, babushkas, the whole nine yards by CJ Hopkins ( Oct 21, 2019 , www.zerohedge.com )
• 20191020* How did the United States become so involved in Ukraine's torturous and famously corrupt politics? The short answer is NATO expansion ( Oct 20, 2019 , www.unz.com ) [Recommended]
• 20191010* There is no reason that anyone should treat George Bush with respect: he is a war criminal, who escaped justice ( Oct 09, 2019 , economistsview.typepad.com ) [Recommended]
• 20190922* US reconnaissance plane operated drones that attacked Hmeymim ( Oct 01, 2025 , tass.com ) [Recommended]
• 20190922* Shoigu calls US belief in its superiority the major threat to Russia and other states ( Sep 22, 2019 , tass.com ) [Recommended]
• 20190918 : F-35 Fighter as the ritual construction similar to Egyptian pyramids, the Cathedral for MIC. ( Sep 18, 2019 , www.counterpunch.org )
• 20190911* Video Collapse of World Trade Center Building 7 The Bamboozle Has Captured Us ( Sep 11, 2019 , www.globalresearch.ca ) [Recommended]
• 20190910 : If bombing is/was punishment for use chemical weapons, US would have to keep bombing itself to this day , as punishments for what they did to Vietnam ( Sep 10, 2019 , www.unz.com )
• 20190822* Trump Doesn t Know How to Negotiate by Daniel Larison ( Aug 22, 2019 , www.theamericanconservative.com ) [Recommended]
• 20190817* Putin-Trump Derangement Syndrome (PTDS) ( Aug 17, 2019 , www.nakedcapitalism.com ) [Recommended]
• 20190817* Debunking the Putin Panic by Stephen F. Cohen ( Aug 17, 2019 , www.nakedcapitalism.com ) [Recommended]
• 20190728* Antisemitism prejudices projection on Russians ( Jul 28, 2019 , turcopolier.typepad.com ) [Recommended]
• 20190721 : Merchants of Death business uber alles" as the new interpretation of "Drain the Swamp" election time slogan by Trump administration ( Jul 21, 2019 , www.zerohedge.com )
• 20190720* New US Pentagon Chief Vested Interest in War Conflict ( Jul 20, 2019 , www.strategic-culture.org ) [Recommended]
• 20190706 : Peace though procurement malpractice ( Jul 06, 2019 , www.nakedcapitalism.com )
• 20190628 : Bolton Gets Ready to Kill New START by Daniel Larison ( Jun 27, 2019 , www.theamericanconservative.com )
• 20190625 : The Trump administration's special envoy for Iran, Brian Hook's Message: Trust Us, We're Unreliable ( Jun 25, 2019 , www.theamericanconservative.com )
• 20190625 : It is utterly bizarre to hear people who believe Trump is unfit to lead seem disappointed that he isn't taking us to war ( Jun 25, 2019 , www.theamericanconservative.com )
• 20190622* Why The Empire Is Failing The Horrid Hubris Of The Albright Doctrine by Doug Bandow ( Jun 18, 2019 , www.zerohedge.com ) [Recommended]
• 20190622 : The Myopia of Interventionists by Daniel Lariso ( Feb 22, 2019 , www.theamericanconservative.com )
• 20190620 : US gives military assistance to 70% of world dictoris whether they re using their free time to kill thousands of innocent people or to harmonize their rock garden. ( Jun 20, 2019 , www.zerohedge.com )
• 20190618 : Can the US launch a war without a Secratary of Defence in place? W>ell, they are not exactly planning to defend themselves. ( Jun 18, 2019 , www.moonofalabama.org )
• 20190617 : Cotton warmongering on Iran is easily explainable by the fact that he is running low of AIPAC dollars again ( Jun 17, 2019 , www.theamericanconservative.com )
• 20190525* The Belligerence Of Empire by Kenn Orphan ( May 23, 2019 , www.counterpunch.org ) [Recommended]
• 20190520* "Us" Versus "Them" ( May 20, 2019 , www.zerohedge.com ) [Recommended]
• 20190514* Despite a $ 22 Trillion National Debt, America Is on a Military Spending Spree. 800 Overseas US Military Bases by Masud Wadan ( Apr 10, 2019 , www.globalresearch.ca ) [Recommended]
• 20190505* The Left Needs to Stop Crushing on the Generals by Danny Sjursen ( May 03, 2019 , www.theamericanconservative.com ) [Recommended]
• 20190421* Psywar: Propaganda during Iraq war and beyond ( Apr 21, 2019 , www.moonofalabama.org ) [Recommended]
• 20190421* Deciphering Trumps Foreign Policy by Oscar Silva-Valladares ( Oct 28, 2017 , ronpaulinstitute.org ) [Recommended]
• 20190415* I wonder if the Middle East is nothing more than a live-fire laboratory for the military ( Apr 15, 2019 , www.theamericanconservative.com ) [Recommended]
• 20190413 : Something about foreign travel ( Apr 13, 2019 , www.unz.com )
• 20190413 : Russiagate in three minutes ( Apr 13, 2019 , www.unz.com )
• 20190412 : A rare breed of individuals who surfaced during Russiagate: individuals with a remarkable capacity of swallowing a large pile of BS. ( Apr 12, 2019 , www.unz.com )
• 20190409 : Trump had 4 bankruptcies and we let him run US economy ! ( Apr 09, 2019 , www.unz.com )
• 20190408* Why aren't Boeing executives being prosecuted for the 737 Max 8 crashes ( Apr 04, 2019 , www.wsws.org ) [Recommended]
• 20190406 : The US guy was treated in Iranian hospital. When it came time to use his health care plan to pay the bill, he learned the claim was refused because such transaction would violate US economic sanctions! ( Apr 06, 2019 , www.unz.com )
• 20190406* Trump is for socialism but only when it comes to funding US military industry Tulsi Gabbard ( Apr 05, 2019 , www.rt.com ) [Recommended]
• 20190404* How Brzezinski's Chessboard degenerated into Brennan's Russophobia by Mike Whitney ( Apr 04, 2019 , www.unz.com ) [Recommended]
• 20190330* You don't like Trump? Bolton? Clinton? All of these people who are in or have passed through leadership positions in America are entirely valid representatives of Americans in general. You may imagine they are faking cluelessness to avoid acknowledging responsibility for their crimes, but the cluelessness is quite real and extends to the entire population. ( Mar 30, 2019 , www.moonofalabama.org ) [Recommended]
• 20190329* I challenge anyone to find anything done by congress or Trump that was done for average Americans ( Feb 26, 2019 , www.unz.com ) [Recommended]
• 20190324 : Mueller-D mmerung by C.J. Hopkins ( Mar 24, 2019 , www.unz.com )
• 20190318 : Something about MadCow or this hilarious video which wasn't meant to be funny ( Dec 09, 2016 , www.unz.com )
• 20190312 : "One nation, under God and all of his defense contractors " ( Mar 12, 2019 , www.unz.com )
• 20190312 : Note on the loss of power of Jewish lobby in the US Congress due to inflation ( Mar 12, 2019 , www.unz.com )
• 20190305* The Shadow Governments Destruction Of Democracy ( Feb 19, 2017 , www.zerohedge.com ) [Recommended]
• 20190304 : Guess who made those clearly anti-Semitic comments ( Mar 04, 2019 , www.unz.com )
• 20190227 : Daddy, I want war with Iran! ( Feb 27, 2019 , www.unz.com )
• 20190226 : Bolton's financial disclosures show that between September 2015 and April 2018, he received $165,000 from the Counter-Extremism Project (CEP), a group with overlapping staffers, board members, and finances with UANI. According to the Bolton's disclosures, the payments were "consulting fees." ( Feb 26, 2019 , www.unz.com )
• 20190226 : War whore. Well, they sure pay well ( Feb 26, 2019 , www.unz.com )
• 20190226 : Daddy, I want war with Iran! ( Feb 26, 2019 , www.unz.com )
• 20190222 : The US chooses its government by popularity contests among provincial lawyers rather than by competence ( Feb 22, 2019 , www.unz.com )
• 20190222 : I don't think Tulsi got the memo. Neither did Ivanka ( Feb 22, 2019 , www.unz.com )
• 20190221 : But, scum like Pompeo puts forth hard-line stance against terrorists. What a bunch of vile phonies and hypocrites. ( Feb 21, 2019 , www.unz.com )
• 20190221* The Empire Now or Never by Fred Reed ( Feb 21, 2019 , www.unz.com ) [Recommended]
• 20190219 : The new definition of anti-semitism ( Feb 19, 2019 , www.unz.com )
• 20190219* Tulsi Gabbard kills New World Order bloodbath in thirty seconds ( Feb 19, 2019 , www.veteranstoday.com ) [Recommended]
• 20190219* Warmongers in their ivory towers - YouTube ( Feb 19, 2019 , www.youtube.com ) [Recommended]
• 20190219* Charles Schumer and questioning the foreign policy choices of the American Empire's ruling class ( Feb 19, 2019 , www.unz.com ) [Recommended]
• 20190217* Was Trump was a deep state man from day one, just like Obama, Bush, Clinton and all the rest? ( Mar 23, 2018 , www.unz.com ) [Recommended]
• 20190214 : Venezuela Envoy Elliott Abrams Lose His Cool During Tense Exchange With Rep. Ilhan Omar ( Feb 14, 2019 , www.unz.com )
• 20190213* Making Globalism Great Again by C.J. Hopkins ( Feb 11, 2019 , www.unz.com ) [Recommended]
• 20190210 : Deranged Madeline Albright famously told Leslie Stahl on 60 Minutes that the death of 500,000 Iraqi children, due to Clinton s years of punative sanctions, was worth it ( Feb 10, 2019 , www.unz.com )
• 20190210* Pussy John Bolton and His Codpiece Mustache by Fred Reed ( Feb 10, 2019 , www.unz.com ) [Recommended]
• 20190208* To understand Steele and the five eyes involvement in the Russia hoax you need to go to the library ( Feb 08, 2019 , www.unz.com ) [Recommended]
• 20190207 : US and Venezuela have lot in common and that they should build their relationship based on some similar bad experiences that they have suffered in the last few years: both has Presidents installed by foreign power ( Feb 07, 2019 , www.unz.com )
• 20190205 : NYTimes Journo Melts Down On Joe Rogan s Show ( Feb 05, 2019 , www.youtube.com )
• 20190204 : Haley resorts to a good, tried way of Us politicians to sell themselves to money interests. ( Feb 04, 2019 , www.unz.com )
• 20190204 : Something about neoliberal propaganda ( Feb 04, 2019 , www.unz.com )
• 20190204 : So let me get this straight: The Russians brought America to its knees with a few Facebook ads, but Uncle Sam's concerted and ongoing efforts to overthrow governments around the world and interfere with elections is perfectly fine? ( Feb 04, 2019 , www.unz.com )
• 20190204 : Real America doesn't give a f*ck ( Feb 04, 2019 , www.unz.com )
• 20190204 : CNN journos placed Ukraine somewhere in Pakistan on live TV ( Feb 04, 2019 , www.unz.com )
• 20190204 : It case of Venzuella coup it looks like we are dealing with a "Skripal tactic": do something so ridiculously stupid and offensive that it places all your vassals before a stark choice: either submit and pretend like you did not notice or, alternatively, dare to say something and face with wrath of Uncle Shmuel (the Neocon's version of Uncle Sam) by The Saker ( Feb 04, 2019 , www.unz.com )
• 20190129* Guardian became Deep State Guardian ( Dec 22, 2018 , off-guardian.org ) [Recommended]
• 20190126* Can the current US neoliberal/neoconservative elite be considered suicidal? ( Jan 20, 2019 , www.theamericanconservative.com ) [Recommended]
• 20190120 : The Russian Pension Chickens Are Coming Home to Roost... ( Jan 20, 2019 , www.unz.com )
• 20190114 : Its official: was of terrorism was replaced by war on populism ( Jan 14, 2019 , www.unz.com )
• 20190114 : Something about MIC gargantuan appetites: the cost of running Texas Railroad Commsion (RRC) for year are less that one half of the cost of (mostly useless) F35 not including fuel ( Jan 14, 2019 , peakoilbarrel.com )
• 20190113 : Parkinson disease and Russians ( Jan 13, 2019 , www.unz.com )
• 20190112 : In the news: NBC and MSNBC have been officially merged with the CIA ( Jan 12, 2019 , www.unz.com )
• 20190109 : What is absolutely remarkable to me in a very bad way is that this piece of trash received 681 reviews on Amazon, only 21 with one star and the balance above that for an overall rating of 4.8 out of 5 ( Jan 09, 2019 , www.unz.com )
• 20190104* Veteran NBC-MSNBC Journalist Blasts Network in Resignation ( Jan 04, 2019 , theintercept.com ) [Recommended]
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• 20181227 : Trump decision to withdraw troops from Syria and Lindsay Graham ( Dec 27, 2018 , www.unz.com )
• 20181227 : There is a difference between chickenhawks and neocon chickenhawks ( Dec 27, 2018 , www.unz.com )
• 20181222* If Truth Cannot Prevail Over Material Agendas We Are Doomed by Paul Craig Roberts ( www.theamericanconservative.com ) [Recommended]
• 20181221 : The natural progression of Russiagate: (1) OMG, they hacked voting machines! (2) OMG, they hacked DNC servers! (3) OMG, someone talked to a Russian! ( Jul 23, 2017 , www.unz.com )
• 20181220 : The Year of Putin-Nazi Paranoia by C.J. Hopkins ( Dec 20, 2018 , www.unz.com )
• 20181201* Congress' Screwed-Up Foreign Policy Priorities by Daniel Larison ( Apr 30, 2005 , www.theamericanconservative.com ) [Recommended]
• 20181130* US Warlords now and at the tome Miill's Poer Elite was published ( May-June 1 1999, , prospect.org ) [Recommended]
• 20181128 : Beware the Trumpenleft! by C.J. Hopkins ( Nov 28, 2018 , www.unz.com )
• 20181127* US Foreign Policy Has No Policy by Philip Giraldi ( Nov 27, 2018 , www.unz.com ) [Recommended]
• 20181120 : The problem is that if you look into eyes of Medusa you drop dead ( Nov 20, 2018 , www.unz.com )
• 20181120 : No comments ;-) ( Nov 20, 2018 , www.unz.com )
• 20181120 : Medusa's "hair" signifies the bad ideas coming out from women head. Did you notice how many women in US are engaging in politics? ( Nov 20, 2018 , www.unz.com )
• 20181120 : I love you Melania!! (Grin) ( Nov 20, 2018 , www.unz.com )
• 20181112 : Macron wants to be like Putin, but the leash gets in the way ( Nov 12, 2018 , www.unz.com )
• 20181112* The Best Way To Honor War Veterans Is To Stop Creating Them by Caitlin Johnstone ( Nov 12, 2018 , www.zerohedge.com ) [Recommended]
• 20181110* US Wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan Killed 500,000 by Jason Ditz ( Nov 10, 2018 , news.antiwar.com ) [Recommended]
• 20181021 : Let's play Global Thermonuclear War ( Oct 21, 2018 , www.zerohedge.com )
• 20181020 : Neocon propaganda on Russia remind me of a Russian joke ( Oct 20, 2018 , www.unz.com )
• 20181010* A Decalogue of American Empire-Building A Dialogue by James Petras ( Oct 10, 2018 , www.unz.com ) [Recommended]
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• 20181008 : Dividing the working classes up into sub-groups according to race, ethnicity, and so on, and then pitting these sub-groups against each other, is extremely important to the ruling classes, who are, let's remember, a tiny minority of intelligent but physically vulnerable parasites controlling the lives of the vast majority of human beings on the planet Earth, primarily by keeping them ignorant and confused by C.J. Hopkins ( Oct 08, 2018 , www.unz.com )
• 20181003 : Kavanaugh Gang-Rapes Collie in Satanic Ritual by Fred Reed ( Oct 03, 2018 , www.unz.com )
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• 20180923 : I'd love to be the commissar in charge of ending affirmative action and punishing those who created and enforce it ( Aug 10, 2018 , www.unz.com )
• 20180923 : Toilet Wars by Israel Shamir ( Sep 23, 2018 , www.unz.com )
• 20180921 : MAGA is dead, people; say hello to MIGA. ( Sep 21, 2018 , www.unz.com )
• 20180921* One party state: Trump's 'Opposition' Supports All His Evil Agendas While Attacking Fake Nonsence by Caitlin Johnstone ( Sep 21, 2018 , ronpaulinstitute.org ) [Recommended]
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• 20180916 : British society is under the imminent threat of Putin-Nazi Novichok perfume assassin hit squads ( Sep 16, 2018 , www.unz.com )
• 20180916 : Are We Becoming What We Once Hated by Eric Margolis ( Sep 16, 2018 , www.unz.com )
• 20180916* Perils of Ineptitude by Andrew Levin ( Aug 03, 2018 , www.counterpunch.org ) [Recommended]
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• 20180419 : Mad madam prostitute Nick Halley has to be soothed by Kudlow telling her she was not a demented rat. ( Apr 19, 2018 , www.unz.com )
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• 20180419 : You can't make it up: Oklahoma congressman Steve Russell told the C Span Washington Journal audience this morning that there was "no danger from a chemical plume" after missiles struck Syrian chemical plants "because the attack was designed to burn up" the fumes. ( Apr 19, 2018 , www.unz.com )
• 20180419 : Trump is a typical business tycoon: a clueless moron. Pence is just a weasel ( Apr 19, 2018 , www.unz.com )
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• 20180319 : Who says that there is no proof that Putin did it? ( Mar 19, 2018 , www.unz.com )
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Old News

For the list of top articles see Recommended Links section

[Jul 29, 2021] The 2015 poll in the US about a potential bombing campaign against Agrabah due to severe human rights violations

Jul 18, 2021 | www.moonofalabama.org

Constantine , Jul 18 2021 8:38 utc | 103

Posted by: Bemildred | Jul 18 2021 7:48 utc | 99

Wholesale suport is indeed imperial propaganda, but the overt or tacit support by large segments of the citizenry is a fact. And this is to be expected after such an extensive indoctrination with notions of extreme messianic chauvinism, ethno-supremacism and conspicuous absence of negative consequences (such as horrific losses, near economic collapse, devastation of the imperial homeland etc.)of such policies.

Again, as you correctly pointed, the popularity of the regime is mostly centered on the more affluent classes. Still, there is also sufficient support from the lower segments of the society to ensure that criminal policies, almost always harmful to parts of the citizenry too, continue without significant opposition.

One of the most telling examples of this attitude was the 2015 poll in the US about a potential bombing campaign against Agrabah due to severe human rights violations. If I recall the numbers correctly, in favor were 32% of Reps questioned and 18%of Dems. Against were 16% of Reps and 37% of Dems (although the DNC liberals have become far more hawkish since). In short, 48% of polled Republicans and 55% of Democrats had a definite view in support of or in opposition of a bombing campaign against a country that exists in the toon film "Aladdin". Not insignificant at all, especilly since there is far more support for aggressive action - that includes regime change and sanctions - against existing countries that have been systematically demonized by the Anglo-American regime.

[Jul 21, 2021] Civilized nations' efforts to deter Russia and China are starting to add up

Jul 21, 2021 | www.moonofalabama.org

Lysander , Jul 17 2021 11:31 utc | 2

...WaPo columnist George Will then asserts:

Henry Kissinger has said, not unreasonably, that we are in "the foothills" of a cold war with China. And Vladimir Putin, who nurses an unassuageable grudge about the way the Cold War ended, seems uninterested in Russia reconciling itself to a role as a normal nation without gratuitous resorts to mendacity. It is, therefore, well to notice how, day by day, in all of the globe's time zones, civilized nations are, in word and deed, taking small but cumulatively consequential measures that serve deterrence.

If arrogance were a deadly disease, George Will would be dead.

George Will has been an ass clown since I first had the displeasure of watching him in the 1970s. Age has not brought an ounce of wisdom. Nevertheless, this total lack of self reflection and ability to project American sins on others is unfortunately not unique to our man George. It seems a habit throughout the entire US political spectrum. The ability to view, for example, the invasion of Iraq as perfectly normal behavior, while viewing any resistance to US/Israeli dominance as beyond the pale is the character of the decaying American superpower. George Will is but one manifestation of it. It was once infuriating. But now it's simply like listening to the ravings of a schizophrenic. More pathetic than anything else.

---

Dao Gen , Jul 17 2021 11:35 utc | 3

What do you expect from George Swill? He is a pathetic, disoriented refugee from his home in Victorian England, when barbarism never set for a single instant on the British Empire.

Donbass Lives Matter , Jul 17 2021 11:45 utc | 4

There's a way to get the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth from the mainstream news media. Just look at their propaganda and ask yourself, "Why do they want me to believe this particular lie?" If you can figure that you, you will have the truth.

alaff , Jul 17 2021 11:52 utc | 5

Well, you know, the white man's burden...
The funny thing is that they seriously consider themselves a "superior race", while behaving like wild barbarians.
Such opinions/articles of "Western civilized people" cause only a condescending smile, nothing more. So let's let George Will entertain us.

Midville , Jul 17 2021 11:57 utc | 7

I find it pretty bizzarre how western media obsessively try to portray the Defender incident as a some sort of "victory" for "civilized nations".
What exactly is the victory here? The fact that Russia only resorted to warning fire and didn't blow up the ship?

Perimetr , Jul 17 2021 12:16 utc | 11

Decades of propaganda masquerading as news has led most "educated" Americans into a Matrix of false narratives. Should you dare mention election fraud or question the safety of COVID vaccines in the presences of anyone who considers the NY Times and Wash Post as the "papers of record", they will be happy to inform you that you are "captured" by false news. Dialogue with these true believers has become almost impossible. We are the indispensable, civilized nation, don't you understand basic facts?

My sister, who is truly a good-hearted person, unfortunately keeps CNN and MSNBC on most of the day in her small apartment, and lives for The NY Times, which she pours over, especially the weekend edition. She knows that Putin is evil and Russia is a bad place to live, etc etc. I got rid of my TV ten years ago and started looking elsewhere for my information. I live in a rural area of a Red state, she lives in Manhattan. We have to stick to topics that revolve around museums, gardening, and food.

Ayatoilet , Jul 17 2021 12:50 utc | 16

This is precisely the type of arrogance that has led to US leaving Afghanistan with their pants down - having spent untold Trillions of dollars and having nothing to show for it. And soon, leaving Iraq and Syria too. It reminds me of how the US left Vietnam and Cambodia.

The 'White' establishment in Washington and across the US military industrial complex, has an air of superiority and always seem to feel that they can subjugate via throwing money at people! This in effect turns everyone they deal with into Whores (yes, prostitutes). Its fundamentally humiliating, and sews the seeds of corruption - both economic and moral. Then, they are shocked that there's a back clash!

The Taliban succeeded not with arms - but by projecting a completely different narrative of "Morality (i.e. non-corruption), honor, and even intermingled nationalism with their narrative". They projected a story that suggested that new Afghan daughters would not turn into Britney Spears or porn stars.

And, believe it or not, the Chinese see themselves as having been fundamentally humiliated by the West and couch their efforts as a struggle for their civilization (its not ideological or even economic) - they are fighting for honor and respect.

Western Civilization (and western elite) on the left and right are fundamentally materialistic. They worship money, and simply don't understand it when others don't. When they talk about superiority, they are basically saying the worship of money rules supreme. You sort of become dignified in the west if you have a lot of wealth. They want to turn the whole world into prostitutes. Policy and laws are driven by material considerations.

Now, I am not saying that spirituality or religion is good; and in fact, the Chinese are not driven by religious zeal (they are, on the whole, non-religious). What I am saying is that - no matter how its expressed - be it through religion, through culture, through rhetoric, etc. - all this back clash is really a struggle for respect, 'honor' and thus a push back to Western Arrogance, and the humiliation it has caused. The West simply doesn't understand that there are societies - especially in the east, that value honor over other things.

When Trump calls other people losers, he is basically saying he is richer, they are poorer. In his mind, winning, is all about money. When people write articles about the superiority of a civilization - they are implicitly putting other people down. That's not just arrogant, its rude and disrespectful. Its basically like a teenager judging their parents. How dare a newly formed nation (the US), judge or differentiate or even pretend to be superior to the Chinese, Persians etc.?

Our foreign policy (and rhetoric) in the West has to completely change. We have to be really careful, because, (honestly), it won't be very long before these other (inferior) civilizations actually take over global leadership. Then how will we want to be treated? Don't for a second think these folks can't build great gadgets that go to Mars! Oh, did China just do that? Does Iran have a space program? Did they just make their own vaccines? Once they start trading among themselves without using the USD greenback, we are finished.

We need them, they don't need us.

Et Tu , Jul 17 2021 13:07 utc | 18

Some notable recent achievements of 'civilised' nations include:

-Illegal invasion and bombing of multiple non-aggressor nations
-Overthrowing of democratically elected Governments
-Support of extremist and oppressive regimes
-Sponsoring of terrorism, including weapon sales to ISIS
-Corruption of once trusted institutions like the UN and OPCW

Oh, the civility...

Petri Krohn , Jul 17 2021 14:05 utc | 26

HOW DID RUSSIA BECOME THE ENEMY?

...when all she did was offer slight resistance to Western aggression? The key event was the August 2013 false-flag gas attack and massacre of hostages in Ghouta in Damascus.

What really angered the West was the Russian fleet in the Mediterranean that prevented the NATO attack on Syria. (You will not find a single word of this in Western media.) This is why Crimea needed to be captured by the West. As revenge and deterrence against the Russian agression.

I wrote about these events in 2016:

The standoff was first described by Israel Shamir in October 2013:

"The most dramatic event of September 2013 was the high-noon stand-off near the Levantine shore, with five US destroyers pointing their Tomahawks towards Damascus and facing them - the Russian flotilla of eleven ships led by the carrier-killer Missile Cruiser Moskva and supported by Chinese warships.

Apparently, two missiles were launched towards the Syrian coast, and both failed to reach their destination."

A longer description was published by Australianvoice in 2015:

"So why didn't the US and France attack Syria? It seems obvious that the Russians and Chinese simply explained that an attack on Syria by US and French forces would be met by a Russian/Chinese attack on US and French warships. Obama wisely decided not to start WW III in September 2013." Can Russia Block Regime Change In Syria Again?

In my own comments from 2013 I tried to understand the mission of the Russian fleet. This is what I believed Putin's orders to the fleet were:

1. To sink any NATO ship involved in illegal aggression against Syria.
2. You have the authority to use tactical nuclear weapons in self-defense.

I am sure NATO admirals understood the situation the same way. I am not sure of the American leadership in Washington.

Billb , Jul 17 2021 14:15 utc | 28

Insulting language aside, the narrative they are trying to create is that there is an anti-Russia, anti-China trend developing and that those sitting on the fence would be wise to join the bandwagon.

This will be particularly effective on the majority of folks who barely scan headlines and skim articles. Falun Gong/CIA mouthpiece Epoch Times is on board with this, based on recent headlines.

Petri Krohn , Jul 17 2021 14:44 utc | 33

Democracy grows in darkness

Wikipedia has a list of reliable and unreliable sources . "Reliable" are those sources that are under the direct control of the US regime. Any degree of independence from the regime makes the source "unreliable." WaPo and NYT are at the top of the list of reliable sources.

This is the diametric opposite of how Wikispooks defines reliability. Reliability of sources is directly proportional to their distance *from* power.

At A Closer Look on Syria (ACLOS) we only trust primary sources.

Andres , Jul 17 2021 14:58 utc | 35

Civilization vs Uncivilization

Makes me remember the cornerstone work from former Argentine president DF Sarmiento, who dealt with "Civilization or Barbarism" in his book "Facundo". Of course, his position was the "civilized" one.

Those "civilized" succeeded in creating a country submitted to the British rule, selling cheap crops and getting expensive manufactures, with a privileged minority living lavishly and a great majority, in misery.

Also, their "civilized" methods to impose their project was the bloody "Police War"

https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guerra_entre_la_Confederaci%C3%B3n_Argentina_y_el_Estado_de_Buenos_Aires#Segunda_guerra_contra_el_Chacho

Same language used now, for the same undisclosed intentions.

lysias , Jul 17 2021 15:10 utc | 36

In Russian, to be uncivilized (nekulturny) is a bad thing.

Mar man , Jul 17 2021 16:14 utc | 44

This article is fundamentally about propaganda and "soft power".

Soft power in foreign policy is usually defined when other countries defer to your judgement without threat of punishment or promise of gain.

In other words, if other countries support your country without a "carrot or stick" approach, you have soft power.

For years, the US simply assumed other "civilized" of the western world would dutifully follow along in US footsteps due to unshakeable trust in America's moral authority. The western media played a crucial role by suppressing news regarding any atrocities the western powers committed and amplifying any perceived threats or aggressions from "enemies".

Now, with the age of the internet, western audiences can read news from all over the world and that has been a catastrophe for western powers. We can now see real-time debunking of propaganda.

In the past, the British would have easily passed off the recent destroyer provocation as pure Russian aggression and could expect outrage from all western aligned countries. The EU and US populations could have easily been whipped into a frenzy and DEMANDED reprisals against Russia if not outright war. Something similar to a "Gulf of Tonkin" moment.

But, that did not happen. People all over the world now know NOTHING from the US or British press is to be trusted. People also now know NATO routinely try to stir up trouble and provoke Russia.

So, Americans and even British citizens displayed no widespread outrage because they simply did not believe their own government's and compliant media's side of the story.

US and British "soft power" are long gone. No one trusts them. No one wants to follow them into anymore disastrous wars of aggression.

Western media still do not understand this and cannot figure out why so many refuse western vaccines or support the newest color revolutions.

We simply do not believe it.

librul , Jul 17 2021 17:04 utc | 55

This site appears to be the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/deceiving-the-public

They cast Germany as a victim or potential victim of foreign aggressors, as a peace-loving nation forced to take up arms to protect its populace or defend European civilization against Communism.

I remember a tv history program that had interviews with German soldiers.
I recall one who had seen/participated in going from village to village in the USSR
hanging local communist leaders. He said they had been taught that by doing this
they were "protecting civilization".

fx , Jul 17 2021 19:01 utc | 68

Arrogance is not a deadly disease or even a hindrance for mainstream presstitutes; it is a job qualification, making them all the more manipulable and manipulative. And so, as with Michael Gordon, Judith Miller, Brett Stephens and David Sanger (essentially all of them pulling double duty for the apartheid state), people will die from their propaganda, but they will advance.

Max , Jul 17 2021 19:48 utc | 72

Name a democracy that isn't a suzerainty.

Name a leader with moral courage and integrity among suzerainties (private plantations). Nations without integrity and filled with Orcs (individuals without conscience), can't be civilized. They're EVIL vassals of Saruman & Sauron, manipulated by Wormtongue.

"The true equation is 'democracy' = government by world financiers."
– J.R.R. Tolkien

Henry Kissinger, in his interview with Chatham House stated, "the United States is in a CRISIS of confidence... America has committed great moral wrongs." What are U$A's core values?

According to a CFR member :
"How lucky I am that my mother studied with JRR Tolkien and CS Lewis and WH Auden and that she passed on to me a command of language that permits me to "tell the story" of the world economy in plain English. She would have been delighted that I managed to show that the evil Gollum from Tolkien's tales lives above the doorway in the Oval Office, which he certainly does. I saw him there myself. He may have found a new perch over at The Federal Reserve Bank as well."
– Excerpt From, Signals: The Breakdown of the Social Contract and the Rise of Geopolitics by Dr Philippa Malmgren

The Financial Empire has ran out of LUCK. "In God We Trust"

Why Mordor Failed... Sauron's hegemonic collapse holds potent lessons

"A people that elect corrupt politicians, imposters, thieves and traitors are not victims but accomplices."

Tuyzentfloot , Jul 17 2021 21:08 utc | 78

I thought moral superiority was the official position of NATO. The explicit intent is to weaponize human rights and democracy . So it is not merely the mundane 'our group is better' or the somewhat nostalgic western form of moral superiority, it's weaponized moral superiority.

Erelis , Jul 17 2021 21:27 utc | 79

George Will looking good I tellya. Anybody know who does his embalming?

Doesn't Will's article reek of Nazi propaganda against the Russians as a mongrel Asiatic uncivilized people? Of course to attack the Chinese as uncivilized? China uncivilized? 5,000 years of continuous culture? The Russians and Chinese must join up with civilization. Unfortunately at least in the West race is only about skin color. It certainly wasn't the case with the original Nazis. Will's piece is blatantly racist out of the tradition of Nazism.

Rob , Jul 17 2021 22:41 utc | 83

American exceptionalism's finest spokesman -- George F. Will

circumspect , Jul 18 2021 1:38 utc | 88

Oxford and the Ivy League. The training grounds for the Anglo American deep state and the cheerleaders of the empire. Expect nothing more of these deeply under educated sudo intellectuals.

Tom_Q_Collins , Jul 18 2021 5:00 utc | 95

Posted by: Ayatoilet | Jul 17 2021 12:50 utc | 16

Plenty of people who work for the MIC and in various policy circles/think tanks have plenty "to show for it" where all these wars are concerned. Many billions of dollars were siphoned upwards and outwards into the bank accounts and expensive homes of the managerial and executive classes (even the hazard pay folks who actually went to the places "we" were bombing) not just at Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Booz Allen, etc. but plenty of lesser known "socioeconomically disadvantaged" Small Businesses (proper noun in this context) companies who utilized the services of an army of consultants to glom onto the war machine. In most cases of the larger firms, Wall Street handled the IPOs long ago, and these companies have entire (much less profitable) divisions dedicated to state and local governments to "diversify" their business portfolios in case the people finally get sick of war. But that rarely happens in any real sense because the corporate establishment "legacy media" makes sure that there's always an uncivilized country to bomb or threaten....and that means the "defense" department needs loads of services, weapons, and process improvement consultants all the time. War is a racket; always has been, always will be.

Tom_Q_Collins , Jul 18 2021 5:03 utc | 96

In what ways is the USA like Darth Vader's Galactic Empire in Star Wars?

Constantine , Jul 18 2021 7:33 utc | 98

Posted by: Mar man | Jul 17 2021 16:14 utc | 44

Unfortunately, it seems that truly large segments of the population in the developed western countries and especially in the Anglo-sphere believe the propaganda emanating from the imperial mouthpieces. The US citizenry is a case study in manipulating the public.

Indeed, the DNC liberals are effectively the vanguard of the pro-war movement, espouse racist Rusophobia and conitnue Trump's hostility to China. The so-cslled conservatives follow their own tradition of imperial mobilization behind the Washington regime: Chin,Latin America, the very people who berated the 'Deep State' now paise its subversive activities against the targeted left-wing governments.

As for the moribund left - it would be better described as leftovers - it is often taken for a ride as long as the imperial messaging is promoted by the liberal media. The excuses for imperialism are a constant for many of them (even as they call themselves anti-imperialists) and the beleaguered voicesfor the truth are far and few. The latter often face silencing campaigns not just from the establishment hacks, but from their own supposed ideological comrades, who are, of course, in truth nothing of the sort.

All in all, despite the consistent record of manipulative propaganda and utter criminality the imperial regime never loses the support of the critical masss of the citizenry.

Bemildred , Jul 18 2021 7:48 utc | 99

All in all, despite the consistent record of manipulative propaganda and utter criminality the imperial regime never loses the support of the critical masss of the citizenry.

Posted by: Constantine | Jul 18 2021 7:33 utc | 98

Maybe 50% of the people here bother to vote, in IMPORTANT elections. Can be a lot less if the election is not important. The only people still engaged politically here at all are the people with good jobs. The American people have given up. And there are a lot of angry people running around, with guns. Claiming the citizenry here support the government is imperial propaganda. Why do you think they like mercenaries and proxies so much? And this is all in great contrast to when I was young 50 years ago.

[Jun 06, 2021] US Troops Die for World Domination, Not Freedom Consortiumnews

Notable quotes:

"... CaitlinJohnstone.com ..."

"... Please Support Our Spring Fund Drive! ..."

"... The New York Times ..."

"... War is a Racket ..."

"... Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix ..."

"... Rogue Nation: Psychonautical Adventures With Caitlin Johnstone ..."

"... Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers ..."

"... This article was re-published with permission. ..."

"... The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of ..."

Jun 06, 2021 | consortiumnews.com

US Troops Die for World Domination, Not Freedom May 31, 2021 Save

On Memorial Day, Caitlin Johnstone says it's important to block the propaganda that helps feed a steady supply of teenagers into the imperial war machine.

Airman placing U.S. flags at military graves, May 27. (Arlington National Cemetery, Flickr)

By Caitlin Johnstone
CaitlinJohnstone.com

V ice President Kamala Harris spent the weekend under fire from Republicans, which of course means that Kamala Harris spent the weekend being criticized for the most silly, vapid reason you could possibly criticize Kamala Harris for.

Apparently the likely future president tweeted "Enjoy the long weekend," a reference to the Memorial Day holiday on Monday, instead of gushing about fallen troops and sacrifice.

That's it, that's the whole entire story. That silly, irrelevant offense by one of the sleaziest people in the single most corrupt and murderous government on earth is the whole entire basis for histrionic headlines from conservative media outlets like this :

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?dnt=true&embedId=twitter-widget-0&features=eyJ0ZndfZXhwZXJpbWVudHNfY29va2llX2V4cGlyYXRpb24iOnsiYnVja2V0IjoxMjA5NjAwLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjpudWxsfSwidGZ3X2hvcml6b25fdHdlZXRfZW1iZWRfOTU1NSI6eyJidWNrZXQiOiJodGUiLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjpudWxsfSwidGZ3X3R3ZWV0X2VtYmVkX2NsaWNrYWJpbGl0eV8xMjEwMiI6eyJidWNrZXQiOiJjb250cm9sIiwidmVyc2lvbiI6bnVsbH19&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1398784636193488897&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fconsortiumnews.com%2F2021%2F05%2F31%2Fus-troops-die-for-world-domination-not-freedom%2F&sessionId=8c4db816a251b9ec8a405c5ae95098e3aa132642&theme=light&widgetsVersion=82e1070%3A1619632193066&width=550px

Harris, the born politician, was quick to course correct.

"Throughout our history our service men and women have risked everything to defend our freedoms and our country," the veep tweeted . "As we prepare to honor them on Memorial Day, we remember their service and their sacrifice."

https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?visual=true&url=https%3A%2F%2Fapi.soundcloud.com%2Ftracks%2F1059031867&show_artwork=true&maxwidth=860&maxheight=1000&dnt=1&utm_campaign=wtshare&utm_medium=widget&utm_content=https%25253A%25252F%25252Fsoundcloud.com%25252Fgoing_rogue%25252Fus-troops-die-for-world-domination-not-freedom&utm_source=caitlinjohnstone.com

Listen to this article.

Which is of course complete bullshit. It has been generations since any member of the U.S. military could be said to have served or sacrificed defending America or its freedoms, and that has been the case throughout almost the entirety of its history. If you are reading this it is statistically unlikely that you are of an age where any U.S. military personnel died for any other reason than corporate profit and global domination, and if you are it's almost certain you weren't old enough to have had mature thoughts about it at the time.

Please Support Our Spring Fund Drive!

Whenever you criticize the U.S. war machine online within earshot of anyone who's sufficiently propagandized, you will invariably be lectured about the second World War and how we'd all be speaking German or Japanese without the brave men who died for our freedom. This makes my point for me: the fact that apologists for U.S. imperialism always need to reach all the way back through history to the cusp of living memory to find even one single example of the American military being used for purposes that weren't evil proves that it most certainly is evil.

But this is one of the main reasons there are so very many movies and history documentaries made about World War II: it's an opportunity to portray U.S. servicemen bravely fighting and dying for a noble cause without having to bend the truth beyond recognition. The other major reason is that focusing on the second World War allows members of the U.S. empire to escape into a time when the Big Bad Guy on the world stage was someone else.

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?dnt=true&embedId=twitter-widget-1&features=eyJ0ZndfZXhwZXJpbWVudHNfY29va2llX2V4cGlyYXRpb24iOnsiYnVja2V0IjoxMjA5NjAwLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjpudWxsfSwidGZ3X2hvcml6b25fdHdlZXRfZW1iZWRfOTU1NSI6eyJidWNrZXQiOiJodGUiLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjpudWxsfSwidGZ3X3R3ZWV0X2VtYmVkX2NsaWNrYWJpbGl0eV8xMjEwMiI6eyJidWNrZXQiOiJjb250cm9sIiwidmVyc2lvbiI6bnVsbH19&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1399109694334046211&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fconsortiumnews.com%2F2021%2F05%2F31%2Fus-troops-die-for-world-domination-not-freedom%2F&sessionId=8c4db816a251b9ec8a405c5ae95098e3aa132642&theme=light&widgetsVersion=82e1070%3A1619632193066&width=550px

From the end of World War II to the fall of the U.S.S.R., the U.S. military was used to smash the spread of communism and secure geostrategic interests toward the ultimate end of engineering the collapse of the Soviet Union. After this was accomplished in 1991, U.S. foreign policy officially shifted to preserving a unipolar world order by preventing the rise of any other superpower which could rival its might.

A 1992 article by The New York Times titled " U.S. Strategy Plan Calls For Insuring No Rivals Develop ," reporting on a leaked document which describes a policy known as the Wolfowitz Doctrine after then-Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Paul Wolfowitz, reads as follows:

"In a broad new policy statement that is in its final drafting stage, the Defense Department asserts that America's political and military mission in the post-cold-war era will be to insure that no rival superpower is allowed to emerge in Western Europe, Asia or the territory of the former Soviet Union.

A 46-page document that has been circulating at the highest levels of the Pentagon for weeks, and which Defense Secretary Dick Cheney expects to release later this month, states that part of the American mission will be 'convincing potential competitors that they need not aspire to a greater role or pursue a more aggressive posture to protect their legitimate interests.'

The classified document makes the case for a world dominated by one superpower whose position can be perpetuated by constructive behavior and sufficient military might to deter any nation or group of nations from challenging American primacy."

This is all U.S. troops have been fighting and dying for since the Berlin Wall came down. Not "freedom", not "democracy" and certainly not the American people. Just continual uncontested domination of this planet at all cost: domination of its resources, its trade routes, its seas, its air, and its humans, no matter how many lives need to risked and snuffed out in order to achieve it. The U.S. has killed millions and displaced tens of millions just since the turn of this century in the reckless pursuit of that goal.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/26O-2SVcrw0?enablejsapi=1&autoplay=0&cc_load_policy=0&iv_load_policy=1&loop=0&modestbranding=1&fs=1&playsinline=0&controls=1&color=red&rel=0&autohide=2&theme=dark&

And, as Smedley Butler spelled out 86 years ago in his still-relevant book War is a Racket , U.S. military personnel have been dying for profit.

Nothing gets the gears of industry turning like war, and nothing better creates chaotic Wild West environments of shock and confusion during which more wealth and power can be grabbed. War profiteers pour immense resources into lobbying , think tanks and campaign donations to manipulate and bribe policy makers into making decisions which promote war and military expansionism, with astounding success . This is all entirely legal.

It's important to spread awareness that this is all U.S. troops have been dying for, because the fairy tale that they fight for freedom and for their countrymen is a major propaganda narrative used in military recruitment. While poverty plays a significant role in driving up enlistments as predatory recruiters target poor and middle class youth promising them a future in the nation with the worst income inequality in the industrialized world, the fact that the aggressively propagandized glorification of military "service" makes it a more esteemed career path than working at a restaurant or a grocery store means people are more likely to enlist.

Without all that propaganda deceiving people into believing that military work is something virtuous, military service would be the most shameful job anyone could possibly have; other stigmatized jobs like sex work would be regarded as far more noble. You'd be less reluctant to tell your extended family over Christmas that you're a janitor at a seedy massage parlor than that you've enlisted in the U.S. military, because instead of congratulating and praising you, your Uncle Murray would look at you and say, "So you're gonna be killing kids for crude oil?"

And that's exactly how it should be. Continuing to uphold the lie that U.S. troops fight and die for a good cause is helping to ensure a steady supply of teenagers to feed into the gears of the imperial war machine. Stop feeding into the lie that the war machine is worth killing and being killed for. Not out of disrespect for the dead, but out of reverence for the living.

Caitlin Johnstone is a rogue journalist, poet, and utopia prepper who publishes regularly at Medium . Her work is entirely reader-supported , so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking her on Facebook , following her antics on Twitter , checking out her podcast on either Youtube , soundcloud , Apple podcasts or Spotify , following her on Steemit , throwing some money into her tip jar on Patreon or Paypal , purchasing some of her sweet merchandise , buying her books Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix , Rogue Nation: Psychonautical Adventures With Caitlin Johnstone and Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers .

This article was re-published with permission.

The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News .

---

Em , June 1, 2021 at 09:52

Instead of annually memorializing those dead youth, who were, in one way or the other, coerced to go off to foreign lands to kill or be killed, by other youth, in the name of a piece of dead symbolic cloth, wouldn't it be a better idea to honor them, while alive in the prime of living (the world over) by affording them the means to learn, leading by example, to discover for themselves – how to think critically as to what the real options are, collectively as well as individually, for survival and thriving.

CNfan , June 1, 2021 at 04:06

"Global domination" for the benefit of a predatory financial oligarchy.

Peter Loeb , June 1, 2021 at 09:11

Read William Hartung's "Prophets of War " to understand the dynamics.

Peter in Boston

Thom Williams , May 31, 2021 at 20:12

Re: CorsortiumNews, Joe Lauria, Caitlin Johnstone, Realist, & Rael Nidess, M.D.

Thank you all for speaking your truth in this dystopian human universe so apparently lacking human reason and understanding. As is so wisely introduced and recognized herein, the murderous depravity of the "Wolfwitz Doctrine" being and remaining the public policy formulation of our national governance, both foreign and domestic, is a fact that every U.S. citizen should consider and understand on this Memorial Day.
As Usual,
EA

Realist , May 31, 2021 at 17:27

Well stated, perfectly logical again on this subject as always, Caitlin. You out the warmongers for their game to fleece the public and rape the world all so a handful of already fat, lazyass but enormously wealthy and influential people can acquire, without the slightest bit of shame, yet more, more and more of everything there is to be had. You and General Butler.

Will this message get through, this time? Maybe the billionth time is the charm, eh? Can the scales suddenly fall from the eyes of the 330 million Americans who will then demand an immediate end to the madness? On the merits, it's the only conclusion that might realise any actual justice for our country and the rest of the world upon whose throat it keeps a knee firmly planted.

Sorry, nothing of the sort shall ever happen, not as long as the entire mercenary mass media obeys its corporate ownership and speaks nothing but false narratives every minute of every day. Not as long as the educational system is really nothing more than a propaganda indoctrination experience for every child born in the glorious USA! Not as long as every politician occupying any given office is just a bought and paid for tool of the Matrix with great talents for convincing the masses that 2 + 2 = 3, or 5, or whatever is convenient at the time to benefit the ledgers of their plutocrat masters.

What better illustrates the reality of my last assertion than the occupancy of the White House by Sleepy/Creepy Joe Biden who, through age alone, has been reduced to nothing more than a sack of unresponsive meat firmly trussed up with ropes and pulleys that his handlers pull this way or that to create an animatronic effect apparently perfectly convincing to the majority of the American public? Or so they say, based upon some putative election results.

Truly, thanks for the effort, Caitlin. I do appreciate that some have a grasp on the truth. I look forward to its recapitulation by yourself and many others to no effect on every Memorial Day in the USA. It would be unrealistic of me to say otherwise.

Rael Nidess, M.D. , May 31, 2021 at 12:54

Kudos for being one of a very few to mention the central driving ethic behind U.S. foreign policy since the demise of the USSR: The Wolfowitz Doctrine. As central today as it was when first published.

[May 03, 2021] US generals to the Director of DNA: Either supply the facts or shut up

May 03, 2021 | www.moonofalabama.org

Stonebird , Apr 28 2021 18:38 utc | 18

These folks have had it with the constant stream of baseless propaganda U.S. intelligence is spilling over the world:

Dear Director of National Intelligence,

we, the the 4-star Generals leading U.S. regional commands all over the world, are increasingly concerned with about the lack of evidence for claims you make about our opponents.

We, as true believers, do not doubt whatever judgment you make about the harmful activities of Russia, Iran and China. However - our allies and partners do not yet subscribe to the bliss of ignorance. They keep asking us for facts that support those judgments

Unfortunately, we have none that we could provide.

You say that Russia thought to manipulate Trump allies and to smear Biden , that Russia and Iran aimed to sway the 2020 election through covert campaigns and that China runs covert operations to influence members of Congress .

Media reports have appeared in which 'intelligence sources' claim that Russia, China and Iran are all paying bounties to the Taliban for killing U.S. soldiers. Fortunately no soldier got hurt by those rumors.

Our allies and partners read those and other reports and ask us for evidence. They want to know how exactly Russia, Iran and China are doing these things.

They, of course, hope to learn from our experience to protect their own countries.

Currently we are not able to provide them with such information. Your people keep telling our that all of it is SECRET.

We therefore ask you to declassify the facts that support your judgments. ^*

Sincerely

The Generals

----
PS: ^* Either that or shut the fuck up.

Look, The generals and the intelligence agencies haven't won a war for a long time. So now they will fight each other . At least ONE of them will win this time ! Success.

[Apr 19, 2021] You have to be careful around them

Apr 19, 2021 | www.moonofalabama.org

NotBob , Apr 17 2021 19:24 utc | 16

robert@3 :

While I agree with 99% of your post, there is one point that I think needs to be keeping in mind. While the populace of this particular manure-hole certainly has its equal share of dumb creatures, the people running things cannot be so easily dismissed. The problem as I see it is they have a great deal of a certain kind of intelligence, as someone said "smart, but not wise". They are educated, but insane. The cream of the crop that has gone sour. In my travels I would often ask people what they actually thought of "Americans". An Indonesian man responded " soft, but cunning. You have to be careful around them."

If these cunning, insane, power hungry creatures were simply dumb and not truly evil, we might be in less of a shit show (nod to psychohistorian) than we are.

---

Ruben Chandler , Apr 17 2021 22:23 utc | 42

@ NotBob | Apr 17 2021 19:24 utc | 16

Aleister Crowley of all people summed up these kind of people:

A cunning combination of rat and ape.

Biswapriya Purkayast , Apr 18 2021 0:55 utc | 63

After 20 years of regular interaction with Amerikastanis online and in real life, I have realised that they live in a parallel universe in which Hollywood is the arbiter of truth. They genuinely believe that anything they choose to imagine is the truth just because they imagine it.

A couple of days ago when the Imperialist States admitted its "Russia Bounty" story was concocted, the people who had shrieked to the skies about it last year had a chance to apologise. Did they? They ignored it. It did not happen because they chose to believe it didn't.

[Mar 26, 2021] The net result of neocon policies of Biden administration

Money spend on military adventures of the neoliberal empire are money stolen from common people

Mar 26, 2021 | www.unz.com

Jeff Davis , says: March 24, 2021 at 5:11 pm GMT • 9.3 hours ago

@ko

Actually, it is the ***American people*** who are fucked. The little people that is. Fucked on behalf of Israel/Neocons, the MIC, the Neolibs, and the other "owners" of the country.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/rsL6mKxtOlQ?feature=oembed

The good news is that when the above have thoroughly looted the country, and the rest of the world sheds the by then worthless US dollar, and the City on the Hill becomes the Toothless Slum on the Hill,

[Mar 26, 2021] At this point, why should Taylor lament that Mexican-American soldiers proudly display the Mexican flag? Why not, when the US flag represents nothing abroad but 'twerking', Zionist supremacism

Edited for clarity; racial slurs are removed... Paradoxically recently due to summer riots the attitude toward Zionism among the US public slightly improved, as least as far as domestic policies are concerted...

Mar 26, 2021 | www.unz.com

Priss Factor , says: Website March 25, 2021 at 6:04 am GMT • 1.6 days ago

American Renaissance has done important work, but it is ultimately useless because it pulls its punches or willfully misses what should be the main target: Zionist Supremacist Power. Take Jared Taylor's commentary of the US military in the video below. It's pure Pat-Condell. He blames everything but will not name the power behind the mess. Shhhh about the Zionists.

https://www.bitchute.com/embed/03vYmvgpmBQi/

At this point, why should Taylor lament that Mexican-American soldiers proudly display the Mexican flag? Why not, when the US flag represents nothing abroad but 'twerking', Zionist supremacism, Wars for Israel, mindless animus toward Russia, ridiculous paranoia about China, nonstop hatred toward Iran, complete nonsense about Venezuela, BLM stupidity, and global dissemination of globo-homo ludicrousness? Americanism meant something when Anglo-Americans(and those properly Anglo-Americanized) ruled the nation with pride and confidence. Then, Americanism was based on the Great Compromise: A move toward a more merit-and-rule-based on the part of Anglo-Americans who took the land from the Indians, brought blacks in chains, and encouraged mass-immigration to develop the land. In return, non-Anglos would acknowledge the Anglo-foundation of America and try to be Good Americans. That compromise is no longer relevant because the US is now totally Zionist-supremacist, meaning the New Americanism is predicated on just about everyone and everything revolving around the question of "Is it great for Zionists?" If Zionists want it, they get it eventually. No wonder the First and Second Amendments are now hanging by a thread. Zionists don't like the Constitution now that they got total power.

Other than Zionists, Jared Taylor should be blaming his own Wasp kind. Why did they hand over power to the Zionists almost completely? That was the beginning of much of the rot since. Taylor bitches about blacks, Mexicans, and etc. not being properly patriotic in the new order, but who created the new order? Zionists spearheaded the making of New America, but Wasps just played along. If Wasps are such worthless cucks to Zionists, why should it be surprising that nonwhites would no longer respect whites? Of course, given that most nonwhites would find it odd if Zionists told them, "Americanism = Zionist Greatness", Zionists encourage the next-best-thing, which is anti-whiteness or 'scapewhiting'(scapegoat whitey for everything), as it unites all nonwhites with Zionists in the War on Whiteness. War on Whiteness or WOW is great for Zionists as it morally shames and paralyzes whites into having no pride and prestige, which translates into having no will and agency. Filled with shame and 'white guilt', whites become mired in mode of redemption, the terms of which are decided by Zionists who advise Total Support for Zion, More Wars for Israel, More Diversity, and More Globo-Homo(proxy of Zionist Power).

The source of the problem is the Zionist-White relations. When whites handed over power to Zionists, Zionists made the key decisions, and those have been premised on whatever-necessary-to-secure-Zionist-power. #1 priority for Zionists is then White Submissivism to Zionist Supremacism. If Taylor will not discuss Zionist Power, it's like complaining about the smoke without mentioning the fire. Also, does it make sense for whites to bleat about blacks, browns, yellows, and etc. when whites themselves cravenly collaborate with Zionist Power? Whites, especially the elites, don't stand for what is good for America as a whole. They suck up to Zionists and support Zionist identity & Zionism. When whites act like that, why should nonwhites be good American patriots? Whites have led the way in betraying the original Americanism. In some ways, nonwhites, such as blacks into black power and Mexican-Americans into Mexican pride, are more admirable because, at the very least, they are tribal-patriotic about their own kind. In contrast, whites have betrayed both White Power and Traditional Americanism. They are now allergic to anything white-and-positive but also utterly lack a general sense of Americanism. White 'liberals' love to virtue-signal by supporting blacks, diversity, & globo-homo, AND white 'conservatives' love to cuck-signal by waving the Israeli Flag & yapping about how Israel is "America's best, greatest, closest, and dearest ally." Both groups fail at simple generic patriotism based on rules and principles. For white 'liberals', blacks are higher than other groups, and for white 'conservatives' it's Zionists-uber-alles.

In the current order, Zionists encourage nonwhites to wave their own identitarian flag AGAINST whiteness while encouraging whites to wave the Zionist flag. In a way, one might say this Zionist strategy is foolish. After all, if nonwhites are made to be anti-white and if whiteness is made to be synonymous with support-for-Israel and praise-of-Zionists, might it not lead to nonwhites being anti-Israel and anti-Zionist as well? After all, if whiteness = love-for-Zionists whereas non-whiteness = anti-whiteness, wouldn't it lead to non-whiteness = anti-Zionistness since whiteness is so closely associated with cucking to Zionists?

Zionists bank on two factors in this strategy. They figure (1) nonwhites are too dumb to connect the dots or (2) even if nonwhites connected the dots and became more critical of Israel & Zionist Power on account of whiteness = support-for-Zion, it will draw whites even closer to Zion as white-knight-defenders of Israel against the rising tide of darkies. We see scenario 2 play out with both Mitt Romney and Jared Taylor. They hope that powerful Zionists will like them more if they stand with Zionists against the 'antisemitic' darkies.

It's like Zionists encourage Ilhan Omar to be anti-white while white conzos beat their chests as noble defenders of Zionists from 'Anti-Semites'.

[Mar 21, 2021] Populism and illusions of American exceptionalism

Mar 21, 2021 | www.moonofalabama.org

ld , Mar 19 2021 22:20 utc | 48

James @28

contrived moulded whatever the case I leave this excerpt. I feel it hits the head.

Here's what journalist Joe Bageant wrote in 2007:

Much of the ongoing battle for America's soul is about healing the souls of these Americans and rousing them from the stupefying glut of commodity and spectacle. It is about making sure that they -- and we -- refuse to accept torture as the act of "heroes" and babies deformed by depleted uranium as the "price of freedom." Caught up in the great self-referential hologram of imperial America, force-fed goods and hubris like fattened steers, working people like World Championship Wrestling and Confederate flags and flat-screen televisions and the idea of an American empire. ("American Empire! I like the sound of that!" they think to themselves, without even the slightest idea what it means historically.) "The people" doing our hardest work and fighting our wars are not altruistic and probably never were. They don't give a rat's bunghole about the world's poor or the planet or animals or anything else. Not really. "The people" like cheap gas. They like chasing post-Thanksgiving Day Christmas sales. And if fascism comes, they will like that too if the cost of gas isn't too high and Comcast comes through with a twenty-four-hour NFL channel.

That is the American hologram. That is the peculiar illusion we live within, the illusion that holds us together, makes us alike, yet tells each of us we are unique. And it will remain in force until the whole shiteree comes down around our heads. Working people do not deny reality. They create it from the depths of their perverse ignorance, even as the so-called left speaks in non sequiturs and wonders why it cannot gain any political traction. Meanwhile, for the people, it is football and NASCAR and a republic free from married queers and trigger locks on guns. That's what they voted for -- an armed and moral republic. And that's what we get when we stand by and watch the humanity get hammered out of our fellow citizens, letting them be worked cheap and farmed like a human crop for profit.

Genuine moral values have jack to do with politics. But in an obsessively religious nation, values remain the most effective smoke screen for larceny by the rich and hatred and fear by the rest. What Christians and so many quiet, ordinary Americans were voting for in the presidential elections of 2000 and 2004 was fear of human beings culturally unlike themselves, particularly gays and lesbians and Muslims and other non-Christians. That's why in eleven states Republicans got constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage on the ballot. In nine of them the bill passed easily. It was always about fearing and, in the worst cases, hating "the other."

Being a southerner, I have hated in my lifetime. I can remember schoolyard discussions of supposed "nigger knifing" of white boys at night and such. And like most people over fifty, it shows in my face, because by that age we have the faces we deserve. Likewise I have seen hate in others and know it when I see it. And I am seeing more of it now than ever before in my lifetime, which is saying something considering that I grew up down here during the Jim Crow era. Fanned and nurtured by neoconservative elements, the hate is every bit equal to the kind I saw in my people during those violent years. Irrational. Deeply rooted. Based on inchoate fears.

The fear is particularly prevalent in the middle and upper-middle classes here, the very ones most openly vehement about being against using the words nigger and fuck. They are what passes for educated people in a place like Winchester. You can smell their fear. Fear of losing their advantages and money. Fear there won't be enough time to grab and stash enough geet to keep themselves and their offspring in Chardonnay and farting through silk for the next fifty years.

So they keep the lie machinery and the smoke generators cranking full blast as long as possible, hoping to elect another one of their own kind to the White House -- Democratic or Republican, it doesn't matter so long as they keep the scam going. The Laurita Barrs speak in knowing, authoritative tones, and the inwardly fearful house painter and single-mom forklift driver listen and nod. Why take a chance on voting for a party that would let homos be scout masters?

(Dear Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America's Class War, chapter 2)

[Mar 21, 2021] How do we change a nation state that has so thoroughly morphed into an advertising and marketing phony, aided and abetted by so many deluded morons?

Mar 21, 2021 | www.moonofalabama.org

vetinLA , Mar 20 2021 5:24 utc | 98

Many great observations tonight, but all, beg the question; How do we change a nation state that has so thoroughly morphed into an advertising and marketing phony, aided and abetted by so many deluded morons?

[Mar 21, 2021] Going to be a lot of very confused people at Foggy Bottom. They may never have experienced this degree of contempt before.

Mar 21, 2021 | www.moonofalabama.org

Yeah, Right , Mar 19 2021 22:08 utc | 46

This is interesting. Apparently both the Russians and the Chinese have concluded that Biden intends to use "CornPop" faux-macho posturing as his foreign policy, and they have both decided that "f**k that, let's nip this in the bud".

Because it looks like they have decided they have had a gut-full of US "exceptionalism" and are quite determined to say so. To anyone, but especially to the Americans.

Going to be a lot of very confused people at Foggy Bottom. They may never have experienced this degree of contempt before.

karlof1 , Mar 19 2021 22:10 utc | 47

ak74 @39--

I about fell on the floor when I read Blinken's words, my first thought being "this klutz has zero knowledge of history since 1588 and just admitted as much. In China, Blinken would never achieve any position of power.

The decadence of the Outlaw US Empire's government is like so many prions turning brain tissue into a swiss-cheese-like mass and then boasting about how finely tuned are its cognitive abilities. And when Harris is installed, we'll have a genuine novice in charge--The Blind leading the Blind.

It's no wonder the Chinese sought an audience with Lavrov ASAP.

[Mar 21, 2021] The Americans have completely lost the culture of negotiation. If there are no elementary human manners, then what kind of agreements can we talk about?

Mar 21, 2021 | www.moonofalabama.org

Ian2 , Mar 20 2021 1:53 utc | 85

The Americans have completely lost the culture of negotiation. If there are no elementary human manners, then what kind of agreements can we talk about? A sad picture. And dangerous. A madman with nuclear weapons (and chemical weapons, by the way) is not the best option for a reliable negotiating partner.

alaff | Mar 19 2021 20:44 utc | 32:

And Bio-weapons.

[Mar 06, 2021] Not agreement capable

Mar 06, 2021 | www.moonofalabama.org

uncle tungsten , Mar 6 2021 0:38 utc | 62

arby #56

Are you gonna believe what I tell you or are you gonna believe what you see, comes to mind.

I believe what I see and I don't see the USA doing any bridge building, even in its own country where bridge infrastructure is in serious decay.

I repeat: These are not normal people in charge. They have lost their minds.

Maybe once a long time ago the USA diplomatic corp was supported by elected officials that set out to make allies based on mutual respect. But those days are long gone. The only bridges the USA builds is munition supply channels, be it by air or by sea. They destroy physical and metaphorical bridges in every nation they occupy.

The USA builds walls and barriers and obstruction: at home at the Mexican border, in the capital state, by economic sanctions illegally applied throughout the world, by destroying its home regulatory system to keep poisoned citizens from seeking judicial or regulatory redress for pollution and human suffering.

I see a mendacious, failed state surrounding its elected officials and financial institutions and even suburbs with walls and barriers. Then they attack people who criticise them in moderately peaceful ways. That is who they are, that is what I see.

[Mar 04, 2021] US politicians usually justify their bloodlust wars with Thucydides Trap style rhetoric. " Let's fight "X" there so that we don't have to fight them here ." Most of us are old enough to remember Rice's ominous warning about the " smoking gun becoming a mushroom cloud

Mar 04, 2021 | www.unz.com

ValMonde , says: March 2, 2021 at 8:44 pm GMT • 2.2 days ago

@Steve Naidamast

US politicians usually justify their bloodlust wars with Thucydides Trap style rhetoric. " Let's fight "X" there so that we don't have to fight them here ." Most of us are old enough to remember Rice's ominous warning about the " smoking gun becoming a mushroom cloud ". Granted, it's part of the consent manufacturing process but it's the public perception of an imminent danger that matters.

[Feb 05, 2021] Head Of Strategic Command Warns Nuclear War With Russia, China -A Real Possibility- - ZeroHedge

Feb 05, 2021 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com,

The head of US Strategic Command (STRATCOM) warned that a nuclear war with Russia or China is a "real possibility" and is calling for a change in US policy that reflects this threat .

"There is a real possibility that a regional crisis with Russia or China could escalate quickly to a conflict involving nuclear weapons, if they perceived a conventional loss would threaten the regime or state," Vice Adm. Charles Richard wrote in the February edition of the US Naval Institute's monthly magazine .

Charles A. Richard, the 11th commander of US Strategic Command

Richard said the US military must "shift its principal assumption from 'nuclear employment is not possible' to 'nuclear employment is a very real possibility,' and act to meet and deter that reality."

The STRATCOM chief said Russia and China "have begun to aggressively challenge international norms and global peace using instruments of power and threats of force in ways not seen since the height of the Cold War."

Richard hyped up Russia and China's nuclear modernization, calling for the US to compete with the two nations. When it comes to China's nuclear weapons, the US and Russia have vastly larger arsenals. Current estimates put Beijing's nuclear arsenal at about 320 warheads, while Washington and Moscow have about 6,000 warheads each .

Even if Beijing doubles its arsenal over the next decade, as the China hawks are predicting, it will still be small compared to Washington's. The US would have to eliminate a good amount of its arsenal to convince Beijing to participate in arms control agreements.

Since STRATCOM is the command post that oversees Washington's nuclear arsenal, its commanders are always overplaying the risk of nuclear war and asking for more money to modernize the stockpile. But with the US prioritizing so-called "great power competition" with China and Russia and an increased US military presence in places like the South China Sea , the Arctic , and the Black Sea , the threat of nuclear war is rising.

[Jan 28, 2021] What Biden Wars Will Actually Look Like by Caitlin Johnstone

Jan 28, 2021 | consortiumnews.com

CaitlinJohnstone.com

T here's a news story about a U.S. military convoy entering Syria being shared around social media with captions claiming that President Joe Biden is already "invading" Syria which is getting tons of shares in both right-wing and left anti-imperialist circles.

The virality of these shares has inspired clickbait titles like " Joe Biden Invades Syria with Convoy of U.S. Troops and Choppers on First Full Day as President ," which are being shared with equal virality.

But if you read the original report everyone jumped on, accurately titled "U.S. military convoy enters northeast Syria: report," you don't have to read too far to get to this line :

"Other local media report that such maneuvers are not unusual as the U.S. often moves transfers equipment between Iraq and Syria."

So, while this is a movement of troops between illegitimate military occupations which have no business existing in either country, it is nothing new and would have been happening regardless of which candidate had won the last U.S. presidential election.

Another inaccurate narrative that's gone completely viral is the claim that Biden is sending more troops to Iraq. This one traces back to a single Twitter post by some Trumpy account with the handle "@amuse" who shared a Jerusalem Post article with the caption "BREAKING: President Biden is considering reversing Trump's drawdown in Iraq by adding thousands of troops to combat growing terror threats in the region as evidenced by Thursday's attack near the U.S. embassy."

If you read the actual JPost article titled " Baghdad bombing could be the Biden admin's first challenge " you will see that it contains no such claim, and if you were to search a bit you would find @amuse claiming that they were sharing something they'd learned from "sources" in D.C. instead of accurately summarizing the contents of the article.

Unless you know this person and know them to be consistently trustworthy, there is no valid reason to believe claims allegedly said by alleged anonymous sources to some openly partisan anonymous account on Twitter.

But the bogus tweet was amplified by many influential accounts, most notably by Donald Trump Jr with the caption "Getting back into wars on the first full day. The Swamp/War Inc. is thrilled right now."

Its virality then caused it to work its way outward to dupe many well-meaning anti-imperialists (myself included until I looked into it) who are vigilant against Biden's notorious warmongering , and now there's a widespread narrative throughout every part of the ideological spectrum that Biden is escalating warmongering in both Syria and Iraq.

It is entirely possible – probable even – that reliable warmonger Joe Biden will end up sending more U.S. troops to Iraq and Syria at some point during his administration. But if the antiwar community keeps staring at the movement of ground troops with hypervigilant intensity, they won't be paying enough attention to the areas where the more deadly aspects of Biden's hawkishness are likely to manifest.

Trump's base has been forcefully pushing the narrative that the previous president didn't start any new wars, which while technically true ignores his murderous actions like vetoing the bill to save Yemen from U.S.-backed genocide and actively blocking aid to its people, murdering untold tens of thousands of Venezuelans with starvation sanctions, rolling out many world-threatening Cold War escalations against Russia, engaging in insane brinkmanship with Iran , greatly increasing the number of bombs dropped per day from the previous administration, killing record numbers of civilians , and reducing military accountability for those airstrikes.

Jan. 28, 2019: The Trump administration's U.S. National Security Advisor John R. Bolton, left, and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin announce sanctions of the Venezuela oil company PDVSA. (The White House, Wikimedia Commons)

Trump may not have started any "new wars," but he kept the old ones going and inflamed some of them. Just because you don't start any new wars doesn't mean you're not a warmonger.

Rather than a throwback to "new wars" and the old-school ground invasions of the Bush era, the warmongering we'll be seeing from the Biden administration is more likely to look like this. More starvation sanctions. More proxy conflicts. More cold war. More coups. More special ops. More drone strikes. More slow motion strangulation, less ham-fisted overt warfare.

It is certainly possible that Biden could launch a new full-scale war; the empire is in desperate straits right now, and it could turn out that a very desperate maneuver is needed to maintain global domination. But that isn't the method that it has favored lately.

The U.S. empire much prefers nowadays to pour its resources into less visible acts of violence like economic siege warfare and arming proxy militias; the Iraq invasion left Americans so bitter toward conventional war that any more of it would increase the risk of an actual antiwar movement in the United States, which would be disastrous for the empire.

So rather than tempt fate with the bad publicity of flag-draped coffins flying home by the thousands again imperialism is now served up with a bit more subtlety, with the military playing more of a backup role to guard the infrastructure of this new approach.

It appears clear that this would be the Biden administration's preferred method of warmongering if given the choice.

The incoming Secretary of State Tony Blinken now advocates replacing the old Bush model of full-scale war with "discreet, small-scale sustainable operations, maybe led by special forces, to support local actors." Biden's nominee for CIA Director William Burns urged caution in the lead-up to the Iraq invasion and later expressed regret that he didn't push back against it.

Rather than picking bloodthirsty psychopath Michele Flournoy for defense secretary as many expected, Biden went with the less cartoonishly evil Raytheon board member Lloyd J. Austin III. All this while depraved coupmonger Victoria Nuland is being added to the administration and the murderous Venezuela coup is folded into its policy.

Antiwar protest in San Francisco, Aug. 29, 2013. (Steve Rhodes, Flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Too much of the antiwar community is still stuck in the early 2000s. The Western war machine just doesn't generally kill that way anymore, and we need to adjust our perspectives if we want to address the actual murderousness as it is actually showing up. If you keep looking out for obsolete ground invasions, you're going to miss the new form of warmongering completely.

Trump supporters who claim to oppose war missed this completely throughout the entirety of his presidency, confining the concept of "war" solely to its most blatant iterations in order to feel like their president was a peacemaker instead of a warmonger.

One of the few positive developments that could potentially arise from the Biden administration is helping such people to recognize acts of violence like starvation sanctions as war, since they will be opposing Biden and that is how this new administration will be manifesting much of its murderousness.

The political/media class likes to keep everyone focused on the differences between each president and his immediate predecessor, but we can learn a whole lot more by looking at their similarities. Biden's warmongering is going to look a lot like Trump's -- just directed in some different directions and expressing in slightly different ways -- despite all the energy that has been poured into painting them as two wildly different individuals.

Once you see beyond the partisan puppet show, you see a single oligarchic empire continuing the same murderous agendas from one sock puppet administration to the next.

Caitlin Johnstone is a rogue journalist, poet, and utopia prepper who publishes regularly at Medium . Her work is entirely reader-supported , so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking her on Facebook , following her antics on Twitter , checking out her podcast on either Youtube , soundcloud , Apple podcasts or Spotify , following her on Steemit , throwing some money into her tip jar on Patreon or Paypal , purchasing some of her sweet merchandise , buying her books Rogue Nation: Psychonautical Adventures With Caitlin Johnstone and Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers .

This article was re-published with permission.

The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.

[Jan 27, 2021] The USAi general that needs to be recalled is CENTCOM chief Gen. Kenneth McKenzie Jr.

Notable quotes:

"... Almost immediately after taking command at CENTCOM in March 2019, McKenzie launched his campaign of political manipulation. By requesting additional forces to contain a supposedly urgent Iranian threat, McKenzie triggered the dispatch of an aircraft carrier strike group and a bomber task force to the Middle East. A month later, he told reporters he believed the deployments were "having a very good stabilizing effect," and that he was in the process of negotiating on a larger, long-term U.S. military presence. ..."

Jan 27, 2021 | www.moonofalabama.org

uncle tungsten , Jan 27 2021 0:10 utc | 84

The USAi general that needs to be recalled is CENTCOM chief Gen. Kenneth McKenzie Jr.

The grayzone writer, Gareth Porter explains:

A four-star general who previously served as director of the Joint Staff at the Pentagon, McKenzie is regarded as the most politically astute commander ever to lead Middle East Command, according to journalist Mark Perry. He has also shown himself to be exceptionally brazen in scheming to defend his interests.

Almost immediately after taking command at CENTCOM in March 2019, McKenzie launched his campaign of political manipulation. By requesting additional forces to contain a supposedly urgent Iranian threat, McKenzie triggered the dispatch of an aircraft carrier strike group and a bomber task force to the Middle East. A month later, he told reporters he believed the deployments were "having a very good stabilizing effect," and that he was in the process of negotiating on a larger, long-term U.S. military presence.

As a result of his maneuvering, McKenzie succeeded in acquiring 10,000 to 15,000 more military personnel, bringing the total in his CENTCOM realm to more than 90,000. The rapid increase in assets under his command was revealed in a Senate hearing in March 2020.

I am reminded of the excellent Rolling Stone report on General Stanley McCrystal.

Now, flipping through printout cards of his speech in Paris, McChrystal wonders aloud what Biden question he might get today, and how he should respond. "I never know what's going to pop out until I'm up there, that's the problem," he says. Then, unable to help themselves, he and his staff imagine the general dismissing the vice president with a good one-liner.

"Are you asking about Vice President Biden?" McChrystal says with a laugh. "Who's that?"

"Biden?" suggests a top adviser. "Did you say: Bite Me?"

From the start, McChrystal was determined to place his personal stamp on Afghanistan, to use it as a laboratory for a controversial military strategy known as counterinsurgency. COIN, as the theory is known, is the new gospel of the Pentagon brass, a doctrine that attempts to square the military's preference for high-tech violence with the demands of fighting protracted wars in failed states. COIN calls for sending huge numbers of ground troops to not only destroy the enemy, but to live among the civilian population and slowly rebuild, or build from scratch, another nation's government – a process that even its staunchest advocates admit requires years, if not decades, to achieve. The theory essentially rebrands the military, expanding its authority (and its funding) to encompass the diplomatic and political sides of warfare: Think the Green Berets as an armed Peace Corps. In 2006, after Gen. David Petraeus beta-tested the theory during his "surge" in Iraq, it quickly gained a hardcore following of think-tankers, journalists, military officers and civilian officials. Nicknamed "COINdinistas" for their cultish zeal, this influential cadre believed the doctrine would be the perfect solution for Afghanistan. All they needed was a general with enough charisma and political savvy to implement it.

The journalist Michael Hastings was later killed when his car committed a high speed crash and burned. McCrystal was later defrocked by O'bummer. Here is another Rolling Stone related report dated 15 November 2020 by Tessa Stuart.

Grayzone reporter Gareth Porter should avoid any high tech vehicle that is so easy to hack.

[Jan 22, 2021] The Future of War in Biden's America Consortiumnews

Jan 22, 2021 | consortiumnews.com

H ard as it is to believe in this time of record pandemic deaths, insurrection, and an unprecedented encore impeachment, Joe Biden is now officially at the helm of the U.S. war machine. He is, in other words, the fourth president to oversee America's unending and unsuccessful post-9/11 military campaigns.

In terms of active U.S. combat, that's only happened once before, in the , America's second-longest (if often forgotten) overseas combat campaign.

Yet that conflict was limited to a single Pacific archipelago. Biden inherits a global war -- and burgeoning new Cold War -- spanning four continents and a military mired in active operations in dozens of countries, combat in some 14 of them, and bombing in at least seven.

That sort of scope has been standard fare for American presidents for almost two decades now. Still, while this country's post-9/11 war presidents have more in common than their partisan divisions might suggest, distinctions do matter, especially at a time when the White House almost unilaterally drives foreign policy.

So, what can we expect from Commander-in-Chief Biden? In other words, what's the forecast for U.S. service-members who have invested their lives and limbs in future conflict, as well as for the speculators in the military-industrial complex and anxious foreigners in the countries still engulfed in America's war on terror who usually stand to lose it all?

Many Trumpsters, and some libertarians, foresee disaster : that the man who, as a leading senator facilitated and cheered on the disastrous Iraq War, will surely escalate American adventurism abroad. On the other hand, establishment Democrats and most liberals, who are desperately (and understandably) relieved to see Donald Trump go, find that prediction preposterous.

Clearly, Biden must have learned from past mistakes, changed his tune, and should responsibly bring U.S. wars to a close, even if at a time still to be determined.

In a sense, both may prove right -- and in another sense, both wrong. The guess of this long-time war-watcher (and one-time war fighter) reading the tea leaves: expect Biden to both eschew big new wars and avoid fully ending existing ones.

At the margins (think Iran), he may improve matters some; in certain rather risky areas (Russian relations, for instance), he could worsen them; but in most cases (the rest of the Greater Middle East, Africa, and China), he's likely to remain squarely on the status-quo spectrum. And mind you, there's nothing reassuring about that.

Sgt. John Hoxie watches 82nd Airborne Division's All American Week celebration May 18, 2009. Hoxie returned to Fort Bragg for the first time since he was injured during a 2007 deployment to Iraq. (U.S. Army/Flickr)

It hardly requires clairvoyance to offer such guesswork. That's because Biden basically is who he says he is and who he's always been , and the man's simply never been transformational. One need look no further than his long and generally interventionist past record or the nature of his current national-security picks to know that the safe money is on more of the same.

Whether the issues are war, race , crime , or economics , Uncle Joe has made a career of bending with the prevailing political winds and it's unlikely this old dog can truly learn any new tricks.

Furthermore, he's filled his foreign policy squad with Obama-Clinton retreads, a number of whom were architects of -- if not the initial Iraq and Afghan debacles -- then disasters in Libya, Syria, West Africa, Yemen, and the Afghan surge of 2009. In other words, Biden is putting the former arsonists in charge of the forever-war fire brigade.

There's further reason to fear that he may even reject Trump's "If Obama was for it, I'm against it" brand of war-on-terror policy-making and thereby reverse The Donald's very late, very modest troop withdrawals in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Somalia.

Yet even if this new old hand of a president evades potentially existential escalation with nuclear Russia or China and offers only an Obama reboot when it comes to persistent low-intensity warfare, what he does will still matter -- most of all to the global citizens who are too often its victims.

So, here's a brief region-by-region flyover tour of what Joe's squad may have in store for both the world and the American military sent to police that world.

The Middle East: Old Prescriptions for Old Business

It's increasingly clear that Washington's legacy wars in the Greater Middle East -- Iraq and Afghanistan, in particular -- are generally no longer on the public's radar. Enter an elected old man who's charged with handling old business that, at least to most civilians, is old news.

Odds are that Biden's ancient tricks will amount to safe bets in a region that past U.S. policies essentially destroyed. Joe is likely to take a middle path in the region between large-scale military intervention of the Bush or Obama kind and more prudent full-scale withdrawal.

As a result, such wars will probably drag on just below the threshold of American public awareness, while avoiding Pentagon or partisan charges that his version of cutting-and-running endangered U.S. security. The prospect of "victory" won't even factor into the equation (after all, Biden's squad members aren't stupid), but political survival certainly will.

Here's what such a Biden-era future might then look like in a few such sub-theaters.

"Wars will probably drag on just below the threshold of American public awareness."

The war in Afghanistan is hopeless and has long been failing by every one of the U.S. military's own measurable metrics, so much so that the Pentagon and the Kabul government classified them all as secret information a few years back.

Actually dealing with the Taliban and swiftly exiting a disastrous war likely to lead to a disastrous future with Washington's tail between its legs is, in fact, the only remaining option. The question is when and how many more Americans will kill or be killed in that "graveyard of empires" before the U.S. accepts the inevitable.

U.S. Army helicopter pilots fly near Jalalabad, Afghanistan, April 5, 2017. (U.S. Army, Brian Harris, Wikimedia Commons)

Toward the end of his tenure, Trump signaled a serious, if cynical, intent to so. And since Trump was by definition a monster and the other team's monsters can't even occasionally be right, a coalition of establishment Democrats and Lincoln-esque Republicans (and Pentagon officials) decided that the war must indeed go on. That culminated in last July's obscenity in which Congress officially withheld the funds necessary to end it.

As vice president, Biden was better than most in his Afghan War skepticism , but his incoming advisers weren't , and Joe's nothing if not politically malleable. Besides, since Trump didn't pull enough troops out faintly fast enough or render the withdrawal irreversible over Pentagon objections, expect a trademark Biden hedge here.

Syria has always been a boondoggle , with the justifications for America's peculiar military presence there constantly shifting from pressuring the regime of Bashar al-Assad, to fighting the Islamic State, to backing the Kurds, to balancing Iran and Russia in the region, to (in Trump's case) securing that country's meager oil supplies.

As with so much else, there's a troubling possibility that, in the Biden years, personnel once again may become destiny. Many of the new president's advisers were bullish on Syrian intervention in the Obama years, even wanting to take it further and topple Assad.

Furthermore, when it comes time for them to convince Biden to agree to stay put in Syria, there's a dangerous existing mix of motives to do just that: the emotive sympathy for the Kurds of known gut-player Joe; his susceptibility to revived Islamic State (ISIS) fear-mongering; and perceptions of a toughness-testing proxy contest with Russia.

When it comes to Iran, expect Biden to be better than the Iran-phobic Trump administration, but to stay shackled "inside the box."

First of all, despite Joe's long-expressed desire to reenter the Obama-era nuclear deal with Iran that Trump so disastrously pulled out of, doing so may prove harder than he thinks. After all, why should Tehran trust a political basket case of a negotiating partner prone to significant partisan policy-pendulum swings, especially given the way Washington has waged nearly 70 years of interventions against Iran's politicians and people?

In addition, Trump left Biden the Trojan horse of Tehran's hardliners, empowered by dint of The Donald's pugnacious policies. If the new president wishes to really undercut Iranian intransigence and fortify the moderates there, he should go big and be transformational -- in other words, see Obama's tension-thawing nuclear deal and raise it with the carrot of full-blown diplomatic and economic normalization. Unfortunately, status-quo Joe has never been a transformational type.

Keep an Eye on Africa

Djiboutian soldiers, Oct. 31, 2019. (U.S. Air Force, J.D. Strong II)

Though it garners far less public interest than the U.S. military's long-favored Middle Eastern playground, Africa figures significantly in the minds of those at the Pentagon, in the Capitol, and in Washington's influential think-tanks.

For interventionist hawks, including liberal ones, that continent has been both a petri dish and a proving ground for the development of a limited power-projection paradigm of drones, Special Operations forces, military advisers, local proxies, and clandestine intelligence missions.

It mattered little that over eight years of the Obama administration -- from Libya to the West African Sahel to the Horn of East Africa -- the war on terror proved, at best, problematic indeed, and even worse in the Trump years.

There remains a worrisome possibility that the Biden posse might prove amenable yet again to the alarmism of U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) about the rebirth of ISIS and the spread of other al-Qaeda-linked groups there, bolstered by fear-mongering nonsense masquerading as sophisticated scholarship from West Point's Combating Terrorism Center, and the Pentagon's perennial promises of low-investment, low-risk, and high-reward opportunities on the continent.

So, a savvy betting man might place chips on a Biden escalation in West Africa's Sahel and the Horn of East Africa, even if for different reasons.

American Special Forces and military advisers have been in and out of the remote borderlands between Mali and Niger since at least 2004 and these days seem there to stay. The French seized and suppressed sections of the Sahel region beginning in 1892, and, despite granting nominal independence to those countries in 1960, were back by 2013 and have been stuck in their own forever wars there ever since.

American war-on-terror(izing) and French neo-colonizing have only inflamed regional resistance movements, increased violence, and lent local grievances an Islamist resonance. Recently, France's lead role there has truly begun to disintegrate -- with five of its troops killed in just the first few days of 2021 and allegations that it had bombed another wedding party. (Already such a war-on-terror cliché .)

Don't be surprised if French President Emmanuel Macron asks for help and Biden agrees to bail him out. Despite their obvious age gap, Joe and Emmanuel could prove the newest and best of chums. (What's a few hundred extra troops between friends?)

Especially since Obama-era Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her then-favored errand boy, inbound national security adviser Jake Sullivan, could be said to have founded the current coalition of jihadis in Mali and Niger.

That's because when the two of them championed a heavy-handed regime-change intervention against Libyan autocrat Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, thousands of his Tuareg fighters blew back into that region in a big way with more than just the clothes on their backs. They streamed from post-Gaddafi Libya into their Sahel homelands loaded with arms and anger.

It's no accident, in other words, that Mali's latest round of insurgency kicked off in 2012. Now, Sullivan might push new boss Biden to attempt to clean up his old mess.

Jake Sullivan, second from left, as deputy chief of staff to the secretary of state, with his boss Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama, Nov. 20, 2012. (White House, Pete Souza)

On the other side of the continent, in Somalia, where Trump began an 11th-hour withdrawal of a long-failing and aimless U.S. troop presence (sending most of those soldiers to neighboring countries), there's a real risk that Biden could double-down in the region, adding soldiers, special operators, and drones.

After all, if Trump was against it, even after exponentially increasing bombing in the area, then any good Democrat should be for it, especially since the Pentagon has, for some time now, been banging the drum about Somalia's al-Shabaab Islamist outfit being the biggest threat to the homeland.

However, the real selling point for Biden might be the fantasy that Russia and China are flooding into the region. Ever since the 2018 National Defense Strategy decisively shifted the Pentagon's focus from counterterror wars to "great power competition," or GPC, AFRICOM has opportunistically altered its own campaign plan to align with the new threat of the moment, homing in on Russian and Chinese influence in the Horn region.

As a result, AFRICOM'S come-back-to-the-Horn pitch could prove a relatively easy Biden sell.

Russian Bears & Chinese (Sea) Dragons

Chinese President Xi Jinping, left, with Russian President Vladimir Putin during visit to Moscow for state visit, Xi Jinping. (Kremlin)

With that new GPC national security obsession likely to be one Trump-era policy that remains firmly in place, however ill-advised it may be, perhaps the biggest Biden risk is the possibility of stoking up a "new," two-theater, twenty-first-century version of the Cold War (with the possibility that, at any moment, it could turn into a hot one).

After making everything all about Russia in the Trump years, the ascendant Democrats might just feel obliged to follow through and escalate tensions with Moscow that Trump himself already brought to the brink (of nuclear catastrophe). Here, too, personnel may prove a key policy-driver.

Biden's nominee for secretary of state, Anthony Blinken, is a resident Russia hawk and was an early " arm-Ukraine " enthusiast. Jake Sullivan already has a tendency to make mountains out of molehills on the subject, as when he described a minor road-rage incident as constituting "a Russian force in Syria aggressively attack[ing] an American force and actually injur[ing] American service members."

Then there's the troubling signal of Victoria Nuland, the recent nominee for undersecretary of state for political affairs, a pick that itself should be considered a road-rage-style provocation. Nuland has a history of hawkish antagonism toward Moscow and is reportedly despised by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Her confirmation will surely serve as a conflict accelerant.

Nevertheless, China may be the lead antagonist in the Biden crew's race to risk a foolhardy cataclysm. Throughout the election campaign, the new president seemed set on out-hawking Trump in the Western Pacific, explicitly writing about "getting tough" on China in a March 2020 piece he penned in Foreign Affairs .

Joe had also previously called Chinese President Xi Jinping " a thug ." And while Michèle Flournoy may (mercifully) have been passed over for secretary of defense, her aggressive posture toward Beijing still infuses the thinking of her fellow Obama alums on Biden's team.

As TomDispatch regular Andrew Bacevich pointed out last September, a Flournoy Foreign Affairs article illuminated the sort of absurdity she (and assumedly various Biden appointees) think necessary to effectively deter China.

She called for "enhancing U.S. military capabilities so that the United States can credibly threaten to sink all of China's military vessels, submarines, and merchant ships in the South China Sea within 72 hours." Consider that Dr. Strangelove -style strategizing retooled for an inbound urbane imperial presidency.

Endgame: War as Abstraction

Historically, foreign-policy paradigm shifts are exceedingly rare, especially when they tack toward peace. Such pivots appear almost impossible once the immense power of America's military-industrial complex, invested in every way in endless war, as well as endless preparations for future Cold Wars, has reached today's grotesque level.

This is especially so when each and every one of Biden's archetypal national security nominees has, metaphorically speaking, had his or her mortgage paid by some offshoot of that war industry. In other words, as the muckraking novelist Upton Sinclair used to say : "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!"

Count on tactics including drones, commandos, CIA spooks, and a mostly amenable media to help the Biden administration make war yet more invisible -- at least to Americans. Most Trump-detesting, and domestically focused citizens will find that just dandy, even if exhausted troopers, military families, and bombed or blockaded foreigners won't.

More than anything, Biden wishes to avoid overseas embarrassments like unexpected American casualties or scandalous volumes of foreign civilian deaths -- anything, that is, that might derail his domestic agenda or hoped-for restorative leadership legacy.

That, unfortunately, may prove to be a pipe dream and leads me to two final predictions: formulaic forever war will never cease boomeranging back home to rot our republican institutions, and neither a celestial God nor secular History will judge Biden-the-war-president kindly.

Danny Sjursen is a retired U.S. Army officer and contributing editor at antiwar.com . His work has appeared in the LA Times , The Nation , Huff Post , T he Hill , Salon , Truthdig , Tom Dispatch , among other publications. He served combat tours with reconnaissance units in Iraq and Afghanistan and later taught history at his alma mater, West Point. He is the author of a memoir and critical analysis of the Iraq War, Ghostriders of Baghdad: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Myth of the Surge . His latest book is Patriotic Dissent: America in the Age of Endless War . Follow him on Twitter at @SkepticalVet . Check out his professional website for contact info, scheduling speeches, and/or access to the full corpus of his writing and media appearances.

This article is from Tom's Dispatch .

The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.

[Jan 19, 2021] I am especially proud to be the first president in decades who has started no new wars

Jan 19, 2021 | www.rt.com

---

banallwars 1 hour ago 19 Jan, 2021 04:32 PM

What a lie. The bombs being dropped from the U.S. made jets the Saudi pilots fly over Yemen killing civilians leaves blood all over his hands not to mention shaking the hand of the Saudi that murdered a journalist before selling him weapons to kill Yemen's civilians.

Waryaa Moxamad 48 minutes ago 19 Jan, 2021 05:36 PM

1) False flag chemical attack on Syria. 2) killing Soleimani in a sovereign country he was invited to 3) Guaido 4) Bolivia. 5) continuing the wars predecessors started.

Who is being fooled that U.S. presidency has any say in America's imperialism?

Debra***** Waryaa Moxamad 40 minutes ago 19 Jan, 2021 05:46 PM

Who really pushed for General Soleimani to be killed and has the most personal and intense vendetta against Soleimani? Mike Pompeo. Trump did not give the Pentagon and CIA all the wars they wanted, especially in Syria. Now the Pentagon and the CIA have their puppet, Corrupt Biden, who will do what they command him to do. I would expect in one year to see another massive war. Where? Syria. The US mothers will cry when their sons come home in coffins. The Hez in Lebanon will not back down, and they will enter Syria again. Trump did not want young American boys coming back in coffins!!!!!!!

[Jan 17, 2021] "79% of Americans think the US is falling apart" those not accounted for are possibly homeless or illiterate and don't have the opportunity of putting their view forward

Highly recommended!

In the reality the USA is not falling apart. It is neoliberalism that is falling apart and this is just how common people feel during the collapse of neliberalism.

Jan 17, 2021 | www.rt.com

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OneHorseGuy 1 day ago 15 Jan, 2021 02:17 PM

"79% of Americans think the US is falling apart" those not accounted for are possibly homeless or illiterate and don't have the opportunity of putting their view forward.

RTaccount 1 day ago 15 Jan, 2021 02:22 PM

There will be no peace, no unity, and no prosperity. And there shouldn't be.

TheFishh RTaccount 1 day ago 15 Jan, 2021 03:38 PM

The US regimes past and present have worn out their bag of tricks. A magician is a con-man. And the only way they can entertain and spellbind the crowd with their routines is if everyone just ignores the sleight of hand. But people are starting to call the US out for the tricks it is pulling, and that's where the magician's career ends.

SJMan333 23 hours ago 16 Jan, 2021 01:02 AM

America as a whole is now reaping the fruits of its decades of exceptionalism complex. Through its propaganda machine, Americans as individuals and collectively as a society, have been brainwashed into believing that laws, rules and basic human decency do not apply to themselves. These are only sweetened poisons for them to shove down the throats of other lesser countries, especially those in Africa, Latin America, Middle East and Asia ((bluntly put, non-white countries)) when it suited America's global resource thievery and daylight wealth grabbing. Habitualized into bullying every other countries with no resistance, Americans are now showing their ugly faces on each other. The same exceptionalism delusion "the laws apply to you, not me'' is driving every American (except the colored Americans probably) to blame all the ills of the country on everyone else except himself. Nancy Pelosi advocated total lock-down but treated herself to a total grooming in a hair saloon is just one example. For the sins it has committed over the decades, I guess the time is right for USA to have a dose of its own medicine. Except in this case, America never thought it necessary to develop an antidote.

[Jan 15, 2021] It turned out that a whole class of ships, on which America had pinned great hopes a couple of decades ago, turned out to be utterly incapable of combat

Jan 15, 2021 | www.moonofalabama.org

Mao , Jan 15 2021 4:38 utc | 67

A major scandal is unfolding in the US naval community. It turned out that a whole class of ships, on which America had pinned great hopes a couple of decades ago, turned out to be utterly incapable of combat. What exactly are the problems with these ships? Why did they only show up now? What does the massive corruption in the United States have to do with what is happening?

Political events in the United States have overshadowed everything that happens in this country. Including one event related to the Navy, which would indeed have exploded.

We are talking about a whole type of warships, both already delivered to the US Navy, and those still under construction – the so-called Littoral combat ship (LCS) of the Freedom type. And it's not that they're useless. And not at the prohibitive cost. And not even that the gearboxes of the ship's main power plant (GEM) do not withstand the maximum stroke, and with the speed of 47 knots, which was the ridge of this project, he will never be able to walk – they also resigned themselves to this.

But at the end of 2020, it turned out that they generally cannot move faster than a dry cargo ship for more or less a long time. That is, it is not just scrapping metal; it is also almost stationary scrap metal.

https://bulgarianmilitary.com/2021/01/13/american-warships-of-one-class-turn-into-a-metal-scrub/

[Jan 09, 2021] American exceptionalism hurt by violent Capitol debacle, expect Biden to push aggressive foreign policy in bid to repair damage by Fyodor Lukyanov

Jan 09, 2021 | www.rt.com

Fyodor Lukyanov , the editor-in-chief of Russia in Global Affairs, chairman of the Presidium of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, and research director of the Valdai International Discussion Club How could something like this happen in Washington? It was assumed that, despite all its social and political problems that have worsened in recent years, America was different and far more robust than we are now seeing. A habit of being special

The rule of thumb was, 'there is America and there are others'. With the others, shortcomings are natural and to be expected, even if many of them are well-established democracies. But America is a different story, because by default, the US is a role model that was supposed to remain the democratic icon forever.

Exceptionalism is foundational for America's political culture. This type of self-identification was the cornerstone on which the nation and society were built a couple of hundred years ago. That's how Americans are raised. And you will run into this phenomenon everywhere.

When asking his supporters gathered by the Capitol building to go home, President Donald Trump said, "You are special." People from the more liberal political camp have even deeper convictions about the US being exceptional and therefore under an obligation to bring light into the world, as they see it.

That's why everybody is shocked – how could this have happened? The reaction was followed by a wave of explanations as to why the clashes near and inside the Capitol building only looked like similar events in other countries, but in reality, they were something entirely different. Here is a comment from the CNN website, "Sure there are superficial similarities... but what's happening in America is uniquely American. It is that country's monster."

Such restlessness is understandable. If we look at exceptionalism in the context of the world order that we've had in recent decades, we see that after the end of the Cold War, the US has held the unique position of the sole global hegemon. No other power in world history has ever reached this level of dominance.

Besides massive military and economic resources, America's exceptionalism has also been relying on the idea that this nation sets the tone for the global worldview. This authorized America to certify systems of government in other countries and exert influence in situations that it believed required certain adjustments. As we all know, this influence took different forms, including direct military intervention.

We are not going to list the pros and cons of such a world order in this article. What's important is that one of the key aspects of this order is the belief in the infallibility of the global leader. That's why American commentators and experts are so worried about the Capitol Building events and Trump's presidency in general hurting the international status of the US.

Boomerang effect

Generally speaking, post-election turmoil is not a rare occurrence. After all, the US itself has encouraged the new political tradition that has emerged in the 21st century. In recent times, in certain places, election campaigns haven't ended after the votes were counted and the winner is announced. Instead, Washington often encouraged the losing side to at least try to challenge the results by taking to the streets. Indeed, resistance was part of the US Declaration of Independence after all.

Western capitals consistently emphasized the legitimacy of such actions in situations when people believed that their votes had been 'stolen'. Washington was usually the lead voice in these declarations. Granted, this mostly applied to immature democracies with unstable institutions, but where are all those unshakable, solid democratic countries today? The world is experiencing so much instability that nobody is exempt from major shocks and crises.

Information overload

There is another reason why traditional institutions are losing their footing. They were effective in a solidified informational environment. The sources of information were either controlled or perceived as trustworthy by the majority.

Today there are problems with both. Technological advances boost transparency, but they also create multiple realities and countless opportunities for manipulation. Institutions must be above reproach if they are to survive in the new conditions. It would be wrong to say that they are all crumbling. They are, however, experiencing tremendous pressure, and we can't expect them to be perfect.

Looking for a scapegoat

The US is not better or worse at facing the new challenges. Or, rather, it is better in some areas and worse in others. This would all be very normal if America's exceptionalism didn't always need affirmation.

Situations in which the US appears to be just like any other country, albeit with some unique characteristics, are a shock to the system. In order to stay special, America looks where to place the blame. Ideally, the guilty party should be someone acting in the interests of an outside power, someone un-American.

This mechanism is not unknown to Russians from the experience in our country – for a long time now, Russian elites have been keen to blame outsiders for their own failures. But America's motivation today is even stronger; there is more passion, because simply covering up the failures is no longer enough – America wants to prove that it is still perfect.

Russia says American system 'archaic' & not up to 'modern democratic standards' after rioters raid Washington's Capitol building

Democrats are taking back the American political landscape. For the next two years (until the 2022 mid-term elections), they will have all the power – in the White House and Congress. Trump's supporters have seriously scared the ruling class, and the Capitol building debacle during the last days of his presidency has created a perfect pretext for cleaning house. Big Tech companies are at their disposal (so far).

Internal targets

Target number one is Trump himself. They want to make an example out of him, so that others wouldn't dare challenge the sanctity of the political establishment. But Trump will not be enough, something must be done about his numerous supporters. The awkward finale of his presidency opens the door for labeling his fans as enemies of the republic and democracy.

The Democrats will do everything within their power to demoralize their earnest opponents. This won't be hard, since the Republican Party itself is a hot mess right now. Trump has alienated almost all his supporters from the party leadership, but he is still popular among regular voters.

Demonstrative restoration of order and democratic fundamentals will also be used to reclaim the role model status. The reasoning is clear – we successfully neutralized the terrible external and internal threats to our democracy, so now we have regained the right to show the world how one should deal with the enemies of said democracy. The 'summit of democracies' idea proposed by Joseph Biden is starting to look like an emergency meeting for closing the ranks in a fight against enemies of progress.

Foreign targets

And this brings us back to the foreign policy issue, because it's not difficult to predict who will be enemy number one. Putin as an almighty puppeteer of all undemocratic forces in the world (including Trump) has been part of the rhetoric for a few years now. Hillary Clinton said it when giving a campaign speech in Nevada in August 2016, and Nancy Pelosi echoed the sentiment after Trump supporters stormed the Capitol Building. Of course, China is a close second on the enemy list created by the Democratic leadership, but there are some economic restraints there.

America's inevitable strife to reclaim its exceptionalism will clash with the current tendencies in global development. All aspects of international affairs, from economy to security, to ideology and ethics, are diversifying. Attempts to divide the world along the old democracy vs. autocracy lines, i.e. go back to the agenda prevalent at the end of the 20th to the beginning of the 21st century, are doomed, because this is not the way the world is structured now.

But attempts will be made nevertheless, and we can't rule out some aggressive 'democracy promotion'. Even if it's just to prove that the embarrassing Trump episode was nothing more than an unfortunate accident. This, by the way, could become a short-term unifying factor for the diverse members of the Democratic Party, some of whom represent the old generation, while others are energetic young proponents of left-wing politics.

We can conclude that the world will not really benefit from the new presidency, even if respected foreign policy professionals return to the White House now that Trump is leaving. It might stabilize America's frenzy in international affairs that we are all used to by now, but a new wave of ideology will neutralize the potential advantage (if it even existed, which is debatable).

America's resolve to prove to the world that it's not like others will encounter the large-scale 'material resistance', which will make a dangerous situation even worse. At least with Trump we knew that he didn't like wars, and he didn't start any new ones. Biden's credit history is very different.

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The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

[Jan 09, 2021] Can the hysterical little girls freaking out about tourists in the Capitol building do me one little favor? I just want to see one video clip of rioting in DC back on the 6th.

Jan 09, 2021 | www.moonofalabama.org

William Gruff , Jan 8 2021 23:58 utc | 108

Can the hysterical little girls freaking out about tourists in the Capitol building do me one little favor? I just want to see one video clip of rioting in DC back on the 6th.

All of these posts and we don't have a single link to evidence of rioting or mob-like behavior. This is important because years from now people reading this thread may not clearly remember what you imagined you saw and need some visual reminders of this imaginary rioting that you are talking about. Please include some links or people of tomorrow will suspect that what you little girls are wailing about didn't happen. In particular I want to see some imagery of "baseball bats and metal pipes" on the scene in DC. Is this too much to ask for?

Digital Spartacus , Jan 9 2021 0:00 utc | 109

Gruff@108

Indeed. Lots of froth, no substance or citations from many here.

[Jan 09, 2021] Classic threat inflation: Biden Calls Pro-Trump Capitol Protesters 'Domestic Terrorists' by Dave DeCamp

Looks like colonial administration decree against ingenious population. So as a first present from Biden administration people will get Patriot Act 2.

Notable quotes:

"... The Wall Street Journal ..."

Jan 09, 2021 | news.antiwar.com

Biden has previously said he plans to pass new legislation aimed at combating 'domestic terrorism'

In the wake of pro-Trump demonstrators entering the US Capitol Building, Joe Biden made it clear that he views the incident as "terrorism" in comments on Thursday.

"Don't dare call them protesters," he said from Wilmington, Deleware. "They were a riotous mob. Insurrectionists. Domestic terrorists. It's that basic. It's that simple."

As The Wall Street Journal reported in November , Biden has said he plans to make a priority of passing a law against domestic terrorism. The Capitol incident will likely speed up the process of crafting domestic terror-related legislation that could have grave implications for the civil liberties of Americans.

Biden's transition team is also reportedly considering new "Red Flag" laws that would give law enforcement more authority to confiscate firearms.

Biden voted for the 2001 Patriot Act, which greatly expanded the federal government's surveillance capabilities. He has said the Patriot Act was modeled on a terrorism bill he wrote after the 1994 Oklahoma City bombing, that was never signed into law.

"I drafted a terrorism bill after the Oklahoma City bombing," he was quoted as saying by the New Republic in 2001. "And the bill John Ashcroft sent up was my bill," he said, referring to then-Attorney General John Ashcroft.

In a 2002 Senate hearing on FBI counterterrorism efforts, Biden again took credit for creating the Patriot Act. "Civil libertarians were opposed to it," he said. "Right after 1994, and you can ask the attorney general this, because I got a call when he introduced the Patriot Act. He said, 'Joe, I'm introducing the act basically as you wrote it in 1994.'"

Democrats in Congress are also calling to prioritize domestic terrorism. Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), a former CIA analyst and Pentagon official, made her priorities clear in an interview with MSNBC .

"The post 9/11 era is over. We are in a new era. We had a generational event with the infiltration of the Capitol," Slotkin said. "The single greatest national security threat right now is our internal division. It's the threat of domestic terrorism."

[Jan 08, 2021] This is a typical Capitol terrorist

By allowing the protesters into the Capital Building, the chance to challenge the certification of the various states' electors was lost. This was Trump's and his supporters' last chance. They have been played like a piano. Quite brilliant, in its way. Game over.

There was a curious lack of resistance from the relevant authority. While Trump proved to be an incompetent and a coward, this looks like another Pelosi dirty trick similar to Ukrainegate ? Russiagate and Ukrainegate taught him nothing.

Jan 08, 2021 | www.moonofalabama.org

That the incoming president declares a number of activist from the opposing party to be 'terrorists' demonstrates how unqualified he is for that job.

Is this a terrorist? These were not terrorists but tourists who came from all over the states to Washington for fun and to register their disagreement with the 'elites'.

Those rabbles were in no way terrorists. They were not even a mob. Most of them were out-of-town rednecks who felt that they had been wronged. They wanted to express that. They were surprised when they found how easy it was to enter the Capitol and they apparently took more time to take pictures than to rearrange the furniture.

...

Another such view :

[L]et's be clear about what did not take place at the Capitol Building last night. This was not a fascist coup, as so many shrill, supposedly liberal commentators are claiming. Their flagrant use of the word 'fascist' to describe every political movement they disapprove of is an insult to reason and history. This wasn't a coup full stop. The National Guard suppressed the morons, the barricades were put back up, and even their hero Donald Trump told them to go home. A coup is a conscious effort to illegally seize power from the government. These people couldn't even believe they made it into the Capitol Building. They were like children finding a candy store unguarded.

A children's game. Indeed.

Yet Biden and others are furious about the stunt because it lifted the veil off their vaunted U.S. 'democracy' and its empty rituals:

Nicholas J. Fuentes @NickJFuentes - 21:01 UTC · Jan 7, 2021
The US Capitol is hardly a "sacred temple of democracy," it's the sleaziest brothel in the world, totally bought and controlled by powerful interest groups and foreign governments. Who are they kidding?

Congressional processes are dirty fights about the distribution of the loot. There is nothing sacred about it. Just consider the massive bribes that were taken during the Georgia Senate races. Those hundreds of millions of 'donations' will have to be paid back in kind.

The real danger to the people does not come from those 'deplorables' who walked into the Capitol but from the 'elite' who will use the incident for their purposes :

The threat inflation, the wild claims about a fascist coup, are transparent efforts by the cosseted political and cultural elites to endow their project with moral importance; to give their restoration of managerial, technocratic power after the four-year populist experiment – which is fundamentally the project that Biden and his influential supporters are currently engaged in – the gloss of historical urgency. It is mission creation.

Worse, this narrative-building will allow the elites to circumscribe even more forms of political thought and speech than they already desire to do , on the basis that the latent fascism among the American rabble is likely to be stirred up by inflammatory ideas and commentary. Indeed, we've already been given a chilling glimpse of this post-incursion clampdown on 'violent' speech in Twitter's extraordinary decision to ban, outright, three of Trump's tweets last night and to lock him out of his account for 12 hours.

It strikes me that this unilateral use of corporate power by Silicon Valley to prevent the democratically elected president of the United States from engaging with millions of his voters and supporters, to physically forbid him from partaking in online discussion, is a grave assault on democracy, too. More grave, I would say, than the immoral and anti-democratic incursion of the Capitol Building. Already, right away, we are seeing that the threat-inflating response to last night's events will likely have longer-lasting negative consequences for open debate and democratic norms than the thing itself.

William Gruff , Jan 8 2021 21:35 utc | 56

Biden is famous for mixing his words up. He meant to say that the protesters were "domestic tourists" . I'm sure he meant to thank them for doing their part to revitalize America's service economy.

Heironymous Dosh , Jan 8 2021 21:57 utc | 69

My man Viking Guy has done it again. He managed to trick the son in law of Nancy Pelosi into a selfie https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ErH5LslW4AAOiyv?format=jpg&

[Jan 05, 2021] The Democrats Have Stolen the Presidential Election by Paul Craig Roberts

Notable quotes:

"... It is difficult to know or to ensure that the ballots are actual ballots from registered voters. For example in the early hours of the morning of November 4 large ballot drops occurred in Michigan and Wisconsin that wiped out Trump's lead. State officials have reported that people not registered -- probably illegals -- were permitted to vote. Postal service workers have reported being ordered to backdate ballots that suddenly appeared in the middle of the night after the deadline. These techniques were used to erase Trump's substantial leads in the states of Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Georgia. ..."

"... Digital technology has also made it easy to alter vote counts. US Air Force General Thomas McInerney is familiar with this technology. He says it was developed by the National Security Agency in order to interfere in foreign elections, but now is in the hands of the CIA and was used to defeat Trump. Trump is considered to be an enemy of the military/security complex because of his wish to normalize relations with Russia, thus taking away the enemy that justifies the CIA's budget and power. ..."

"... The military/security complex favors the disunity that the Democrat Party and media have fostered with their ideology of Identity Politics. ..."

"... I would take it a little further and say that voting by mail is a method of vote fraud. The supposed safeguards are easily circumvented, as some whistleblowers have illustrated with ballots being brought forth in large numbers after election day without postmarks and postal workers being ordered to stamp them with acceptable postmarks. ..."

"... Eisenhower is always lauded for his MIC warning. Frankly he ticks me off. Thanks for the warning AFTER you were in some position to mitigate. ..."

"... the most likely source of fraud that is hard to detect, is ballot harvesting. This should be outlawed as it violates the idea of a secret ballot. Somebody comes to the home of a disinterested voter and makes sure he votes (of course they will never admit to hounding the person) and "helps" them with the ballot. If the voter cannot be cajoled into voting the correct way, you merely throw his ballot in the trash. ..."

"... Living in an urban setting I often had to visit apartment buildings. Without fail, there was always a pile of undeliverable mail in the lobby under the mailboxes. ..."

"... His farewell address was just flapdoodle; it wasn't really dredged up till the 70s. Eisenhower spent eight years spreading tripwires and mines and then said "Watch out." Thanks buddy. ..."

"... As the German newspaper editor Udo Ulfkotte revealed in his book, Bought Journalism, the European and US media speak with one voice -- the voice of the CIA. The very profitable and powerful US military/security complex needs foreign enemies. ..."

"... inventive creative new ways to deceive.. first it was election machines, then mail in votes. ..."

"... The phrase "there's no evidence" is just a public commitment to ignore any evidence, no matter how blatant or obvious. ..."

"... Paper ballots as ascribed by Tulsi Gabbard legislation is the only safe option for elections. Kudos to Tulsi! ..."

"... Everyone knew about the potential for voter fraud to occur, but the entire system is corrupt, including Trump who has allowed the massive corruption within the system that was present when he entered office to persist and grow because he is a wimpy, spineless, coward, that was too afraid to make any waves and take the heat that he promised his voters. ..."

"... Why anyone voted for Trump in 2020 confounds me. I voted for him in 2016 and he has turned out to be one of the worst presidents in history. ..."

"... Trump in his cowardess and dishonesty knew that the ailing economy would harm his chances of being re-elected, so he allowed the health scare scamdemic to occur and destroy the livelihoods, lives, and businesses of hundreds of millions of Americans because he is a psychopath. Trump did not do what he promised. Trump made America worse than it has ever been since the end of slavery. ..."

"... Trump has also demanded the extradition of Assange after telling his voters that he loved wikileaks. Trump is a two-faced, lying, fraud. It has been his pattern. He consistently supports various groups and people like Wikileaks, Proud Boys, and others and panders to them and voters and tells people that he loves them, and then every time without fail when the heat is on, Trump says," I really don't know anything about them." ..."

"... "I know nothing." Trump saying "I know nothing." defines his presidency and who he is as a person, a spineless, pandering, corrupt, two-faced, narcissist, loser, and wimp! ..."

Nov 12, 2020 | www.unz.com

139 COMMENTS

Paul Craig Roberts' Interview with the European magazine Zur Zeit ( In This Time ):

https://zurzeit.at/index.php/die-demokraten-haben-die-praesidentenwahl-gestohlen/

English Translation:

A few months ago it looked like the re-election of Trump was almost certain, but now there was a close race between Trump and Biden? What happen during the last months?

In the months before the election, the Democrats used the "Covid pandemic" to put in place voting by mail. The argument was used that people who safely go to supermarkets and restaurants could catch Covid if they stood in voting lines. Never before used on a large scale, voting by mail is subject to massive vote fraud.

There are many credible reports of organized vote fraud committed by Democrats. The only question is whether the Republican establishment will support challenging the documented fraud or whether Trump will be pressured to concede in order to protect the reputation of American Democracy.

For those influenced by a partisan media that is denying the massive fraud that occurred, here is an overview of the elements of the fraud and the legal remedies. https://www.unz.com/article/of-color-revolutions-foreign-and-domestic-the-first-72-hours/

It is difficult to know or to ensure that the ballots are actual ballots from registered voters. For example in the early hours of the morning of November 4 large ballot drops occurred in Michigan and Wisconsin that wiped out Trump's lead. State officials have reported that people not registered -- probably illegals -- were permitted to vote. Postal service workers have reported being ordered to backdate ballots that suddenly appeared in the middle of the night after the deadline. These techniques were used to erase Trump's substantial leads in the states of Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Georgia.

Digital technology has also made it easy to alter vote counts. US Air Force General Thomas McInerney is familiar with this technology. He says it was developed by the National Security Agency in order to interfere in foreign elections, but now is in the hands of the CIA and was used to defeat Trump. Trump is considered to be an enemy of the military/security complex because of his wish to normalize relations with Russia, thus taking away the enemy that justifies the CIA's budget and power.

People do not understand. They think an election has been held when in fact what has occurred is that massive vote fraud has been used to effect a revolution against red state white America. Leaders of the revolution, such as Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, are demanding a list of Trump supporters who are "to be held accountable." Calls are being made for the arrest of Tucker Carlson, the only mainstream journalist who supported President Trump.

In a recent column I wrote:

"Think what it means that the entirety of the US media, allegedly the 'watchdogs of democracy,' are openly involved in participating in the theft of a presidential election.

"Think what it means that a large number of Democrat public and election officials are openly involved in the theft of a presidential election.

"It means that the United States is split irredeemably. The hatred for white people that has been cultivated for many years, portraying white Americans as "systemic racists," together with the Democrats' lust for power and money, has destroyed national unity. The consequence will be the replacement of rules with force."

Mainstream media in Europe claim, that Trump had "divided" the United States. But isn`t it actually the other way around, that his opponents have divided the country?

As the German newspaper editor Udo Ulfkotte revealed in his book, Bought Journalism , the European and US media speak with one voice -- the voice of the CIA. The very profitable and powerful US military/security complex needs foreign enemies. Russiagate was a CIA/FBI successful effort to block Trump from reducing tensions with Russia. In 1961 in his last address to the American people President Dwight Eisenhower warned that the growing power of the military/industrial complex was a threat to American democracy. We ignored his warning and now have security agencies more powerful than the President.

The military/security complex favors the disunity that the Democrat Party and media have fostered with their ideology of Identity Politics. Identity politics replaced Marxist class war with race and gender war. White people, and especially white heterosexual males, are the new oppressor class. This ideology causes race and gender disunity and prevents any unified opposition to the security agencies ability to impose its agendas by controlling explanations. Opposition to Trump cemented the alliance between Democrats, media, and the Deep State.

It is possible that the courts will decide who will be sworn into office at January 20, 2021. Do you except a phase of uncertainty or even a constitutional crisis?

There is no doubt that numerous irregularities indicate that the election was stolen and that the ground was well laid in advance. Trump intends to challenge the obvious theft. However, his challenges will be rejected in Democrat ruled states, as they were part of the theft and will not indict themselves. This means Trump and his attorneys will have to have constitutional grounds for taking their cases to the federal Supreme Court. The Republicans have a majority on the Court, but the Court is not always partisan.

Republicans tend to be more patriotic than Democrats, who denounce America as racist, fascist, sexist, imperialist. This patriotism makes Republicans impotent when it comes to political warfare that could adversely affect America's reputation. The inclination of Republicans is for Trump to protect America's reputation by conceding the election. Republicans fear the impact on America's reputation of having it revealed that America's other major party plotted to steal a presidental election.

Red state Americans, on the other hand, have no such fear. They understand that they are the targets of the Democrats, having been defined by Democrats as "racist white supremacist Trump deplorables."

The introduction of a report of the Heritage Foundation states that "the United States has a long and unfortunate history of election fraud". Are the 2020 presidential elections another inglorious chapter in this long history?

This time the fraud is not local as in the past. It is the result of a well organized national effort to get rid of a president that the Establishment does not accept.

Somehow you get the impression that in the USA – as in many European countries democracy is just a facade – or am I wrong?

You are correct. Trump is the first non-establishment president who became President without being vetted by the Establishment since Ronald Reagan. Trump was able to be elected only because the Establishment thought he had no chance and took no measures to prevent his election. A number of studies have concluded that in the US the people, despite democracy and voting, have zero input into public policy.

Democracy cannot work in America because the money of the elite prevails. American democracy is organized in order to prevent the people from having a voice. A political campaign is expensive. The money for candidates comes from interest groups, such as defense contractors, Wall Street, the pharmaceutical industry, the Israel Lobby. Consequently, the winning candidate is indebted to his funders, and these are the people whom he serves.

European mainstream media are portraying Biden as a luminous figure. Should Biden become president, what can be expected in terms of foreign and security policy, especially in regard to China, Russia and the Middle East? I mean, the deep state and the military-industrial complex remain surely nearly unchanged.

Biden will be a puppet, one unlikely to be long in office. His obvious mental confusion will be used either to rule through him or to remove him on grounds of mental incompetence. No one wants the nuclear button in the hands of a president who doesn't know which day of the week it is or where he is.

The military/security complex needs enemies for its power and profit and will be certain to retain the list of desirable foreign enemies -- Russia, Iran, China, and any independent-inclined country in Latin America. Being at war is also a way of distracting the people of the war against their liberties.

What the military/security complex might not appreciate is that among its Democrat allies there are some, such as Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who are ideological revolutionaries. Having demonized red state America and got rid of Trump (assuming the electoral fraud is not overturned by the courts), Ocasio-Cortez and her allies intend to revolutionize the Democrat Party and make it a non-establishment force. In her mind white people are the Establishment, which we already see from her demands for a list of Trump supporters to be punished.

I think I'm not wrong in assuming that a Biden-presidency would mean more identity politics, more political correctness etc. for the USA. How do you see this?

Identity politics turns races and genders against one another. As white people -- "systemic racists" -- are defined as the oppressor class, white people are not protected from hate speech and hate crimes. Anything can be said or done to a white American and it is not considered politically incorrect.

With Trump and his supporters demonized, under Democrat rule the transition of white Americans into second or third class citizens will be completed.

How do you access Trump's first term in office? Where was he successful and where he failed?

Trump spent his entire term in office fighting off fake accusations -- Russiagate, Impeachgate, failure to bomb Russia for paying Taliban to kill American occupiers of Afghanistan, causing Covid by not wearing a mask, and so on and on.

That Trump survived all the false charges shows that he is a real person, a powerful character. Who else could have survived what Trump has been subjected to by the Establishment and their media prostitutes. In the United States the media is known as "presstitutes" -- press prostitutes. That is what Udo Ulfkotte says they are in Europe. As a former Wall Street Journal editor, I say with complete confidence that there is no one in the American media today I would have hired. The total absence of integrity in the Western media is sufficient indication that the West is doomed.

---

Twodees Partain , says: November 12, 2020 at 7:21 pm GMT • 1.0 days ago

Never before used on a large scale, voting by mail is subject to massive vote fraud.

I would take it a little further and say that voting by mail is a method of vote fraud. The supposed safeguards are easily circumvented, as some whistleblowers have illustrated with ballots being brought forth in large numbers after election day without postmarks and postal workers being ordered to stamp them with acceptable postmarks.

It really seems to me that there would be no democrat majorities in Congress or in so many state legislatures without vote fraud.

Ann Nonny Mouse , says: Website November 12, 2020 at 7:42 pm GMT • 1.0 days ago

So fraud is needed to protect the reputation of American democracy. Only fraud can! Thanks, PCR!

endthefed , says: November 12, 2020 at 7:53 pm GMT • 24.0 hours ago

@Notsofast

Eisenhower is always lauded for his MIC warning. Frankly he ticks me off. Thanks for the warning AFTER you were in some position to mitigate.

MarkinLA , says: November 12, 2020 at 9:37 pm GMT • 22.2 hours ago

Worse than the fraud available with vote by mail is the voting of people normally who don't bother to vote. Think of how stupid and uninformed that average American voter is. Now realize how much more stupid and uninformed the non-voter is, only now he votes.

However, the most likely source of fraud that is hard to detect, is ballot harvesting. This should be outlawed as it violates the idea of a secret ballot. Somebody comes to the home of a disinterested voter and makes sure he votes (of course they will never admit to hounding the person) and "helps" them with the ballot. If the voter cannot be cajoled into voting the correct way, you merely throw his ballot in the trash.

Curmudgeon , says: November 12, 2020 at 9:43 pm GMT • 22.1 hours ago

I have little doubt that there have been massive "irregularities", particularly in the so-called battleground states, that are at play in "stealing" the election.

...The favourite phrase these days is "no evidence of wide spread voter fraud". Let's break that down. Only 6 states have been challenged for vote fraud. In the big scheme of things, 6 states is not wide spread, even if there is massive vote fraud within those 6 states. That the vote fraud is not widespread, implies that some vote fraud is acceptable, and that the listener should ignore it. Last and most importantly, in the narrowest of legalistic terms, testimony or affidavits are not evidence. Testimony and affidavits become evidence when supported by physical evidence. An affidavit with a photograph demonstrating the statement would be evidence.

Another phrase is something like "election officials say they have seen no evidence of voter fraud". I have yet to hear a reporter challenge the "seen no evidence of " part of the statement, regardless of the subject, by asking if the speaker had looked for any evidence. They won't, because they know damn well no one has.

That is how the liars operate. Not so different from Rumsfeld's "plausible deniability".

Beavertales , says: November 12, 2020 at 10:21 pm GMT • 21.5 hours ago

Living in an urban setting I often had to visit apartment buildings. Without fail, there was always a pile of undeliverable mail in the lobby under the mailboxes.

The envelopes were mostly addressed to people who had moved out or died. If ballots were sent to these people based on incorrect voter rolls, then these too would likely have been left sitting on the floor or on a ledge for anyone to take.

It doesn't take a leap of faith to know what a Trump-hating leftist would do when no one is looking. This moral hazard was intentionally created by Dems, who know that urban dwellers are transient and lean left politically.

Franz , says: November 12, 2020 at 10:54 pm GMT • 21.0 hours ago

@endthefed

Eisenhower is always lauded for his MIC warning. Frankly he ticks me off. Thanks for the warning AFTER you were in some position to mitigate.

Ike's a mystery. Why did he NOT question Harry Truman's commitments to NATO, the UN, and all that rubbish? Ike was a WWII guy. He knew Americans hated the UN in 1953 as much as they hated the League of Nations after WWI. But he let it all slide and get bigger.

His farewell address was just flapdoodle; it wasn't really dredged up till the 70s. Eisenhower spent eight years spreading tripwires and mines and then said "Watch out." Thanks buddy.

endthefed , says: November 12, 2020 at 11:08 pm GMT • 20.7 hours ago

@Bragadocious

Well, agree on your points however, on the other side of the ledger, he never understood the stupidity of the Korean war (that he could have ended) and majorly up-ramped CIA activities in all manner of regime change (bay of pigs anyone?). Almost a direct path to our foreign policy now (and now domestic policy)

Notsofast , says: November 12, 2020 at 11:28 pm GMT • 20.4 hours ago

@Bragadocious

He did deploy the military assistance advisory group to Vietnam in 1955. This is considered the beginning of U.S. involvement in the war. This allowed the French to moonwalk out the back door leaving us holding the bag. In fairness this was Johnson's war however. Eisenhower did cut the military budget as a peace dividend to fund interstate system and other domestic projects. In today political spectrum he would be considered a flaming liberal.

Louis Hissink , says: November 13, 2020 at 5:30 am GMT • 14.4 hours ago

Hi PCR

As the German newspaper editor Udo Ulfkotte revealed in his book, Bought Journalism, the European and US media speak with one voice -- the voice of the CIA. The very profitable and powerful US military/security complex needs foreign enemies.

What intrigues me is the ultimate political goal of the UN and the WEF when they anticipate a single global government centered at the UN and the absence of nation-states.

So what is the MIC going to do when there are no existential threats of competing nation-states? Or will the MIC re-engineer religious wars between the various religious groups, secular and theological? It seems the aspirations of the WEF and its fellow travellers preclude the occurrence of future armed conflicts.

Of course one needs capitalistic economies to produce the ordnance and materiels for the engineered social factions to war with each other. Yet if the Greens have their way, there will be no mining period.

More likely is the possibility that none of them actually understand what they are doing. As Nassim Taleb is alleged to have remarked, 99% of humans are stupid.

anonymous [284] Disclaimer , says: November 13, 2020 at 5:35 am GMT • 14.3 hours ago

The total absence of integrity in the Western media is sufficient indication that the West is doomed.

It's because Western media is completely under the control of Jews, the world's foremost End Justifies Means people. The Fourth Estate has become the world's most powerful Bully Pulpit. There are still a few good ones though, brave souls they are: Kim Strassel of WSJ, Daniel Larison of The American Conservative , Neil Munro of Breitbart.

The rest are more or less lying scums, including everyone on NYTimes, WSJ, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox, MSNBC, Fox News (minus Tucker Carlson and Maria Bartiromo), The Economist , and let's not forget the new media: Google, Facebook, Twitter. The world would be a much better place without any of them.

The Real World , says: November 13, 2020 at 5:44 am GMT • 14.1 hours ago

@Beavertales -- with either vote flipping on machines or having the totals that paper ballot scanners tabulate adjust via a pre-programmed algorithm. Many elections have already been stolen this way.

But, in the vein of what you mention is this fascinating article. I urge everyone to read it. He spills the beans in detail. https://nypost.com/2020/08/29/political-insider-explains-voter-fraud-with-mail-in-ballots/

Imagine hundreds of those people around the country over decades. There must be scads of illegitimate office holders all over. It's horrendous

Alfred , says: November 13, 2020 at 5:51 am GMT • 14.0 hours ago

Nancy Pelosi claims that Biden's victory gives the Democrats a "MANDATE" to alter the economy as they see fit with 50.5%. This proves that Biden will NOT represent everyone – only the left! I have warned that this has been their agenda from day one. Now, three whistleblowers from the Democratic software company Dominion Voting Systems, alleging that the company's software stole 38 million votes from Trump. There are people claiming that Dominion Voting Systems is linked to Soros, Dianae Finesteing, Clintons, and Pelosi's husband. I cannot verify any of these allegations so far.

We are at the Rubicon. Civil War is on the other side. There should NEVER be this type of drastic change to the economy from Capitalism to Marxism on 50.5% of the popular vote. NOBODY should be able to restructure the government and the economy on less than 2/3rds of the majority. That would be a mandate. Trying to change everything with a claim of 50.5% of the vote will only signal, like the Dread Scot decision, that there is no solution by rule of law. This is the end of civilization and it will turn ugly from here because there is no middle ground anymore. As I have warned, historically the left will never tolerate opposition.

Democrats Claim Mandate to Alter the Economy & 3 Whistleblowers from Software Company Allege they stole 38 million votes from Trump | Armstrong Economics

Priss Factor , says: Website November 13, 2020 at 5:56 am GMT • 13.9 hours ago

DEMOCRATS TURN MENACING AS FRAUD FALLS APART

https://www.bitchute.com/embed/WMA7DXLDgzBy/

Just another serf , says: November 13, 2020 at 6:18 am GMT • 13.6 hours ago

Yes, the theft is blatant. But what are you, us, going to do about it? We really can't do much as the Office of the President Elect requires us to wear masks. For our safety.

animalogic , says: November 13, 2020 at 6:35 am GMT • 13.3 hours ago

@Curmudgeon

"in the narrowest of legalistic terms, testimony or affidavits are not evidence. Testimony and affidavits become evidence when supported by physical evidence. " Correct – but they also can become evidence by verbal testimony. ie "I saw the defendant hit the victim with a rock"

Anon [115] Disclaimer , says: November 13, 2020 at 6:55 am GMT • 12.9 hours ago

Not only have they stolen the election but when Joe Biden and other democrats claim that President Trump caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans because of his handling of Covid 19, they are in sane. No world leader could stop the spread of this respiratory virus. However, Joe Biden and democrats have caused the deaths of hundreds of white people, while whipping up weak minded people to kill many whites. Biden and the democrats are criminals. Any one who is white, man or woman, that supports the democratic party is enabling a criminal organization to perpetrate violence on white people, including murder.

chet roman , says: November 13, 2020 at 7:05 am GMT • 12.8 hours ago

Since the article was from a German magazine it's understandable that there is no mention of "the one who shall not be named". No mention of the people behind the Lawfare group, the same people behind the impeachment, the same people providing financial and ideological support for the BLM/Antifa, the same people that own the media that spewed lies for 5 years and censored any mention of the Biden family corruption, no mention of the people behind this Color Revolution, the same people who promoted the mail in voting and those that managed the narrative for the media on election night to stop Trump's momentum.

For the public consumption the election will be described in vague terms, like this article, blaming special interests and institutions like the FBI, CIA and MIC without naming names as if an institution, not the oligarchs and chosen pulling the strings, are somehow Marxist, anti-white or anti-Christian.

Clay Alexander , says: November 13, 2020 at 7:18 am GMT • 12.6 hours ago

The interviewer quotes the Heritage Foundation does anyone even care what they say? The English Tavistock Institute by way of the CIA which the British molded from the OSS created programs for the Heritage Foundation as well as the Hoover Institute, MIT, Stanford University, Wharton, Rand etc. These "rightwing think tanks" were created to counter the CIA's "leftwing think tanks" at Columbia, Berkeley etc. Thank you British Intelligence.

Priss Factor , says: Website November 13, 2020 at 7:24 am GMT • 12.5 hours ago

Bloat the Vote: https://www.thedailybell.com/all-articles/news-analysis/2020-wisconsin-election-fraud/

Thomasina , says: November 13, 2020 at 7:31 am GMT • 12.3 hours ago

Steve Bannon was just interviewing someone (can't remember his name). Apparently there are about 200 to 300 IT professionals/engineers working on these so-called "glitches" (not glitches at all) which mysteriously "disappeared" thousands of Trump votes. Then they'd dump phony Biden votes into the mix. These IT professionals are going to follow the trail.

I've also heard that Dominion Voting Systems played a big part in this scam by using algorithms. One Trump lawyer said that big revelations are coming.

We're going to have to be patient and just wait.

"The inclination of Republicans is for Trump to protect America's reputation by conceding the election."

I honestly think it's more like the old established Republicans (corporate bought) want Trump to lose because that is what their campaign donors want (Big Pharma, Wall Street, etc.) They are part of the elite, and the elite (both the Democrats AND Republicans) want Trump gone so they can continue their crony capitalist looting. They've got to appear like they're behind Trump, but I don't think they are. Of course, that's not all Republican representatives.

Sounds like they've been rigging elections for awhile now. I bet they just messed up with Hillary. I think that's why she was so upset. She had it, but they screwed up and didn't supply enough ballots.

Biff , says: November 13, 2020 at 7:39 am GMT • 12.2 hours ago

My conclusion is: They are probably going to get away with it.

My advice: Make them suffer.

sally , says: November 13, 2020 at 7:45 am GMT • 12.1 hours ago

@KenH inventive creative new ways to deceive.. first it was election machines, then mail in votes. next it will be magic carpet voting. But the votes don't count, cause it is the electoral college that elects the President.

Trump also lost a significant number who did not understand Trump was an Israeli at heart, they thought he was a uncoothed NYC red blooded American.

As far as white, black or pokadot color or any of the religions ganging up against Trump I don't think that happened, the fall out into statistically discoverable categories is just that, fall out, not those categories conspiring to vote or not vote one way or the other.

Wizard of Oz , says: November 13, 2020 at 7:46 am GMT • 12.1 hours ago

PCR seems to have trouble seeing a difference between the counting of perfectly proper votes which Pres Trump's post office delivered late which may or may not be allowed by law which can be determined in court, and fraud like the dead voting or votes being forged.

Anonymous [272] Disclaimer , says: November 13, 2020 at 7:54 am GMT • 12.0 hours ago

The fraud is all so transparent but no one in the power elite seems to give a crap whether the public catches on or not these days. They know that the entire media which creates the false matrix of contrived "truth" that we all live in will back them to the hilt because they are actually just one more working part in the grand conspiracy. We all know that when "O'Brian" says 2 + 2 equals 5 we must all believe it, or at least say we do. We interface with "O'Brian's" minions on a daily basis but we don't know the ultimate identity of "O'Brian" (in the singular or multiple). Many guesses are made, but they hide that from us fairly well with the aid of their militaries and "intelligence" agencies (aka secret police in other times and places).

Wally , says: November 13, 2020 at 8:08 am GMT • 11.7 hours ago

@MarkinLA s://amgreatness.com/2020/11/09/on-electoral-fraud-in-2020/"> https://amgreatness.com/2020/11/09/on-electoral-fraud-in-2020/
– Why Did Six Battleground States with Democrat Governors (Except One) ALL Pause Counting on Election Night? And How Was This Coordinated?
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/11/six-battleground-states-democrat-governors-pause-counting-election-night-coordinated/?utm_source=Twitter&utm_campaign=websitesharingbuttons

Biff , says: November 13, 2020 at 8:57 am GMT • 10.9 hours ago

For example in the early hours of the morning of November 4 large ballot drops occurred in Michigan and Wisconsin that wiped out Trump's lead.

In a very similar vein, it is the same thing that happened to Bernie Sanders during the primary's. Joe was down and out, and Bernie was enjoying the lead and then "Bam!" Overnight Joe is back on top.

Well, fool me once,,,,,, .,and blah, blah whatever Bush said .

Verymuchalive , says: November 13, 2020 at 9:48 am GMT • 10.1 hours ago

@Stephen Allen

Dr Roberts has referenced in the interview a UR article that goes into considerable detail about the massive electoral fraud by the Democrats and their partners. You've obviously not bothered to read it.

You're like one of those MSM hacks who denies electoral fraud without making any attempt to look at the evidence.

Sollipsist , says: November 13, 2020 at 10:17 am GMT • 9.6 hours ago

@Begemot And it's almost always a closer race than anyone would have guessed beforehand -- which I also find suspicious. How likely is it that the majority of presidential elections over the last century were decided by more or less even numbers of voters from each party, between more or less evenly matched candidates?

Really seems like they've perfected the art of putting on rigged political shows that you can't quite believe in, but don't have anything really solid to back up your suspicions. It's like the "no evidence of fraud" canard -- anything solid enough to show obvious manipulation is explained away as the exception, rather than the tip of a very deep iceberg

James Speaks , says: November 13, 2020 at 10:40 am GMT • 9.2 hours ago

@S Martini

Like the false accusations about Russia, delegitimizing the presidential election as fraud is turning out to be much ado about nothing.

Let's review. The Democrats perpetrated the phony 2016 Russian influence fraud, and now the Democrats are perpetrating the phony 2020 election victory.

The common elements are Democrats perpetrate fraud.

Do try to keep up.

Lee , says: November 13, 2020 at 11:48 am GMT • 8.1 hours ago

IMO this is a simple remedy to settle the election fraud mess or we will be arguing about this 20 years from now .from the American Thinker.

The candidates on the ballot must have an opportunity to have observers whom they choose to oversee the entire process so the candidates are satisfied that they won or lost a free and fair election.

That is not what happened in the 2020 election. That is the single most important and simple fact that needs to be understood and communicated. The 2020 election was not a free and fair election, because poll-watchers were not allowed to do their essential job. The 2020 election can still be a free and fair election with a clear winner, whoever that may be, but time is running out.

In every instance where poll-watchers were not allowed to observe the process, those votes must be recounted. They must be recounted with poll-watchers from both sides present. If there are votes that cannot be recounted because the envelops were discarded, those votes must be discarded. Put the blame for this on the officials who decided to count the votes in secret. Consider it a way to discourage secret vote counts in the future.

The pandemic has not been fearful enough to close liquor stores, and it in should not be used as excuse to remove the poll-watchers who are essential to a free and fair election. If we must have social distancing, then use cameras.

Certainly, there are other issues with the 2020 election. There may be problems with software, and there are issues like signature verification and dead people voting. Everything should be considered and examined, but no other issue should distract from the simple fact that both sides must be able to view the entire process. If one side is not allowed to view the vote-counting, then that side should be calling it a fraud. We should all be calling it a fraud.

Read more: https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/11/the_simplest_most_important_issue_regarding_the_2020_election.html#ixzz6dfsChU00

TomGregg , says: November 13, 2020 at 12:23 pm GMT • 7.5 hours ago

@Anon

https://www.youtube.com/embed/OyBNmecVtdU?feature=oembed

The Spirit of Enoch Powell , says: November 13, 2020 at 1:02 pm GMT • 6.8 hours ago

...Trump had control of the Senate, the House and of course the Executive between his inauguration in January of 2017 and the Midterm Elections of 2018, a total time period of 1 year and 10 months. What did he do during this time? He deregulated financial services and passed corporate tax cuts.

At the end of the day, being emotionally invested in US elections is no different to being emotionally invested in Keeping up with the Kardashians , that is to say your life wouldn't be that different if your don't follow either.

Realist , says: November 13, 2020 at 1:04 pm GMT • 6.8 hours ago

The Democrats Have Stolen the Presidential Election

The Deep State Has Stolen the Presidential Election. FIFY. But they have been in control for decades they just don't care who knows now. They are taking final steps to make their control impervious to attack.

anon [434] Disclaimer , says: November 13, 2020 at 1:06 pm GMT • 6.8 hours ago

@Notsofast nd protect the actual elephant in the Oval Office: CIA.

Trumman did speak up one month after JFK was killed by the unmentionable "I" of M.(I).I.C.

https://archive.org/stream/LimitCIARoleToIntelligenceByHarrySTruman/Limit%20CIA%20Role%20To%20Intelligence%20by%20Harry%20S%20Truman_djvu.txt

This is the reason that the establishment latched on to the Eisenhowerian bon mot but entirely memory hole Trumman's far more explicit warning a freaking month after a sitting president is shot like a turkey in Dallas: it white washes CIA and NSC .

Priss Factor , says: Website November 13, 2020 at 1:31 pm GMT • 6.3 hours ago

Why are CIA goons like Anderson Pooper serving as journalists? CIA is a criminal organization that subverts other nations.

MLK , says: November 13, 2020 at 1:32 pm GMT • 6.3 hours ago

The place to begin, and it's mind-blowing when you think about it this way, is that nothing was resolved on election night. Not who will take the oath on January 20th. Nor which party will control the Senate. Nor even who will be Speaker and which party will control the House.

Suffice it to say, a still raging factional struggle has simply moved to a greater degree behind the curtain.

I noted this movie reference on another thread here:

If your father dies, you'll make the deal, Sonny.

-- "The Godfather"

My point being, you're foolish if you ascribe certainty as to outcome at this point.

Being rid of Trump has been as close to a dues ex machina for the establishment as imaginable since he took the oath. This ineluctable observation elicits no end of foot-stomping by those who assume it necessarily says anything positive about the man.

With every persistent revision of the script they wrote for him, all ending with his political demise at least, Trump has not just survived but grown stronger. While the Democrats turned our elections into something only seen in a third-world shit hole, Trump legitimately drew 71M votes from Americans.

That's a lot of air in the balloon. Believe me, filth like Russian mole Brennan may think everything is finished once they get rid of terrible, awful Trump, but those above his pay grade know better.

Like him or hate him, Trump is the only principal not wholly or largely discredited. He was saved from destruction during his first term by the Republican base moving to protect him. That was the import of his 90-95% approval among them, destroy him and you destroy the Republican Party.

Now, despite -- or perhaps, because of -- everything they've done, that base now includes a significant number of Democrats and independents. Trump is merely a vessel for an American majority attached to this constitutional republic thingie we've got going.

Don't get lost in the details. This isn't a puzzle you can solve by internet sleuthing. The plan they executed -- to steal sufficiently to make the outcome inevitable by the morning after the election at the latest -- failed. This was evident early on Election Day (e.g. fake water main breaks in Atlanta) and necessitated their playing their Fox/AZ card and shutting down the count at least until they had removed Republican monitors.

BannedHipster , says: Website November 13, 2020 at 2:57 pm GMT • 4.9 hours ago

People need to stop falling for Republican bullshit.

The Republicans control:

1. The Senate

2. The Supreme Court with a 6 to 3 majority.

3. The majority of state governments by a huge margin:

https://bannedhipster.home.blog/2020/11/12/bidens-first-cabinet-pick-israel-first-zionist-jew-ron-klain/

"In 22 states, Republicans will hold unified control over the governor's office and both houses of the legislature, giving the party wide political latitude -- including in states like Florida and Georgia."

"Eleven states will have divided governments in 2021, unchanged from this year: Democratic governors will need to work with Republican legislators in eight states, and Republican governors will contend with Democratic lawmakers in three."

The Democrats have: Joe Biden, and a slim majority in the House of Representatives which they are almost certain to lose in two years.

What the Republicans are going to do is everything we hate, but they will pretend they were "forced" to do it by the Democrats – the Democrats being the minority party.

Amnesty? Democrats made us do it.

More immigration? Democrats made us do it.

The Republican party is the greater of two evils.

Rurik , says: November 13, 2020 at 2:59 pm GMT • 4.9 hours ago

Who else could have survived what Trump has been subjected to by the Establishment and their media prostitutes. In the United States the media is known as "presstitutes" -- press prostitutes. That is what Udo Ulfkotte says they are in Europe.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/-sYUmnLnoz8?feature=oembed

Mr. Ulfkotte died of a "heart attack" in January, 2017

Rest in Peace Udo.

Zarathustra , says: November 13, 2020 at 3:00 pm GMT • 4.9 hours ago

Left and right.
(What you small brains do not understand is this.)
Democrats enabling the elite to invest in far east (lower wage costs, higher profits) did abandon the working class in America. Democrats by this act did throw away the working class as a dirty rug.
Democrats with their TPP exporting most of the production to far east would totally destroy working class in USA. Trump's first act was to cancel this insanity. Democrats are insanely delusional.
Democrats were left. Left is a party that supports the working people.
So here switch occurred. Democratic party now represent the elite, and Republicans now represent the working people.
(The irony of the fate)

Robert Dolan , says: November 13, 2020 at 3:26 pm GMT • 4.4 hours ago

https://www.bitchute.com/video/hxrVAGuE7Oo1/

Robert Snefjella , says: November 13, 2020 at 3:30 pm GMT • 4.4 hours ago

The headline for PCR's article is a prediction, not yet established, and incomplete.

There is an ongoing massive attempt to steal the Presidential election as well as to steal an unknown number of House and Senate seats, and who knows what else.

The 'game' is still on. Many tens of millions of citizens – actual total unknown but possibly in numbers unprecedented in American history – voted for Trump. Republican candidates for office generally had strong support, but again, the actual percentage of support is unknown but presumably larger than now 'recorded'.

There are also the many millions who ardently supported Trump, know that Biden is illegitimate, deeply corrupt, and the precursor to perils unknown. Their determination and backbone and intelligence will now be tested.

There is the electoral college process; there are the state legislators that have a say in the process; there is the Supreme Court.

There is also the possibility of pertinent executive orders that mandate transparent processes in the face of, say, apprehended insurrection via fraudulent voting processes.

There is also the matter of how millions of 'deplorables' with trucks and tractors and firearms and other means to make their point will react to obvious massive election travesty.

The conjunction of the COVID global scamdemic/plandemic, with crazed Bill Gates and kin lurking in the background with needles, 'peaceful' protesters in many cities setting fires and looting with near impunity, and a mass media that is clearly comprehensively committed to a demonic degree of dishonesty and manipulation, and lunatic levels of 'identity politics' ideology, are among the elements setting the stage for what may be an historical watershed.

The American Revolution in the 18th century, against the British Crown's authority, came about after years of simmering anger and sporadic resistance against British injustice. At some point there was a 'tipping point'. When Germany invaded and occupied Norway early in the 2nd WW, an effective resistance quickly formed in reaction, where death and torture were the known willing risk. Two years before, those forming the resistance would have been just going on with their lives.

No one knows today how this plays out.

Agent76 , says: November 13, 2020 at 3:45 pm GMT • 4.1 hours ago

Who's Afraid of an Open Debate? The Truth About the Commission on Presidential Debates. The CPD is a duopoly which allows the major party candidates to draft secret agreements about debate arrangements including moderators, debate format and even participants.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/1NXhoP5bQ2M?feature=oembed

Mar 6, 2014 Truth in Media "End Partisanship"

Ben Swann explains how the new coalition of EndPartisanship org is working to break the 2 party hold on primary elections, which currently lock around 50% of voters out of the process.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/h1zRfXkOmPI?feature=oembed

Sep 5, 2012 DNC Platform Changes on God, Jerusalem Spur Contentious Floor Vote

Democratic National Convention 2012: Delegates opposed to adding language on God, Israel's capital to platform shout, 'No!' in floor vote.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/t8BwqzzqcDs?feature=oembed

anon [287] Disclaimer , says: November 13, 2020 at 4:21 pm GMT • 3.5 hours ago

For those who are sick of Fake News CNN or FoxNews, watch this new channel that many Trump voters are flocking to:

https://www.newsmaxtv.com/

I am currently watching an interview with SD Governor Kristi Noem, who went on ABC to challenge George Stenopolosus' claim that there is no fraud in this election. She pointed out that there has been many allegations, including dead people voting in PA and GA, she says we don't know how widespread this is, but we owe it to the 70+ million people who voted for Trump to investigate and ensure a clean and fair election. She said we gave Al Gore 37 days to investigate the result in 2000, why aren't we giving the same to Trump?

She is extremely articulate and sounds intelligent and honest, and what's more courageous to come forward like this. I hope she runs for president in 2024, I'd vote for her.

Anonymous [721] Disclaimer , says: November 13, 2020 at 4:21 pm GMT • 3.5 hours ago

@Chris in Cackalacky

Am I the only one who sees something profoundly spiritual happening in front of our eyes?

Yes. In reality, 5% of White men sent Trump packing. That doesn't match the GOP negrophile narrative where "based" Hindustanis join the emerging conservative coalition to make sure White people can't get affordable healthcare in their own countries, though. So we'll have to watch you parasites spool up this pedantic "fraud" nonsense until the fat orange zioclown gracelessly gets dragged out.

OutsideMan , says: November 13, 2020 at 4:30 pm GMT • 3.4 hours ago

@Drew

Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups and Average Citizens
by Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page

https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/files/gilens_and_page_2014_-testing_theories_of_american_politics.doc.pdf

Agent76 , says: November 13, 2020 at 4:31 pm GMT • 3.3 hours ago

@TomGregg

Good post. You will gain more insight from this background on the speech and drafting.

Jan 19, 2011 Eisenhower's "Military-Industrial Complex" Speech Origins and Significance US National Archives

President Dwight D. Eisenhower's farewell address, known for its warnings about the growing power of the "military-industrial complex," was nearly two years in the making. This Inside the Vaults video short follows newly discovered papers revealing that Eisenhower was deeply involved in crafting the speech.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/Gg-jvHynP9Y?feature=oembed

Thomasina , says: November 13, 2020 at 4:42 pm GMT • 3.2 hours ago

@The Real World

Great article. Thanks. Agree with you about the big stealing being electronic. Trump tweeted out yesterday that over 2 million votes were stolen this way. For him to say this, they must have evidence.

Dinesh D'Souza said he hopes that when this matter comes before the Supreme Court that they will tackle once and for all what constitutes a legal vote.

Some pretty big names are involved with this Dominion Voting. It will be interesting to see what Trump's team of IT experts discover re the use of algorithms to swing the vote.

Cyrano , says: November 13, 2020 at 5:03 pm GMT • 2.8 hours ago

Why (Oh, why) did Trump had to go? Because Trump is an enema to the Deep State. He was threatening to expose the biggest lie of the last 100 years – the supposed "liberalism" of US...

Genrick Yagoda , says: November 13, 2020 at 5:07 pm GMT • 2.7 hours ago

@Wizard of Oz

It has already been determined by the court. Pennsylvania ruled that late ballots are not to be counted.

https://static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2020/11/602-MD-2020-Order-Nov.-12.pdf

DanFromCT , says: November 13, 2020 at 5:15 pm GMT • 2.6 hours ago

@Stephen Allen

The author refers to a body of overwhelmingly persuasive evidence of voter fraud that can be specified and quantified to provide proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt in criminal cases, not to mention hands down proof in civil cases requiring only a preponderance of the evidence to establish guilt. Furthermore, the Democrats' easily documented, elaborate efforts at concealing the vote counting process by shutting down the counting prior to sneaking truckloads of ballots in the back door is by itself powerful circumstantial evidence of their guilt. You have no idea what "evidence" means, either in general usage or in its strictly legal sense.

fatmanscoop , says: November 13, 2020 at 5:15 pm GMT • 2.6 hours ago

The election cannot be trusted at all, just based on the insane entitled emotional state of the Globalist establishment alone. The system as-a-whole cannot be trusted, for the same reason. They are actively corrupting it in every way they can, and fully believe (as a matter of religious conviction) that they are right to do so.

fatmanscoop , says: November 13, 2020 at 5:38 pm GMT • 2.2 hours ago

@Curmudgeon

"no evidence of wide spread voter fraud"

That's one of the Jew/Anglo Puritan Establishment's new catch-phrases. There's also "no evidence" that Joe Biden acted in a corrupt manner in Ukraine, even though he admitted to it on tape. There's "no evidence" that Big Tech is biased against conservative plebians, despite their removing conservative plebians' published content arbitrarily and with no State compulsion to do so. The phrase "there's no evidence" is just a public commitment to ignore any evidence, no matter how blatant or obvious.

Robert Dolan , says: November 13, 2020 at 5:39 pm GMT • 2.2 hours ago

https://www.trunews.com/stream/michigan-republican-governor-candidate-saw-voter-machines-connected-to-internet

Peripatetic Itch , says: November 13, 2020 at 5:41 pm GMT • 2.2 hours ago

@DanFromCT

This newly discovered legal standard goes beyond "preponderance of the evidence" or even "guilt beyond a reasonable doubt" to establish absolute certainty as the standard.

Just the obvious and necessary complement of the Bob Mueller standard for Russian collusion, don't you think -- "could not (quite) exonerate"? /s

Don't you dare call this hypocrisy.

Orville H. Larson , says: November 13, 2020 at 5:57 pm GMT • 1.9 hours ago

@Rogue

When it comes to protecting the integrity of elections, "low-tech" might be best!

anon [771] Disclaimer , says: November 13, 2020 at 6:05 pm GMT • 1.8 hours ago

@endthefed

His impotence makes a lot more sense when you know the full version was supposed to be Military-Industrial Congressional Complex.

The Real World , says: November 13, 2020 at 6:42 pm GMT • 1.2 hours ago

@TheTrumanShow as the reason why.

They went for a softer approach in KY in 2019. The first-term Repub Gov had a Yankee's forthrightness so they just latched onto comments he made regarding the underfunded teachers pension program and amped-it to high heaven getting teachers all in a frightful frenzy.

In that solidly Red state, with all other prominent offices on the ballot (AG, SoS, etc.) going overwhelmingly Repub , somehow the Repub Gov loses to the Dem by around 5000 votes. The "teachers pension" narrative was rolled-out as the reason. (Btw, it seems that Dominion, or another type, software was used to switch the votes in that race. I've seen video about it.)

Art , says: November 13, 2020 at 6:47 pm GMT • 1.1 hours ago

@Orville H. Larson

When it comes to protecting the integrity of elections, "low-tech" might be best!

Paper ballots as ascribed by Tulsi Gabbard legislation is the only safe option for elections. Kudos to Tulsi!

The Real World , says: November 13, 2020 at 6:55 pm GMT • 56 minutes ago

@Orville H. Larson out how the winds are blowing. There is nothing good about it.

Why not this:
-- ONLY in-person voting over a 2-day period, a Sat and Sun, with polls being open from 6AM to 9PM both days.
-- Exceptions are the traditional requested absentee ballot where the voter can be authenticated.
-- Paper ballots must be used at the polls and no single box of 'Straight Vote by Party' is offered.
-- Some kind of SIMPLE scanning tabulator could be used of the ballots and with it NOT being connected to the internet.

There is far too much cheating opportunity built into our current system. That's intended, of course.
It needs to end!

Priss Factor , says: Website November 13, 2020 at 7:02 pm GMT • 49 minutes ago

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/11/exclusive-based-reports-auditors-specialists-data-analysts-statisticians-number-illegitimate-votes-identified-four-swing-states-enough-overturn-election/

... ... ...

No Friend Of The Devil , says: November 13, 2020 at 7:09 pm GMT • 42 minutes ago

Because you don't get it. You are missing the big picture. It was well known that these systems had the ability to be hacked as soon as they were implemented. It is also a well known fact that massive mail in ballots increases the likelihood that corrupt individuals are more likely to get away with election fraud.

Everyone knew about the potential for voter fraud to occur, but the entire system is corrupt, including Trump who has allowed the massive corruption within the system that was present when he entered office to persist and grow because he is a wimpy, spineless, coward, that was too afraid to make any waves and take the heat that he promised his voters.

Why anyone voted for Trump in 2020 confounds me. I voted for him in 2016 and he has turned out to be one of the worst presidents in history.

Trump in his cowardess and dishonesty knew that the ailing economy would harm his chances of being re-elected, so he allowed the health scare scamdemic to occur and destroy the livelihoods, lives, and businesses of hundreds of millions of Americans because he is a psychopath. Trump did not do what he promised. Trump made America worse than it has ever been since the end of slavery. Jeremy Powell said today that the economy is dead and will never recover.

The only injustices that Trump gave a damn about were the injustices against himself and his family, and has committed countless injustices against the entire country and world during his term. Trump is a corrupt narcissist. The facts prove it. Trump is such a corrupt narcissist that he was willing to destroy the entire economy based on scientific fraud, high crimes, and treason to use as political cover for his own incompetency which is the most offensive and disgusting diabolical act ever perpetrated on the entire country.

Trump has also demanded the extradition of Assange after telling his voters that he loved wikileaks. Trump is a two-faced, lying, fraud. It has been his pattern. He consistently supports various groups and people like Wikileaks, Proud Boys, and others and panders to them and voters and tells people that he loves them, and then every time without fail when the heat is on, Trump says," I really don't know anything about them."

"I know nothing." Trump saying "I know nothing." defines his presidency and who he is as a person, a spineless, pandering, corrupt, two-faced, narcissist, loser, and wimp!

Why would anyone vote for him the second time around after a record of pathological incompetency and pathological corruption? What's to approve of about him? Go ahead, investigate voter fraud it if is permitted, and if it isn't then ask yourselves why it is that a system that enables election fraud is in place, and ask yourselves who had the ability to change it and, who had the ability to benefit from it!

Andrea Iravani

[Jan 02, 2021] Tulsi Gabbard slams COVID relief bill as a 'slap in the face' to Americans - YouTube

Jan 02, 2021 | www.youtube.com

---

liveltoob , 6 days ago

She voted against the bill because she's smart and she actually reads things

Joseph Klimchock , 6 days ago

Congress has failed the American people again and again. They do almost nothing, we might actually be better if they did NOTHING!!!!!

Shawn Cornell , 1 week ago

One of the few dems that talks sensibly. That's why the communist dems kept changing the rules to keep her out of the debates.

EAZY-E Zero , 5 days ago

Respectfully, Tulsi Gabbard could have been a better candidate than Joe Biden. That's just my opinion.

Jn Stonbely , 3 days ago

Bravo Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard for putting it to the "Demagogue" Party for their deviousness, lies, and clearly ; anti-American behavior !

Kai Chinn , 6 days ago

I like Tulsi, she actually has a head on her shoulders and actually cares about the American People! Aaaaand, she is not hard on the eyes either! :)

boonarga , 6 days ago

Gabbard represents what Democrats were before they became evil.

chiefordnance , 4 hours ago

As a Republican Tulsi was the only Democrat I was rooting for, the Democrats destroyed her because she wasn't part of their agenda.

Brian Hariprashad , 2 days ago

She embodies what a true good democrat is idk what's up with the rest of the party, she has my vote

What Is Your Worldview? - Creation or Evolutionism? , 6 days ago

In a world of [neo]liberalism, it is the VICTIM that gets punished, not the criminals.

[Jan 02, 2021] Idea of 'exceptionalism' encouraged US to quit treaties makes Americans think they can ignore rules Russian foreign minis

Jan 02, 2021 | www.rt.com

Idea of 'exceptionalism' encouraged US to quit treaties & makes Americans think they can ignore rules – Russian foreign ministry 2 Jan, 2021 15:00 Get short URL © Sputnik / Russian Foreign Ministry 22 Follow RT on

By Jonny Tickle In recent years, the US has gone crazy with its idea of 'American exceptionalism' and Washington has taught its people that the country does not need to follow any rules and can disregard international agreements, Moscow claims.

Maria Zakharova, the spokesperson for Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, made the claim on Thursday to YouTube channel 'Izolenta live.'

"It's a nuclear power that has gone wild with the idea of its own exceptionalism, withdrawing from lots of documents, treaties, international organizations," she said.

ALSO ON RT.COM Russia ready to 'fight off' Western attempts to seize its assets in $50bn battle with oligarchs over collapsed Yukos oil empire

Zakharova also believes that Washington has "encouraged its population to think that they don't owe anybody anything" and "they should not obey anyone," up to and including international law.

However, she noted that the White House may one day decide to return to various deals sidelined in recent years, presumably referring to the incoming president, Joe Biden.

READ MORE When in Russia Get yourself a dose of Sputnik V, Foreign Ministry tells US envoy who asked Santa for VACCINE

Since the incumbent at the White House, Donald Trump, came to power in 2017, Washington has reduced its participation in international organizations. In 2018, the US withdrew from UNESCO and from the UN Human Rights Council (HRC). A year later, Trump pulled his country out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), and in 2020 the country left the Open Skies Treaty. Furthermore, on February 5, a fortnight after Biden is due to take office, the US will depart from the New START nuclear arms reduction treaty unless the Kremlin and the new president's team quickly come to an understanding.

Last month, at his annual press conference, Russian President Vladimir Putin chided the US for pulling out of treaties that Russia is fully supportive of, noting that there could be an "arms race" if Biden doesn't agree to an extension of START.

"We heard the statement by the president-elect that it would be reasonable to extend the New START. We will wait and see what that will amount to in practical terms. The New START expires in February," Putin pointed out.

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[Jan 02, 2021] No To War Profiteers

Jan 02, 2021 | www.veteransforpeace.org

Demonstrators push back against Buncombe County incentives for Pratt & Whitney

Veterans For Peace members in Asheville, North Carolina participated in a Reject Raytheon Demonstration on Dec. 9th.

"Prior to the county vote on the incentives, a spokesperson for the company said it made $21 billion in sales last year. More than half came from the manufacturing of commercial engines used for passengers and cargo. He said military engines made up about 20-30 percent of sales.

"So much of our military hardware gets made here and is sent overseas and used in proxy wars and in purposes that don't really serve the security of the United States itself," Veterans for Peace's Gerry Werhan said."

Read the article

[Dec 30, 2020] The Unaccountable Nation by Danny Sjursen

Highly recommended!

Notable quotes:

"... Then the exceptionalist-triumphalist power inevitably runs off-the-rails, and -- especially when it feels threatened or insecure -- lashes out in fits of aggressive military, economic, religious, or racial chauvinism. This cycle tends to replay again and again until the empire collapses, usually through some combination of external power displacement and internal exhaustion or collapse. ..."

Mar 16, 2020 | www.truthdig.com

Exceptionalism, triumphalism, chauvinism. These characteristics define most empires, including, like it or not, these United States . The sequence matters. A people and national government that fancies itself exceptional -- an example for the rest of the world -- is apt to assert itself militarily, economically, and culturally around the globe. If that self-righteous state happens to possess prodigious power, as the U.S. has since the Second World War, then any perceived success will lead to a sense of triumphalism, and thus put into motion a feedback loop whereby national "achievement" justifies and validates that conception of exceptionalism.

Then the exceptionalist-triumphalist power inevitably runs off-the-rails, and -- especially when it feels threatened or insecure -- lashes out in fits of aggressive military, economic, religious, or racial chauvinism. This cycle tends to replay again and again until the empire collapses, usually through some combination of external power displacement and internal exhaustion or collapse.

Such imperial hyper-powers, particularly in their late-stages, often employ foot soldiers across vast swathes of the planet, and eventually either lose control of their actions or aren't concerned with their resultant atrocities in the first place. On that, the jury is perhaps still out. Regardless, the discomfiting fact is that by nearly any measure, the United States today coheres, to a remarkable degree, with each and every one of these tenets of empire evolution. This includes, despite the hysterical denials of sitting political and Pentagon leaders, the troubling truth that American soldiers and intelligence agents have committed war crimes across the Greater Middle East since 9/11 on a not so trivial number of occasions. These law of war violations also occurred during the Cold War generation -- notably in Korea and Vietnam -- and the one consistent strain has been the almost complete inability or unwillingness of the U.S. Government to hold perpetrators, and their enabling commanders, accountable.

Enter the International Criminal Court (ICC). First proposed , conceptually, in 1919 (and again in 1937, 1948, and 1971), in response to massive war crimes and human rights violations of the two world wars, the Hague-headquartered court finally opened for business in 2002. With more than 120 signatory member states (though not, any longer, the U.S.) the ICC has the jurisdiction to prosecute international violations including "genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression." A compliment, rather than a replacement, to sovereign national justice systems, the ICC is designed to be the "court of last resort," obliged to exercise jurisdiction only when a nation's courts prove unwilling or unable to prosecute such crimes.

All of which sounds both admirable and unthreatening (at least to reasonably well-behaved states with accountable, responsive justice systems), but to the contemporary American imperial hyper-power, the very existence of the ICC is viewed as a mortal threat. Matters demonstrably came to a head this past week when an ICC appeals court reversed a lower-level decision and allowed its special prosecutor -- whose visa Washington has already revoked -- to simply open an official investigation into alleged war crimes committed in Afghanistan by all three major parties to the conflict: the Taliban, U.S., and U.S.-backed Kabul-based Afghan government. This decidedly mild decision, which only allows a multi-directional inquiry , unleashed an immediate firestorm in Washington.

The reflexive reactions and responses of current and former Trump officials was both instructive and totally in line with decades worth of bipartisan U.S. disavowal of the very notion of international norms and standards. Trump's recent hawkish national security adviser, John Bolton -- now an MSNBC-DNC darling for his apparent critique of the president in a new memoir -- has spearheaded opposition to the ICC since its inception, has asserted that the ICC is "illegitimate," and that the U.S. Government "will not sit quietly," if "the court comes after us." After the most recent ruling, Secretary of State (and former director of the very CIA that is likely to be implicated in said war crimes investigation) Mike Pompeo declared the ruling a "truly breathtaking action by an unaccountable, political institution masquerading as a legal body," adding, threateningly, that "we will take all necessary measures to protect our citizens from this renegade, unlawful, so-called court."

On that latter point, Pompeo is neither wrong, nor espousing a policy -- no matter how aggressive or rejectionist -- unique to Donald Trump's administration. Here, a brief bit of all but forgotten history is in order. In 1998, the UN General Assembly voted 120-7 to establish the ICC. The United States, in good company with a gaggle of criminally compromised states -- China, Iraq, Israel, Libya, Yemen, and Qatar -- voted against the measure. Two years later, however, President Bill Clinton unenthusiastically signed onto this foundational Rome Statute , but with some dubiousness and the requisite American exceptionalist caveat that he "will not, and do not recommend that my successor, submit the treaty to the Senate for advice and consent until our fundamental concerns are satisfied."

Then came the 9/11 terrorist attacks. This tragedy turned (for then ascendant neoconservatives) opportunity for expanded U.S. military global assertiveness, ensured that Clinton's successor -- one George W. Bush -- wouldn't even consider ICC treaty submission to the Senate. Rather, in May 2002, Bush sent a note to the UN Secretary General informing him that the most powerful and influential country in the world no longer intended to ratify the Rome Statute or recognize any obligations to the ICC (which officially opened for business only two months later ). Never simply a morality tale of Republican villainy, Bush's disavowal didn't explain the half of it.

Far more disturbingly, a stunningly euphemistic American Service-members' Protection Act of 2001 amendment, first introduced just 15 days after the 9/11 attacks, to the Supplemental Appropriations Act for Further Recovery From and Response to Terrorist Attacks on the United States, was already under consideration in Congress. With broad bipartisan majorities, that legislation -- which authorized the U.S. president to use "all means necessary and appropriate to bring about the release of any U.S. or allied personnel being detained or imprisoned by, on behalf of, or at the request of the International Criminal Court" -- passed in the House a couple weeks after Bush sent his note to the UN, and the Senate just two weeks later. President Bush then signed this authorization for, up to and including military, force into law on August 2, 2002. Much of the world was appalled and international human rights organizations took to – quite appropriately – calling it the " Hague Invasion Act ." It remains in force today.

The timeline is instructive and itself tells a vital part of the story. Democrats and Republicans alike had chosen to "preempt" -- an internationally prohibited precedent that Bush would later invoke to invade Iraq -- the not yet in force ICC with this bill. They did so, I'd assert, because they knew a salient dirty secret: the U.S. was about to unleash martial fury across the Greater Middle East. In the process, inevitably, American troopers and intelligence spooks would push the limits of acceptable wartime behavior, and thus be vulnerable to international prosecution by the soon effective ICC.

This was unacceptable for an exceptionalist, triumphalist nation, about to undertake chauvinist actions the world over. That unilateral, world-order-be-damned national position held, and still holds, sway in the intervening 18 years. So, for all the Trump administration's coarse obtuseness in response to the opening of the latest ICC Afghan investigation, this is, at root, not (as the mainstream media will inevitably now claim) a Donald phenomenon.Three administrations, and multiple guard-changing Congresses, chose to not to touch the infamous Hague Invasion Act or realign the U.S. with the ICC or the spirit (or even the pretense) of international law.

The cast of elite characters, many still politically influential, who voted for the Hague Invasion Act is nothing short of astounding. The bill passed the House by a margin of 280-138, and counted such "yea" votes as House Intelligence Committee Chair -- top Trump opponent and Russiagate investigator -- Democrat Adam Schiff. Notably, especially in this ongoing electoral cycle, then Vermont Representative Bernie Sanders opposed the measure.In the Senate , an even larger portion of Democrats joined current Speaker Mitch McConnell (and most of his Republican caucus), to vote for the Act. These included such past and present notables as former Secretaries of State John Kerry and Hillary Clinton, current Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, and, then Foreign Relations Committee Chair, and now Democratic presidential frontrunner, Joe Biden. His vote, naturally, should come as scant surprise since even in early Senate committee hearings four years earlier, ranking minority member Biden was at best tepid, and at worst quite skeptical of the ICC – even finding unlikely points of agreement with the later Hague Invasion Bill's sponsor, and longtime unilateralist hawk, Republican Senator Jesse Helms.

Still, the swift, frenetic response of senior Trump officials to ICC decision is telling. I suspect that Pompeo and Bolton know the inconvenient truth – that U.S. national security forces have committed crimes in Afghanistan (and elsewhere) and that the U.S. Government hasn't ever truly held these select perpetrators sufficiently accountable. Contra Pompeo, Bolton, and other Trump officials' ardent public assertions, the U.S. military and intelligence community are, in fact – due to being demonstrably "unwilling or unable to prosecute such [war] crimes" – the perfect candidates for ICC investigation, and if evidentiary appropriate, prosecution. The U.S. has a historically abysmal record either of restraining or punishing wartime violations.

The rarely recounted record is an extensive as it is appalling:

• After U.S. Air Force pilots and U.S. Army soldiers strafed and gunned down some 400 Korean refugees (most women, children, and old men) hiding under a bridge at No Gun Ri over the course of four days in 1950, there was no criminal investigation when the military determined the killings represented naught but an "unfortunate tragedy inherent to war."
• When, after a two-year coverup, the journalist Seymour Hersh brought to light the blatant execution of at least 504 civilians in the hamlet of My Lai , South Vietnam, just six soldiers were charged, and only one – Lieutenant William Calley – convicted. Though countless victims were beheaded, scalped, or had their throats slit in an orgy of violence, even Calley's original life sentence was repeatedly reduced by senior generals until he was ultimately granted clemency by President Richard Nixon. Convicted by jury of military officer peers of personally killing at least 22 civilians, Calley served only five months in detention and some three years under house arrest.
• Later in the Vietnam War, when Lieutenant Colonel Anthony Herbert blew the whistle on endemic torture among some U.S. troops, and a subsequent investigation uncovered 141 confirmed incidents of prisoner abuse, not a single criminal charge was filed and only three soldiers were administratively fined or reduced in rank. The only significant punishment meted out was leveled at Herbert -- recipient of four Silver Stars and three Bronze Stars, who was also shot 10 ten times and bayonet thrice -- when his reputation and career were ruined in retaliation.
• When allegations of systemic prisoner abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib Prison were reported by Major General Antonio Taguba, and simultaneously uncovered by the very same Seymour Hersh, not a single soldier above the rank of staff sergeant faced charges. Taguba, incidentally, did suffer -- his career unceremoniously curtailed in the wake of threats, intimidation, and harassment by the senior army commander in Iraq (General John Abizaid) and the then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
• Finally, and perhaps most relevant to the current ICC investigatory backlash, after an American AC-130 gunship unloaded on a civilian hospital (by definition, a war crime) repeatedly for 30-60 minutes and killed 42 doctors, patients, and staff members, the top theater commander, General John Campbell, and then Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter changed their stories four times in four days without ever fully explicating what exactly caused the massacre. An official military probe – instructively, the generals always investigate themselves in these matters – found no criminal culpability, and, while Campbell's nominal boss, General Joseph Votel, claimed to have administratively disciplined sixteen soldiers and officers, the names of those personnel – and he details of their punishment – were never released.

Add to that the disconcerting fact that the U.S. crossed a rather macabre tipping point in 2019, whereby, for the first time, the American military and its Afghan allies killed more civilians than the Taliban, and this brings us full circle to an alarming present reality. The very figures who championed and supported the wildly chauvinistic "Hague Invasion" Act seem set to hold sway over, and in Biden's case serve as candidate for, the Democratic Party.In November, that faction will likely, then face off against a Trump team that vehemently opposes even a basic investigation into alleged American criminal misbehavior in the Afghan theater of its ongoing forever wars.

All of which demonstrates, once and for all, that human rights, and international law or norms were never of genuine interest to the United States. None of this will play well on the "Arab," or even broader global, "Street," and will – just like U.S. abuses at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo – actually increase worldwide "terrorism" and anti-Americanism. None of which matters to, or greatly concerns, a Washington elite lacking even a modicum of self-awareness.

Because empires, like the United States, which peddle in exceptionalism, triumphalism, and chauvinism are, historically, the world's true rogue states .

Danny Sjursen is a retired U.S. Army officer and a contributing editor at antiwar.com . His work has appeared in the LA Times, The Nation, Huff Post, The Hill, Salon, Truthdig, Tom Dispatch, among other publications. He served combat tours with reconnaissance units in Iraq and Afghanistan and later taught history at his alma mater, West Point. He is the author of a memoir and critical analysis of the Iraq War, Ghostriders of Baghdad: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Myth of the Surge . His forthcoming book, Patriotic Dissent: America in the Age of Endless War is now available for pre-order . Follow him on Twitter at @SkepticalVet . Check out his professional website for contact info, scheduling speeches, and/or access to the full corpus of his writing and media appearances.

Danny Sjursen / Truthdig

[Dec 24, 2020] Reckless Threats and 'Restoring Deterrence' by DANIEL LARISON

Dec 24, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

DECEMBER 23, 2020

When hawks in the U.S. and Israeli governments talk about "restoring deterrence," what they really mean is that they want to commit acts of aggression but present them as defensive actions.

The president made more reckless threats against Iran today:

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1341862955604975617&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theamericanconservative.com%2Fstate-of-the-union%2Freckless-threats-and-restoring-deterrence%2F&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px

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When the president illegally ordered the assassination of Soleimani in January of this year, administration officials eventually lined up behind the excuse that it was intended to "restore deterrence" against rocket attacks from Iranian-backed Iraqi militias. Even though these attacks have continued throughout the year much the same as before, we are back to the same old tired issuing of threats of military action in response to attacks that would not be happening if it were not for the president's own reckless actions. As the anniversary of the Soleimani assassination approaches, we are once again drifting towards an avoidable and unnecessary conflict.

Were it not for the president's "maximum pressure" campaign, U.S. forces in Iraq would face far fewer risks than they do today, and conflict between our governments would be much less likely. Had it not been for the president's decision to order the illegal and provocative attack that killed Soleimani and an Iraqi militia leader, tensions between the U.S. and Iran would not be as great as they are now. Trump's approach to Iran for the last two and a half years has been to pick a fight and then blame the other side for responding to his provocations. Far from deterring attacks from Iranian-backed militias and the Iranian military itself, the Trump administration has been provoking and inviting them. It is mostly a matter of luck that this has not yet triggered a larger conflict.

For its part, the Israeli government is also raising the temperature by sending one of its submarines through the Suez Canal to signal its readiness to respond to retaliation for its murder of Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh:

An Israeli submarine has embarked for the Persian Gulf in possible preparation for any Iranian retaliation over the November assassination of a senior Iranian nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, Israeli media reported.

The above-water, fully visible Israeli deployment into the Suez Canal and then the Red Sea was a rare move that was reportedly carried out with the acquiescence of Egyptian authorities and was seen as a clear warning to Iran that Israel was preparing for battle as hostilities continue to rise.

The deployment of the Israeli submarine is described as a "message of deterrence," but it is in fact the result of an ill-advised and illegal attack inside Iran. Had the Israelis not carried out a terrorist attack on Iranian soil, they would not now be worried about possible retaliation. This gets at a basic problem with the hawkish framing of our news coverage related to Iran and the constant misuse of the concept of deterrence by both the U.S. and Israeli governments.

First Panel, TAC's 7th Annual Foreign Policy Conference What Does 2020 Mean For Foreign Policy 00:07 / 01:00 3

When hawks in the U.S. and Israeli governments talk about "restoring deterrence," what they really mean is that they want to commit acts of aggression but present them as defensive actions. Blowing up Soleimani had nothing to do with deterring future attacks, and we can see that it has failed to deter them. Murdering Fakhrizadeh definitely had nothing to do with deterring anything. It was just a gratuitous killing that the Israel government did because they could. Now both the U.S. and Israel find that they have to make additional shows of force and issue new threats to ward off possible responses to these earlier aggressive acts. Instead of making them more secure, these aggressive acts have exposed Americans and Israelis to greater risks than they faced earlier on.

In light of reports that the president has asked for military options for attacking Iran and reports that Israel has been preparing for such an eventuality, we have to take the possibility of a U.S. or joint U.S.-Israel attack on Iran seriously. There is absolutely no justification for such an attack, but that is no guarantee that it won't happen. It needs to be emphasized that none of this would be happening if the Trump administration had not taken the reckless and destructive step of reneging on the JCPOA and launching an economic war on Iran. Whatever happens in the next few weeks can be traced back to that, and the president is responsible for the consequences.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Daniel Larison is a senior editor at TAC , where he also keeps a solo blog . He has been published in the New York Times Book Review , Dallas Morning News , World Politics Review , Politico Magazine , Orthodox Life , Front Porch Republic, The American Scene, and Culture11, and was a columnist for The Week . He holds a PhD in history from the University of Chicago, and resides in Lancaster, PA. Follow him on Twitter .

[Dec 24, 2020] 'Forward Defense' Has Nothing to Do with Defense -

Dec 24, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

he Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) recently released a lengthy report that predictably advocates for an aggressive and activist foreign policy that they euphemistically dub "defending forward." Like the British imperial "Forward Policy" that it calls to mind and resembles, so-called forward defense seeks to justify interventionism and open-ended warfare in far-flung parts of the world in the name of national security. The essays included in the report warn against "retrenchment" and repeatedly attack advocates of foreign policy restraint in dishonest and misleading ways, and they sound all the usual alarms about the supposed perils of extricating the U.S. from its many unnecessary foreign wars. These arguments are neither new nor particularly interesting, but they can't be ignored because of the significant influence that their purveyors continue to have in Washington and in the Republican Party in particular. If we are going to build a foreign policy of peace and restraint, these arguments have to be answered and discredited.

Panetta sets the tone for the document right away: "More than ever, Americans must go abroad to remain secure at home." This is the interventionists' axiom from which everything else follows, so it is important to start by explaining how wrong it is. To the extent that American security is threatened by other states and terrorist organizations, a forward policy invites more attacks and challenges and exacerbates the dangers it is supposedly combating. Our militarized engagement in many parts of the world is simultaneously destabilizing and provocative, and it makes us far more enemies than we would have otherwise.

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Forward deployments make U.S. troops targets, and those deployments then become ends in themselves. Putting these troops in harm's way for decades isn't making Americans any safer, and the "war on terror" has led to the metastasization of terrorist groups on two continents. The forward "defense" that interventionists believe is so critical to our security is at best a redundant waste of lives and resources. At worst, it is sowing seeds for future attacks on Americans and our allies, and it is doing so at enormous expense. Sending troops to the other side of the world is not necessary to keep Americans safe at home. "Defending forward" has nothing to do with defense and everything to do with power projection and domination.

H.R. McMaster joined FDD shortly after being fired from his position as National Security Advisor, and in the last two years he has been attacking restrainers and promoting aggressive policies in a number of prominent articles. His contribution to the FDD report is a previously published Foreign Affairs article called "The Retrenchment Syndrome." As the title suggests, McMaster sees advocates of restraint (or "retrenchment hard-liners" as he calls them) as suffering from a dangerous malady, and his only prescription is more foreign entanglements. I have previously answered McMaster's arguments here , but I will add a few more remarks. McMaster wrongly accuses restrainers of "national narcissism," but he demonstrates no ability to understand the views of his domestic opponents or the thinking of the foreign adversaries whose motives he claims to know. He supports U.S. dominance and power projection in the world, and so he assumes that other major powers must have the same goal, but this is just an alibi for pursuing the aggressive policies that he already favors.

Misunderstanding and misrepresenting the views of restrainers is a running theme in the report. Mark Dubowitz and Jonathan Schanzer are some of the worst offenders. They can't stop themselves from dubbing Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer "realists-cum-isolationists," which is as insulting to them as it is wildly inaccurate. Both of those scholars favor a strategy involving offshore balancing, and Mearsheimer is rather hawkish on China, but they want to reduce the U.S. military footprint in the Middle East and that is unacceptable to FDD. That is why they are branded with the i-word. Dubowitz and Schanzer also mock the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft for supposedly not understanding the foreign policy views of John Quincy Adams, but this just shows how eager they are to distort the views of non-interventionists both past and present. Their contribution is long on accusations of isolationism without offering any evidence, but then this is the point of the isolationist smear. It is never meant to describe, only to distort and vilify, and they resort to this because they are afraid to engage restrainer arguments on the merits.

Like some melodramatic villain from a superhero movie, they declare, "History, unfortunately, is a forever war." One gets the impression that they do not really regard this as misfortune, but rather see it as an opportunity. Yes, history is full of conflicts, but there is far more to our history than warfare, and one thing we should have learned from all those conflicts is how pointless and unnecessary most of them have been. At the very least, we should know to steer clear from aggressive policies that make such conflicts more likely. The Trump administration Iran policy that FDD has championed for years has done just that, and that is one of many reasons why we should regard their recommendations with suspicion.

First Panel, TAC's 7th Annual Foreign Policy Conference What Does 2020 Mean For Foreign Policy 00:06 / 01:00 1

Their account of the recent past is no better than their tedious comparisons with the 1930s. They write, "Al-Qaeda launched the 9/11 attacks despite America's best efforts to steer clear of Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, where al-Qaeda was and is based." This is mind-boggling revisionism, conveniently ignoring that the attacks were carried out in large part in response to the continued U.S. military presence in Saudi Arabia and U.S. support for the despotic government there. Dubowitz and Schanzer point to the clearest example of disastrous blowback in modern U.S. history and then have the gall to say that this example supports their argument for keeping U.S. forces permanently deployed in other countries where they aren't wanted.

Not surprisingly, the consistent misreadings and distortions of history are some of the biggest flaws in the report. Bradley Bowman and Clifford May rattle off historical "facts" about wars throughout history that elide far more than they reveal. For instance, they speak of "Persian-Roman wars" running from the battle of Carrhae between the Roman Republic and the Parthians to the battle of Nineveh in the seventh century between the Byzantines and the Sasanians. That lumps together many different regimes and dynasties in very crude fashion, and it also misleads the reader into thinking that conflict was incessant when it was not.

While there were many wars between these two powers over the course of seven hundred years, these two states were at peace with each other for the vast majority of that period of time. Indeed, for most of Byzantine history, the emperors in Constantinople were wary of engaging in open warfare and sought to avoid it as much as possible because of the cost and the potential for disaster. This strategy did not invite aggression, and it succeeded in allowing the empire to husband its resources and preserve its strength. One could say that the Byzantines usually practiced responsible statecraft. That is one reason why their empire managed to endure for as long as it did.

Treating war as being essentially unavoidable, Bowman and May belittle restrainers for "stunning ignorance" in calling to end U.S. involvement in its foreign wars today. This amounts to little more than mindless fatalism in accepting that the U.S. is bound to be at war much more often than not. But constant warfare and the strategy that undergirds it are both choices. Vietnam was completely avoidable for the U.S. and also entirely unnecessary for U.S. security, just as our current wars are all wars of choice. Conflict may be an ineradicable part of the human condition, but it doesn't follow that any particular conflict has to happen or that we are fated to participate in it when it does.

There may always be some conflict somewhere (though there has been much less of it in recent decades), but nowhere is it written that a major power has to be at war all of the time, much less in multiple places around the globe. The empires that have engaged in constant warfare have tended to suffer bankruptcy and ruin. Many of these states were governed by men who also believed that peripheral interests were worth fighting over, and they ultimately exhausted themselves in fruitless conflicts.

The U.S. is unusual among great powers in history in that it is relatively separated from its rivals by great distance, but it still chooses to entangle itself in the affairs of distant regions instead of taking advantage of our favorable geography. While modern technologies have reduced the importance of that advantage, they have not eliminated it. America is, in fact, extraordinarily secure from foreign threats, and so it becomes necessary to inflate these threats and overstate the capabilities of other states to make the case for a "forward" policy.

Writing for The New Republic , Jacob Silverman sums up the report very well:

That is the purpose of "Defending Forward": to contort the English language to convince a war-weary public that there is no alternative but to continue the status quo of "forward defense-in-depth military deployments," as Leon Panetta, the former CIA director and defense secretary, euphemistically calls them. But the FDD publication succeeds only in reminding us that, after 19 years of a catastrophic, immoral, illegal war on terror, America's hawks are simply out of answers.

The U.S. has been following something like a "forward defense" strategy for decades. The results have been almost twenty years of expensive failed wars that have caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. The U.S. desperately needs to change its strategy and practice restraint in its use of force and the deployment of its armed forces. America does not need to police and dominate the world to be secure, and the sooner we all realize that the better it will be for our country and for the rest of the world. ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Daniel Larison is a senior editor at TAC , where he also keeps a solo blog . He has been published in the New York Times Book Review , Dallas Morning News , World Politics Review , Politico Magazine , Orthodox Life , Front Porch Republic, The American Scene, and Culture11, and was a columnist for The Week . He holds a PhD in history from the University of Chicago, and resides in Lancaster, PA. Follow him on Twitter .

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[Dec 23, 2020] China Russia listed as main rivals in new US maritime strategy aimed at shaping 'balance of power for the rest of the centu

Dec 23, 2020 | www.rt.com

Conversation 244 Comments Please read the RT Community Commenting Rules here Log In

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Ghanima223 18 December, 2020 18 Dec, 2020 03:27 AM

All power is in the end economic. The US can build 500 warships, the Chinese can easily match that, but unlike the US, they also can pay for it.

Tor Gjesdal Ghanima223 18 December, 2020 18 Dec, 2020 06:14 PM

No, hehe, all Powers are not all in the end economic. We can be good at economicing life some of us, but Most have no clue about all the real Powers.

KlausR922 Ghanima223 18 December, 2020 18 Dec, 2020 09:43 AM

Russia and China do not have enough fleet to populate the oceans around the US but have more immigrants in the US. Instead, attracting foreign funds or investors (even through mixed marriages) destabilizes their own economies. This suggests, however, that the 'balance of power' remains to the advantage of the US. In fact, if we are all capitalists, what is the significance of this balance?

Jewel Gyn 18 December, 2020 18 Dec, 2020 03:21 AM

"the two most significant threats to this era of global peace and prosperity," Look at yourself in the mirror. US is without doubt the biggest threat to global peace and prosperity. The only reason countries are silent is because of your military and economic might. But it won't be for long...

GorillaBalls Jewel Gyn 18 December, 2020 18 Dec, 2020 08:59 AM

USA is building useless junk more fitting to the times of Neanderthals and definitely obsolete in the 21st century with borrowed money. Nothing mighty about that.

GorillaBalls Jewel Gyn 18 December, 2020 18 Dec, 2020 08:54 AM

USA no longer has a mighty economy. Has the world's biggest debt mountain instead along with a permanently concussed military by Iran!! Clown.

Iwanasay 18 December, 2020 18 Dec, 2020 04:07 AM

This report says it all, the US objective is to dominate the world, not be a part of it, it also proves that the US is military dictatorship where politicians are only elected to channel huge sums of taxpayers money into the Pentagon and military industry purse. Hurry up China and Russia, form a military alliance and bankrupt the US as it wastes more & more against non-existent enemies

Fjack1415 Iwanasay 1 day ago 21 Dec, 2020 01:25 PM

Yeah, the Star Wars strategy supposedly used by Pres. Reagan to bankrupt Soviet Russia, now can be used against the US. The US needs to spend about ten times what Russia or China spend in order to achieve the same result (if that) and what is more, it is borrowed money.

GorillaBalls Iwanasay 18 December, 2020 18 Dec, 2020 09:27 AM

Joetex America is obsolete already.

Dachaguy 18 December, 2020 18 Dec, 2020 03:13 AM

Balance? The US has no interest at all in balance. The US focus is domination. It's what the Project for a New American Century was all about.

liana sammartino Dachaguy 18 December, 2020 18 Dec, 2020 09:05 AM

and that domination in this century will evaporate....

Isiah Steele Dachaguy 18 December, 2020 18 Dec, 2020 08:00 AM

Except, China and Russia and the rest of the real free world has their own plans for the future without the US!!!!

shadow1369 18 December, 2020 18 Dec, 2020 05:55 AM

Us regime calls its own relentless aggression 'assertive policy', and accuses anybody who resists their global tyranny a 'threat to peace'. Nothing new.

GorillaBalls 18 December, 2020 18 Dec, 2020 05:37 AM

USA has been saying the same thing and has been spending the most money on its military but the reality is it has never won a war with a major military beyond own shore.

Joetex GorillaBalls 18 December, 2020 18 Dec, 2020 07:04 AM

All wars the US has fought have been beyond its own Shores including WWI and WWII, which by the way were victorious.

GreenPizza804 18 December, 2020 18 Dec, 2020 05:03 AM

"Our actions in this decade will shape the maritime balance of power for the rest of this century." they think Russia and China don't have any plan to this ?

Joetex GreenPizza804 18 December, 2020 18 Dec, 2020 06:56 AM

It's to late Trumps Trillion Dollar Plan in 2018 went to Mostly Navy and Space Force. And Already is more Advanced than China and Russia Combined.

shadow1369 GreenPizza804 18 December, 2020 18 Dec, 2020 06:02 AM

In the Project for a New American Century, the US version of Mein Kampf, the warmongers preached 'full spectrum dominance'. They remind me of the last days of the nazis, deploying non existant armies to fend off the fast approaching allied powers. Any pretence of US global hegemony was destroyed in Syria.

wawya 18 December, 2020 18 Dec, 2020 05:36 AM

The USA is the greatest threat to all countries yet masquerades as a friend to many. Make no mistake, it is an ally only when it suits. China has asperations on having a blue water navy but is a fair way off. Russia, apart from its SSN & SSBN boats is very much a green water navy. The Americans are kidding themselves.

Mickey Mic 18 December, 2020 18 Dec, 2020 05:30 AM

Let's not forget, the central banks can't operate with the current market status, hence, the delay in Nancy's relief tactics. War is imminent for the survival of banking cartels, Trump denied the banks wars, so cheat Trump out of office was is the highest demand for the Federal Reserve banking system. They needed a compromised President to bend to their will, Joe was picked for the Job due to his corrupt career and dysfunctional mentality . Bernie was cheated (No charges) Trump has been surrounded by disloyal shape-shifting swamp monsters, his proof of voter Fraud is meaningless in the land of oil & vinegar. Biden was illegally installed to launch wars & secure the final stages of the Wuhan virus (Forced Vaccinations). Let's face it, Biden's choices for Cabinet positions line directly with Hillary Clinton's friends, he is not in charge to make any choices on his own. He is supplying an empty shell to fill the oval office for the shadow Gov. The majority of US leadership thinks they'll be safe inside Cheyenne Mountain to protect their own sacred seed from destruction. PS: From the counterfeit Supreme Court, to the Masonic lodges better known as the "House of senators & Congressman"...Lurks a perpetual centrifugal motion to consume their greedy desolation.

Galaxy31 18 December, 2020 18 Dec, 2020 03:32 AM

As US looses global dominance, the more desperate it becomes. This time though, it doesn't look it will work, but unfortunately because of this desperation, it may end up tragically for all of us human beings.

GorillaBalls Galaxy31 18 December, 2020 18 Dec, 2020 05:27 AM

"The US Navy will adopt a more 'assertive' approach to China and Russia, according to the country's new maritime strategy, which says that actions taken in the next decade will determine power dynamics for the rest of the century." Making big talk about the future with 20th century and OBSOLETE aircraft carries that can be quickly sent to the bottom with a few comparatively much cheaper hypersonic carrier killer missiles those tubs are DEFENCELESS against.

straightasarrow69 Galaxy31 18 December, 2020 18 Dec, 2020 05:15 AM

America spends more on their military than the next 10 nations combined. More engineers graduate in China every year than exist in the whole of America. America believes it needs to manufacture enemies to prop up its main export, death and destruction. This further explains why some American politicians have stated, "if an Israel did not exist we would have to invent one." Birds of a feather. Time to diversify Americas economy. China, Russia, and America are brothers.

[Nov 25, 2020] A military fiasco of the United States might be needed in order to bring "cruise missile liberals" to understand the need of of abandoning Full Spectrum Dominance doctrine

Nov 25, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

One Too Many , Nov 25 2020 6:24 utc | 93

This is nothing new, the war machine keeps going and going. I actually found an individual that has the same outlook on stopping the behavior of the United States as I do. International lawyer Christopher Black in this interview had the following to say.

A Biden Administration Will Be Dominated by More U.S. Aggression

Question: What in your view needs to change in order to make U.S. foreign conduct abide by international law and therefore enhance the prospects for world peace?

Christopher Black: It will require a revolution in the United States to do that, an overthrow of the economic powers that control the machinery of the state, but there is no prospect of that happening. There is really no effective opposition to these policies in the U.S. The peace movement is weak and fragmented, dominated by the "cruise missile liberals". The voices of reason have no power, no real influence among the masses of the people which are dominated by a sophisticated propaganda machine known as the "media". Censorship is increasing and the few critical voices that exist are being silenced.

It will take, in my view, a military defeat of the United States in order to bring about the conditions necessary for the required changes. And, perhaps that will happen, as China has stated time and again, that if Washington decides to take direct control of their island of Taiwan and the Americans interfere or if they are attacked in the South China Sea, they will defeat the U.S. But such a war would have world consequences and would cause realignments of power not only in the USA, if we all survive it.

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Line Islands , Nov 25 2020 11:05 utc | 103

Biden is a tent revival for the aptly named "cruise missile liberals" and some of the more shadowy neo-conservative forces in retreat and determined to bring democracy building home after their colonial expeditions extinguished it at home, hastening the rise of America's own Saddam in Trump. Biden's own instincts may be decisive, however, and he was against war in Libya while also in favor of splitting Iraq. The dementia rumors are nonsense; Biden is a canny and often mendacious operator, and while I think Trump is a fascist and quite possibly a Russian mafia sub-boss, Biden may well be the restoration of more homegrown, American mafia rule. An argument that Giuliani has made in so many words, standing as he does on the Russian side and yelling into the shifting parapolitical winds.

William Gruff , Nov 25 2020 11:59 utc | 104

Line Islands @102

It's not really that complicated for China. They have no interest in or need to strike the American mainland. That would only be necessary if they were seeking global hegemony like the US, which they are not. Their strategic nuclear capabilities are strictly deterrence. All China has to do is survive the coming conflict arising from the Thucydides Trap that the US and China are caught in with minimal damage to their industrial capacity, infrastructure, and population.

That I specified "survive" and not "win" is not a mistake. The default outcome if nothing is done is that China ascends to uncontested sole global economic superpower status. That is not necessarily their intention but rather the natural outcome of China continuing the development of their domestic human capital and quality of life for 1.4 billion people. China doesn't have to take the fight to the US to end up on top, and the US has no choice but to somehow turn back the economic clock in China to keep its position as global imperial hegemon. Color revolution attempts, trade war, and bioweapon attacks have all failed the empire miserably, so all the US has left is to go kinetic.

The "US aircraft carrier force projection model" is effectively nullified by China, but those assets are still protected by America's delusional reality exclusion zone: "Destroying our carriers is unthinkable! No one would ever dare do that!" . That defense will prove inadequate against China's variety of "carrier killer" missiles.

As for America's stealth aircraft, China's defenses will likely be a surprise to many in the American empire. Furthermore, America's only stealth aircraft with sufficient range to reach China's mainland on anything other than a one way suicide mission would be the B-2 bomber, of which America only has 21. Those 21 will not last long in a kinetic conflict. Quite a few will likely simply be destroyed on the runway in Diego Garcia while the survivors will get to find out how well China's nifty new quantum radar works. The F-22 and F-35 would require refueling to get from carrier stand-off distance to the mainland and refueling again to get back, with America's aerial tankers needing to loiter within range of China's air defenses... not a good battle plan for the empire. Those stealth aircraft will not shift the advantage in the empire's favor, and attrition will be much higher than expected among them.

It must be repeated that China doesn't need to destroy the United States. They are not playing the board game "Risk" after all. China just needs to defeat the American empire's military force projection capabilities in their own neighborhood, and China already has that capacity right now. Every day that elapses shifts the advantage further into China's favor, so the empire needs to act while they still have the ability to do so. Trump's unwillingness to do more than bark loudly and his resistance to going kinetic is why the imperial elites had to fraud the elections so openly to get a more compliant figurehead into office ASAP. That the empire couldn't wait another four years means that we will see "interesting times" (yeah, even more interesting than the preceding twelve months!) real soon now.

Bemildred , Nov 25 2020 13:29 utc | 111

"A cornered dog will bite, even if it is obvious that it cannot win."

So will I, so what?

"It was never China's nor Iran's intention to "corner" the empire. That is simply the situation that America finds itself in now that its economy is in "late capitalism" decline. It is really not even anyone's fault, not even Trump or Reagan or any of the other usual suspects."

I agree, but again, so what? I'm not concerned with who is morally correct, I'm mainly concerned with whether there is going to be a big war and what happens if there is, that's not a moral question. I've been waiting around 40 years to watch our collapse, and I still think there is enough that is/was good here to be worth hoping for a soft landing. That's probably better for the rest of the planet too, but it's arguable.

Neither Iran of China is cornered, they are well-prepared, well-supported by "partners", and on their home turf. WE are not ready. We are vunerable. But we are not cornered either, nobody is going to come over here and interfere while we fight among ourselves.

Posted by: William Gruff | Nov 25 2020 13:10 utc | 109

oldhippie , Nov 25 2020 13:34 utc | 112

What scares me about Blinken and Sullivan is the career trajectory. Both had completely unearned and unreasonable success every step of their lives. There is never any explanation for this manner of success but family connections. Neither has done anything of note other than to occupy positions of power.

Sullivan is all of 43 years old, has been a mover and shaker since his twenties. Any who have never read Halberstam's Best and Brightest might look at that now. We are in for a shit show. Biden is not going to do anything but take his meds and take a lot of naps. Already he is not to be seen. The crew named so far will steamroller Kamala, she is no more than a figurehead.

Likely she won't even stay in the room when it gets serious. Best possible outcome is that kids who have never done anything but suck up won't know what to do when they are left in charge with no adult supervision. Or there will be shadowy figures in background who steady the rudder.

More likely is war.

William Gruff , Nov 25 2020 13:45 utc | 114

Bemildred @111

Yes, it is not a moral question, it is an economic one. Wars have never been about morality.

That said, China has for a number of years now been preparing for a minimally damaging escape from the Thucydides Trap, and by "minimally damaging" I mean for the US as well. As I said above the Chinese are not at all interested in hurting the US.

The plan is to "spring" the Thucydides Trap in the South China Sea and hopefully confine most of the damage to that area. If successful then the empire gets its soft landing (albeit with significant amounts of military materiel and personnel sacrificed) and humanity moves beyond the Trap.

I have my fingers crossed that the plan works.

Piotr Berman , Nov 25 2020 14:31 utc | 116

@ PB 75
visible costs of vassaldom . . costs of American presence....decreasing the national security. . .participating in sanctions
Yes, plus a primary reason . . .Cost of buying US military junk like F-35. Foreign military sales is a mainstay of the US economy.

Posted by: Don Bacon | Nov 25 2020 3:43 utc | 83

When you add the numbers, "military junk" has notable prestige -- with matching prices, but the total loot of American companies is probably many times larger. For example, Trump waged a series of trade wars to perpetuate negligible taxation of "technology giants" like Google or Amazon. "Intellectual property" was a stumbling block in the trade war with China, with dire consequences for soy growing farmers in USA (and a boon to their colleagues in South America). Then there is pharma. It seems that the really big companies are comfortable being in relative shadow behind arms makers, and discourse on security threats and needs --because Russian use trolls to interfere with elections, we (all countries that cherish what is good and precious) need new generations of nukes, planes, ships and toilet seats. However illogical, it is more noble sounding than preventing the likes of Apple from more than nominal taxation.

[Nov 25, 2020] Biden's foxes guard the henhouse

You can't find better smarter neocons to pursue the Full Spectrum Dominance Doctrine to the total decimation of the standard of living of ordinary Americans ;-)

Nov 25, 2020 | thegrayzone.com

Since the 1990s, Flournoy and Blinken have steadily risen through the ranks of the military-industrial complex, shuffling back and forth between the Pentagon and hawkish think-tanks funded by the U.S. government, weapons companies, and oil giants.

Under Bill Clinton, Flournoy was the principal author of the 1996 Quadrinellial Defense Review, the document that outlined the U.S. military's doctrine of permanent war – what it called "full spectrum dominance."

Flournoy called for "unilateral use of military power" to ensure "uninhibited access to key markets, energy supplies, and strategic resources."

... During the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, Biden declared, "In my judgment, President Bush is right to be concerned about Saddam Hussein's relentless pursuit of weapons of mass destruction"

As Iraq was plunged into chaos and bloodshed, Flournoy was among the authors of a paper titled "Progressive Internationalism" that called for a "smarter and better" style of permanent war. The paper chastised the anti-war left and stated that "Democrats will maintain the world's most capable and technologically advanced military, and we will not flinch from using it to defend our interests anywhere in the world."

... In 2005, Flournoy signed onto a letter from the neoconservative think tank Project for a New American Century, asking Congress to "increase substantially the size of the active duty Army and Marine Corps (by) at least 25,000 troops each year over the next several years."

[Nov 23, 2020] Administrations change but Full Spectrum Dominance Doctine and the desire to portect and emand global neoliberal empire controlled from Washinton is intact. It will eventually banrupt the country much like was the case with the British Empire

Highly recommended!

Neocons still dominate both the State Department and NSC. That's bad.

Nov 23, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Top Biden Advisors Flournoy & Blinken Promise More Secretive 'Permanent War' Policy - Zero Hedge

Authored by Dan Cohen via TheGrayZone.com,

Throughout his campaign, Joe Biden railed against Donald Trump's 'America First' foreign policy, claiming it weakened the United States and left the world in disarray. "Donald Trump's brand of America First has too often led to America alone," Biden proclaimed.

He pledged to reverse this decline and recover the damage Trump did to America's reputation. While Donald Trump called for making America Great Again, Biden seeks to Make the American Empire Great Again .

Joe Biden: "Tonight, the whole world is watching America. And I believe at our best, America is a beacon for the globe. We will lead not only by the example of our power, but by the power of our example."

Among the president-elect's pledges is to end the so-called forever wars – the decades-long imperial projects in Afghanistan and Iraq that began under the Bush administration.

"It's long past time we end the forever wars which have cost us untold blood and treasure," Biden has said.

Yet Biden – a fervent supporter of those wars – will delegate that duty to the most neoconservative elements of the Democratic Party and ideologues of permanent war .

Michele Flournoy and Tony Blinken sit atop Biden's thousands-strong foreign policy brain trust and have played central roles in every U.S. war dating back to the Bill Clinton administration.

During the Trump era, they've cashed in through WestExec Advisors – a corporate consulting firm that has become home for Obama administration officials awaiting a return to government.

https://lockerdome.com/lad/13084989113709670?pubid=ld-dfp-ad-13084989113709670-0&pubo=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com&rid=www.zerohedge.com&width=890

Flournoy is Biden's leading pick for Secretary of Defense and Blinken is expected to be the president's National Security Advisor.

Biden's foxes guard the henhouse

Since the 1990s, Flournoy and Blinken have steadily risen through the ranks of the military-industrial complex, shuffling back and forth between the Pentagon and hawkish think-tanks funded by the U.S. government, weapons companies, and oil giants.

Under Bill Clinton, Flournoy was the principal author of the 1996 Quadrinellial Defense Review, the document that outlined the U.S. military's doctrine of permanent war – what it called "full spectrum dominance."

Flournoy called for "unilateral use of military power" to ensure "uninhibited access to key markets, energy supplies, and strategic resources."

https://www.youtube.com/embed/ivFFZ95EQvY

This video report was originally published at Behind The Headlines . Support the independent journalism initiative here .

As Bush administration officials lied to the world about Saddam Hussein's supposed WMD's, Flournoy remarked that "In some cases, preemptive strikes against an adversary's [weapons of mass destruction] capabilities may be the best or only option we have to avert a catastrophic attack against the United States."

Tony Blinken was a top advisor to then-Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair Joe Biden, who played a key role in shoring up support among the Democrat-controlled Senate for Bush's illegal invasion of Iraq.

During the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, Biden declared, "In my judgment, President Bush is right to be concerned about Saddam Hussein's relentless pursuit of weapons of mass destruction."

As Iraq was plunged into chaos and bloodshed, Flournoy was among the authors of a paper titled "Progressive Internationalism" that called for a "smarter and better" style of permanent war . The paper chastised the anti-war left and stated that "Democrats will maintain the world's most capable and technologically advanced military, and we will not flinch from using it to defend our interests anywhere in the world."

With Bush winning a second term, Flournoy advocated for more troop deployments from the sidelines.

In 2005, Flournoy signed onto a letter from the neoconservative think tank Project for a New American Century, asking Congress to "increase substantially the size of the active duty Army and Marine Corps (by) at least 25,000 troops each year over the next several years."

In 2007, she leveraged her Pentagon experience and contacts to found what would become one of the premier Washington think tanks advocating endless war across the globe: the Center for a New American Security (CNAS). CNAS is funded by the U.S. government, arms manufacturers, oil giants, Silicon Valley tech giants, billionaire-funded foundations, and big banks.

Flournoy joined the Obama administration and was appointed as under secretary of defense for policy, the position considered the "brains" of the Pentagon. She was keenly aware that the public was wary of more quagmires. In the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review, she crafted a new concept of warfare that would expand the permanent war state while giving the appearance of a drawdown.

Flournoy wrote that "unmanned systems hold great promise" – a reference to the CIA's drone assassination program. This was the Obama-era military doctrine of hybrid war. It called for the U.S. to be able to simultaneously wage war on numerous fronts through secret warfare, clandestine weapons transfers to proxies, drone strikes, and cyber-attacks – all buttressed with propaganda campaigns targeting the American public through the internet and corporate news media.

Architects of America's Hybrid wars

Flournoy continued to champion the endless wars that began in the Bush-era and was a key architect of Obama's disastrous troop surge in Afghanistan. As U.S. soldiers returned in body bags and insurgent attacks and suicide bombings increased some 65% from 2009 and 2010, she deceived the Senate Armed Services Committee, claiming that the U.S. was beginning to turn the tide against the Taliban: "We are beginning to regain the initiative and the insurgency is beginning to lose momentum."

Even with her lie that the U.S. and Afghan government were starting to beat the Taliban back, Flournoy assured the senate that the U.S. would have to remain in Afghanistan long into the future: "We are not leaving any time soon even though the nature and the complexion of the commitment may change over time."

Ten years later – as the Afghan death toll passed 150,000 – Flournoy continued to argue against a U.S. withdrawal: "I would certainly not advocate a US or NATO departure short of a political settlement being in place."

That's the person Joe Biden has tasked with ending the forever war in Afghanistan. But in Biden's own words, he'll "bring the vast majority of our troops home from Afghanistan" implying some number of American troops will remain, and the forever war will be just that. Michele Flournoy explained that even if a political settlement were reached, the U.S. would maintain a presence.

Michele Flournoy: "If we are fortunate enough to see a political settlement reached, it doesn't mean that the US role or the international community is over. Afghanistan without outside investment is not a society that is going to survive and thrive. In no case are we going to be able to wash our hands of Afghanistan and walk away nor should we want to. This is something where we're going to have to continue to be engaged, just the form of engagement may change."

In 2011, the Obama-era doctrine of smart and sophisticated warfare was unveiled in the NATO regime-change war on Libya.

Moammar Gaddafi – the former adversary who sought warm relations with the U.S. and had given up his nuclear weapons program – was deposed and sodomized with a bayonet.

Flournoy, Hillary Clinton's State Department, and corporate media were in lockstep as they waged an elaborate propaganda campaign to deceive the U.S. public that Gadaffi's soldiers were on a Viagra-fueled rape and murder spree that demanded a U.S. intervention.

Fox News: "Susan Rice reportedly told a security council meeting that Libyan troops are being given viagra and are engaging in sexual violence."

MSNBC jumped on the propaganda bandwagon, claiming: "New reports emerge that the LIbyan dictator gave soldiers viagra-type pills to rape women who are opposed to the government."

So did CNN.

As the Libyan ambassador to the US alleged "raping, killing, mass graves," ICC Chief Prosecutor Manuel Ocampo claimed: "It's like a machete. Viagra is a tool of massive rapes."

All of this was based on a report from Al Jazeera – the media outlet owned by the Qatari monarchy that was arming extremist militias in Libya to overthrow the government.

Yet an investigation by the United Nations called the rape claims "hysteria." Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch found no credible evidence of even a single rape.

Even after Libya was descended into strife and the deception of Gadaffi's forces committing rape was debunked, Michele Flournoy stood by her support for the war: "I supported the intervention in Libya on humanitarian grounds. I think we were right to do it."

Tony Blinken, then Obama's deputy national security advisor, also pushed for regime change in Libya. He became Obama's point man on Syria, pushed to arm the so-called "moderate rebels" that fought alongside al-Qaeda and ISIS, and designed the red line strategy to trigger a full-on U.S. intervention. Syria, he told the public, wasn't anything like the other wars the U.S. had waging for more than a decade.

Tony Blinken: "We are doing this in a very different way than in the past. We're not sending in hundreds of thousands of American troops. We're not spending trillions of American dollars. We're being smart about this. This is a sustainable way to get at the terrorists and it's also a more effective way."

Blinken added: "This is not open-ended, this is not boots on the ground, this is not Iraq, it's not Afghanistan, it's not even Libya. The more people understand that, the more they'll understand the need for us to take this limited but effective action ."

Despite Blinken's promises that it would be a short affair, the war on Syria is now in its ninth year. An estimated half a million people have been killed as a result and the country is facing famine.

Largely thanks to the policy of using "wheat to apply pressure" – a recommendation of Flournoy and Blinken's CNAS think tank.

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1141440589143126021&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fgeopolitical%2Ftop-biden-advisors-flournoy-blinken-promise-more-secretive-permanent-war-policy&siteScreenName=zerohedge&theme=light&widgetsVersion=ed20a2b%3A1601588405575&width=550px

When the Trump administration launched airstrikes on Syria based on mere accusations of a chemical attack, Tony Blinken praised the bombing, claiming Assad had used the weapon of mass destruction sarin. Yet there was no evidence for this claim, something even then-secretary of Defense James Mattis admitted: "So I can not tell you that we had evidence even though we had a lot of media and social media indicators that either chlorine or sarin were used ."

While jihadist mercenaries armed with U..S-supplied weapons took over large swaths of Syria, Tony Blinken played a central role in a coup d'etat in Ukraine that saw a pro-Russia government overthrown in a U.S.-orchestrated color revolution with neo-fascist elements agitating on the ground.

At the time, he was ambivalent about sending lethal weapons to Ukraine, instead opting for economic pressure.

Tony Blinken: "We're working, as I said, to make sure that there's a cost exacted of Russia and indeed that it feels the pressure. That's what we're working on. And when it comes to military assistance, we're looking at it. The facts are these: Even if assistance were to go to Ukraine that would be very unlikely to change Russia's calculus or prevent an invasion."

Since then, fascist militias have been incorporated into Ukraine's armed forces. And Tony Blinken urged Trump to send them deadly weapons – something Obama had declined to do.

But Trump obliged.

The Third Offset

While the U.S. fueled wars in Syria and Ukraine, the Pentagon announced a major shift called the Third Offset strategy – a reference to the cold war era strategies the U.S. used to maintain its military supremacy over the Soviet Union.

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The Third Offset strategy shifted the focus from counterinsurgency and the war on terror to great power competition against China and Russia. It called for a technological revolution in warfighting capabilities, development of futuristic and autonomous weapons, swarms of undersea and airborne drones, hypersonic weapons, cyber warfare, machine-enhanced soldiers, and artificial intelligence making unimaginably complex battlefield decisions at speeds incomprehensible to the human mind. All of this would be predicated on the Pentagon deepening its relationship with Silicon Valley giants that it birthed decades before: Google and Facebook.

The author of the Third Offset, former undersecretary of defense Robert Work, is a partner of Flournoy and Blinken's at WestExec Advisors. And Flournoy has been a leading proponent of this dangerous new escalation .

In June, Flournoy published a lengthy commentary laying out her strategy called " Sharpening the U.S. Military's Edge: Critical Steps for the Next Administration ."

She warned that the United States is losing its military technological advantage and reversing that must be the Pentagon's priority. Without it, Flournoy warned that the U.S. might not be able to defeat China in Asia: "That technological investment is still very important for the United States to be able to offset what will be quantitative advantages and home theater advantages for a country like China if we ever had to deal with a conflict in Asia, in their backyard."

While Flournoy has called for ramping up U.S. military presence and exercises with allied forces in the region, she went so far as to call for the U.S. to increase its destructive capabilities so much that it could launch a blitzkrieg style-attack that would wipe out the entire Chinese navy and all civilian merchant ships in the South China Sea . Not only a blatant war crime but a direct attack on a nuclear power that would spell the third world war.

At the same time, Biden has announced he'll take an even more aggressive and confrontational stance against Russia , a position Flournoy shares: "We need to invest to ensure that we maintain the military edge that we will need in certain critical areas like cyber and electronic warfare and precision strike, to again underwrite deterrence, to make sure Vladimir Putin does not miscalculate and think that he can cross a border into Europe or cross a border and threaten us militarily."

As for ending the forever wars, Tony Blinken says not so fast: "Large scale, open-ended deployment of large standing US forces in conflict zones with no clear strategy should end and will end under his watch . But we also need to distinguish between, for example, these endless wars with the large scale open ended deployment of US forces with, for example, discreet, small-scale sustainable operations, maybe led by special forces, to support local actors In ending the endless wars I think we have to be careful to not paint with too broad a brush stroke."

The end of forever wars?

So Biden will end the forever wars, but not really end them. Secret wars that the public doesn't even know the U.S. is involved in – those are here to stay.

In fact, leaving teams of special forces in place throughout the Middle East is part and parcel of the Pentagon's shift away from counterinsurgency and towards great power competition.

The 2018 National Defense Strategy explains that, "Long-term strategic competitions with China and Russia are the principal priorities" and the U.S. will "consolidate gains in Iraq and Afghanistan while moving to a more resource-sustainable approach."

As for the catastrophic war on Yemen, Biden has said he'll end U.S. support; but in 2019, Michele Flournoy argued against ending arms sales to Saudi Arabia .

Biden pledged he will rejoin the Iran deal as a starting point for new negotiations. However, Trump's withdrawal from the deal discredited the Iranian reformists who seek engagement with the west and empowered the principlists who see the JCPOA as a deal with the devil.

In Latin America, Biden will revive the so-called anti-corruption campaigns that were used as a cover to oust the popular social democrat Brazilian president Lula da Silva.

His Venezuela policy appears little different from Trump's – sanctions and regime change.

In Central America, Biden has presided over a four billion dollar package to support corrupt right-wing governments and neoliberal privatization projects, fueling destabilization and sending vulnerable masses fleeing north to the United States.

Behind their rhetoric, Biden, Flournoy, and Blinken will seek nothing less than global supremacy , escalating a new and even more dangerous arms race that risks the destruction of humanity. That's what Joe Biden calls "decency" and "normalcy."

naughty.boy , 14 hours ago

deep state will bankrupt the USA with forever wars.

Distant_Star , 14 hours ago

Yes. As a bonus neither of these Deep State wretches has even seen a shot fired in anger. They are too "important" to be at risk.

[Nov 18, 2020] When any Washington Swamp creature talks about "threats to US national security" in reality they are talking about threats to the USA global hegemony

Highly recommended!

Threat inflation is like Apple pie among Washington swamp national security parasites

Notable quotes:

"... The US security state, with its huge military forces and techno-industrial base, and no diplomatic need nor capability, REQUIRES (fake) "security threats" in order to exist. ..."

"... Those appointed "threats" are currently, probably not changing soon, in some order of "threat-size" . . . ..."

Nov 18, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Don Bacon , Nov 17 2020 22:23 utc | 66

Applying any logic to the "threats" against the US "national security" AKA world hegemony becomes much simpler with recognizing two simple facts:

1. The US security state, with its huge military forces and techno-industrial base, and no diplomatic need nor capability, REQUIRES (fake) "security threats" in order to exist.

2. Those appointed "threats" are currently, probably not changing soon, in some order of "threat-size" . . .

China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, Afghanistan, Syria, Venezuela, & African "terrorists" -- did I miss anyone?

[Nov 18, 2020] Ike's a mystery. Why did he NOT question Harry Truman's action as for CIA and NATO? He actrually facilites the rise of military-insdutrial complex (especially CIA -- he appointed Allen Dulles) and then complained about it

Highly recommended!

Notable quotes:

"... His farewell address was just flapdoodle; it wasn't really dredged up till the 70s. Eisenhower spent eight years spreading tripwires and mines and then said "Watch out." Thanks buddy. ..."

Nov 18, 2020 | www.unz.com

Franz , says: November 12, 2020 at 10:54 pm GMT • 21.0 hours ago

@endthefed

Eisenhower is always lauded for his MIC warning. Frankly he ticks me off. Thanks for the warning AFTER you were in some position to mitigate.

Ike's a mystery. Why did he NOT question Harry Truman's commitments to NATO, the UN, and all that rubbish? Ike was a WWII guy. He knew Americans hated the UN in 1953 as much as they hated the League of Nations after WWI. But he let it all slide and get bigger.

His farewell address was just flapdoodle; it wasn't really dredged up till the 70s. Eisenhower spent eight years spreading tripwires and mines and then said "Watch out." Thanks buddy.

endthefed , says: November 12, 2020 at 11:08 pm GMT • 20.7 hours ago

@Bragadocious

Well, agree on your points however, on the other side of the ledger, he never understood the stupidity of the Korean war (that he could have ended) and majorly up-ramped CIA activities in all manner of regime change (bay of pigs anyone?). Almost a direct path to our foreign policy now (and now domestic policy)

[Nov 17, 2020] Decapitations at DOD: A Purge, a Coup' or Something Else

Nov 17, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Exactly a week after Esper was unceremoniously dismissed, the Pentagon issued a notice to commanders to prepare to reduce the number of troops in Afghanistan to 2,500, and to reduce the number of troops in Iraq to 2,500 by January 15.

Despite the dark rumors, Esper and his associates weren't fired because they failed to assist Trump in a domestic military takeover, or because they were insufficiently loyal and didn't grovel enough before the person of Donald Trump. The real reason for their dismissal is simple: Esper didn't think U.S. troops should be removed from Afghanistan by Christmas. Trump disagreed.

The commander in chief has "the right to have a Secretary of Defense whose views" are aligned with his own, as former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said. This hardly represents a coup.

---

disgustoo • 22 minutes ago

"The commander in chief has "the right to have a Secretary of Defense whose views" are aligned with his own, as former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said. This hardly represents a coup."

It's a "coup", alright. A coup against the deep state. Long overdue, but better late than never. President Trump giving The Swamp the middle finger one last time. And flushing out warmonger Biden, daring him to show his true colors & re-escalate again. Checkmate.

M Orban disgustoo • 15 minutes ago

Then why did he hire these people the first place?
Now there is only two months left out of 48?

Thuto November 16, 2020 at 6:18 am

It used to be that "it took a village to raise a child", and where I'm from at least this was meant in a very literal sense: it took not only parents but other elders in the community to impart the accumulated wisdom that instills pro-social, community-building values into children, ensuring that it wasn't the sins, but rather the virtues of the elders that were visited upon the children, even unto the seventh generation. The "village" has now largely replaced parents and community elders with a dizzying, eclectic mix of social media influencers, tv personalities, pseudo-thought leaders and an education system that's been captured by our elites to instill their own preferred version of values into our children.

The analogue with the "horizon of understanding" is that for most individuals, defining what it represents has been outsourced to a dizzying mix of experts who are tasked with creating and maintaining a national value system. In a world paralyzed by partisanship, each side of the ideological divide has its own (bought and paid for) triangulated opinion of experts to shape what people on each side come to believe is real. As the chances of creating a harmonious, pro-social horizon of understanding are sacrificed at the altar of partisanship and polarization, the disorientation and discomfort felt by most people as we navigate the unfolding crises of our times is only going to increase.

Reply ↓ >

PlutoniumKun November 16, 2020 at 7:33 am

Thanks, you express this very eloquently.

It seems these days that we are simultaneously bombarded with information and opinions, while also being herded into our ideological corners by unseen algorithms. I honestly don't know what the long term consequences of this will be, but its hard to see good outcomes.

Reply ↓ >

Thuto November 16, 2020 at 8:54 am

Going forward, I suspect the unseen algorithms are going to be the most malign influence in widening the divide, a sort of social herding at scale. On the subject of opinions, most people, for better or worse, still defer to the opinions of experts on important matters, so you can imagine what happens when expert opinion is drawn not from "mere" PMC hired guns but from the upper, upper crust of the oligarchy, even the most independent thinkers are bound to subject their deeply held perceptions/beliefs to a review, if for nothing else but to get in early on a nascent bull market and profit from it.

To take an example, the early adopter set for bitcoin was for a long time made up of hackers, criminals and other fringe players who dabbled out of curiosity. The professional money management industry on the other hand took a dim view of the whole crypto thing, disparaging it at every opportunity and making sure portfolio allocations to it were extremely scarce at the best of times to non-existent every other time. Then came covid, and along with that activist central banks printing unprecedented amounts of money to shore up collapsing economies. With fiat currencies being devalued as a result, the previously skeptical titans of fund management started talking up bitcoin as a store of value comparable to gold, first Paul Tudor Jones, then Stan Druckenmiller, followed most recently by Bill Miller. Granted there are still holdouts like Ray Dalio and Peter Schiff who haven't hopped on to the bitcoin bandwagon but, along with the guys at Microstrategy also becoming fervent evangelists, I suspect the pronouncements of these titans alone are enough to take bitcoin mainstream as an asset class, volatility be damned. I'm not a crypto bull by any stretch but the power of expert opinion raining down from the very top of the class hierarchy to move the herd further down will remain undiminished for a while still, and if said opinion is programmed into an algorithm, heaven help us all.

Reply ↓ >

Eustachedesaintpierre November 16, 2020 at 9:43 am

+1

Reminds me of the old proverb " If it ain't broke don't fix it " while I believe that at some point in time someone decided to come up with a money making child rearing manual which started a flood of variations on that theme resulting in constant tinkering, which in my job would be the equivalent of overworking clay.

Only part of the story of course. /section >

hunkerdown November 16, 2020 at 10:29 am

Consider the structure of the term "common sense", which is just shared opinion. If there is no common sense, there will be no common action.

The problem with coming together is that the ruling class divides and rules us as a normal procedure of creating a class system. Nobody in the ruling class has a problem with this. Their purpose in life is to reproduce the system of mass slavery and adapt it to present conditions and they, being among the elect, are fine with this.

/section >

>

The Rev Kev November 16, 2020 at 9:26 am

Glenn Greenwald
@ggreenwald
'This is endlessly amazing: Brazil, a huge country, has nationwide municipal elections today. Voting is mandatory. *All* votes will be counted & released by tonight.'

Ah, I see the problem here. The difference is that Brazil is a Third World nation that is kept that way by morons such as Bolsanaro. America, on the other hand, is being turned into a Third World nation because the elite is seeing a profit in doing so.

>

[Nov 16, 2020] Regretfully, US liberals now out-hawk conservatives in eagerness for aggression war -- RT Op-ed

Nov 16, 2020 | www.rt.com

Get short URL

Daniel Kovalik teaches International Human Rights at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, and is author of the recently-released No More War: How the West Violates International Law by Using "Humanitarian" Intervention to Advance Economic and Strategic Interests. You might have noticed something curious following Biden's apparent election win – liberal politicians and media are sounding the alarm that Trump may use his remaining months in office to draw down our troops from Afghanistan.

For example, the New York Times ran a piece on November 12 claiming that " both in Kabul and Washington, officials with knowledge of security briefings said there was fear that President Trump might try to accelerate an all-out troop withdrawal in his final days in office " before the more "responsible" Biden can take over and try to stop or at least slow this. It is clear now that it is the liberal establishment, and the Democratic Party, which is more wedded to war than their counterparts across the aisle, and that should be disturbing to people hoping for progressive change with the incoming Administration.

First of all, we must start with this discussion with the undisputed fact that our leaders do not know, and have not known for some time, what the US' goals and strategy in Afghanistan even are. One would be forgiven for not knowing, or for forgetting this fact because the incontrovertible evidence of it – the so-called " Afghanistan Papers " – received scant and only momentary attention when they were exposed last year by the Washington Post.

ALSO ON RT.COM George Galloway: Kiss of death – The winner of the most coveted Henry Kissinger endorsement is... Joe Biden

As these documents, consisting of interviews with hundreds of insiders responsible for prosecuting the war show, the American public was intentionally lied to about the alleged " progress " of this war, even as our leaders were unsure what " progress " meant.

As the Washington Post noted, the US government never even decided who it was really fighting there: " Was al-Qaeda the enemy, or the Taliban? Was Pakistan a friend or an adversary? What about Islamic State and the bewildering array of foreign jihadists, let alone the warlords on the CIA's payroll? According to the documents, the US government never settled on an answer ." Almost to a person, everyone involved in this morass agreed that the billions of dollars spent, and thousands of lives lost, have been in vain. It has all been a colossal waste.

Now, however, we are being told to panic that Trump may end this disastrous conflict. For example, the quite liberal and almost blatantly pro-Biden news outlet, National Public Radio (NPR) ran segments all last week about female soccer teams in Afghanistan. The message of these segments was clear – these soccer teams are (allegedly) proof of women's advances in Afghanistan as a result of the US' intervention since 2001, and these advances are in jeopardy if Trump ends this intervention.

Such manipulative stories of course obscure the real fact that the US has been undermining women's rights in Afghanistan since it began intervening there in 1979, and Afghanistan still ranks at the very bottom of all countries for women's rights. But there is no doubt that such stories will warm the hearts of many Biden supporters to continue war there.

ALSO ON RT.COM The US military is NOT a feminist organization: It can't protect women's rights abroad as it can't protect its own female soldiers

Meanwhile, it is not only Afghanistan which is the focus of the liberal enthusiasm for war. Thus, as the Grayzone has reported , Dana Stroul, the Democratic co-chair of the Congressionally-appointed Syria Study Group, recently outlined the plans for even deeper US intervention in Syria – an intervention which Trump has at least paid lip service to ending.

Specifically, Stroul emphasized that " one-third of Syrian territory was owned via the US military, with its local partner the Syrian Democratic Forces, " that this territory happened to be the richest in Syria in terms of oil and agriculture, and that the US would intensify its intervention in and against Syria to keep its control of this territory and its resources. Of course, taking over other nations' resources is a violation of international law, including the Geneva Conventions prohibition against "plunder," but that seems to be of no concern.

The liberal media is also elated by the prospect of a Biden White House being more aggressive in its foreign policy towards both Russia and China.

As CNBC explains , " Now there is likely to be a change in the air when it comes to U.S.-Russia relations. At the very least, analysts told CNBC before the result that they expected a Biden win to increase tensions between Washington and Moscow, and to raise the probability of new sanctions on Russia...Experts from risk consultancy Teneo Intelligence said they expected more cooperation between Biden and Europe on global issues such as 'countering China, Russia' ."

While one might think that increased tensions with two major nuclear powers would not be a welcome development, years of the false Russiagate narrative have groomed liberals for such tensions.

ALSO ON RT.COM Trump's Pentagon shuffle suggests either no more wars or just one with Iran

Incredibly, Trump has been portrayed as being soft on Russia, even as he backed out of a major anti-proliferation treaty (The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty) which had been signed with the Kremlin back in 1987, and even as he sent the largest contingent of US troops (20,000) in a quarter of a century to train with European soldiers on the Russian border. I must note here that the converse – Russia's sending tens of thousands of troops to the border with the US – is simply inconceivable and would indeed be seen in Washington as an occasion for war. I, for one, am quite alarmed to think of what a Biden policy of "getting tougher" with Russia would look like, and what kind of catastrophe it could bring about.

Regretfully, I now live in a country in which liberals outflanking conservatives in terms of their tolerance and even eagerness for aggression and war, especially when that aggression and war is being led by officials who, as I'm sure we will see in the new Biden Administration, happen to be women or people of color. For the first time recently, I have seen the concept of "intersectional imperialism" being used to describe this situation, and I believe this to be a very real phenomenon; to be but another means of making war that much easier to swallow for broad swaths of the American public.

The irony, of course, is that the bombs dropped by the US in war, no matter who happens to be in charge of the US government at the time, disproportionately fall upon women and children of a darker skin hue, and they maim and kill just as much as those dropped by old white male Republicans. Sadly, few seem to understand or care about this.

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The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

---

benalls 31 minutes ago 16 Nov, 2020 10:27 AM

It's not the "left" or "right", republicans or democrats, but a new American movement,,,, CBM,,, wich usually means 'silent but deadly' but in this case it stands for "CEO's Bonus Matters" . The movement congressional members from Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, Boeing vowed to support. Its time for us to grab our shields, helmets, and frozen water bottles and travel to a new neighborhood to loot and burn. Israel has given Harris and JOJO their instructions.

razzims 49 minutes ago 16 Nov, 2020 10:10 AM

same ol empire of chaos and their eternal war. no matter which party wins election

HypoxiaMasks 1 hour ago 16 Nov, 2020 09:42 AM

Other than the Bush and lil Bush, every war from the beginning of the 20th century was started with a Democrat president. Tell me again how the Republicans are the party of war

MarkG1964 5 minutes ago 16 Nov, 2020 10:54 AM

The democrats and republicans are two wings on the same bird.

[Nov 15, 2020] "What Syria withdrawal- There was never a Syria withdrawal," Jeffrey said

Notable quotes:

"... "Un hombre sin honor." ..."

Nov 15, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

"What Syria withdrawal? There was never a Syria withdrawal," Jeffrey said.

" ... even as he praises the president's support of what he describes as a successful "realpolitik" approach to the region, he acknowledges that his team routinely misled senior leaders about troop levels in Syria.

"We were always playing shell games to not make clear to our leadership how many troops we had there," Jeffrey said in an interview. The actual number of troops in northeast Syria is "a lot more than" the roughly two hundred troops Trump initially agreed to leave there in 2019. Defense One

-------------

"We?" Who are "We?"

State Department people? Well, certainly some of those were involved.

But ... IMO it would not have been possible to deceive or mislead the WH and specifically the Commander in Chief without the active cooperation of CENTCOM, the JCS and OSD.

If they had not been participating in the lying, it would have been obvious in any number of interactions with President Trump that the president's understanding of troop numbers in Syria was not correct and that he was being deceived by "we." (whoever that was). That revelation evidently did not happen. The NSC staff should have detected the lack of truth in reported numbers. That it did not tells me that at least some of the NSC staff were disloyal to Trump. Obvious? Yes, but that is worth re-stating.

James Jeffrey is quite proud of his achievement in maintaining a "realpolik" stalemate in Syria, one that stymies both Russia and the Syrian government.

IMO opinion he is revealed by his own words as a treacherous back stabber. "Un hombre sin honor." pl

https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2020/11/outgoing-syria-envoy-admits-hiding-us-troop-numbers-praises-trumps-mideast-record/170012/

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Polish Janitor , 14 November 2020 at 10:55 AM

This is exactly the result of Trump's lack of interest in fulfilling his original promise of ending the "forever wars" in the middle east. This is exactly the result of putting opelny-Democrat Jared Kushner (a lifelong member of Chabad-Lubavich network) and his ilk in charge of the middle east geopolitics.

It also clearly proves that the State Dep. is a monsterous autonomous entity with its own permanent objectives and agendas, independent of the WH. No matter what Trump wanted to achieve in the ME, the so-called Blob (or as Col. Lang here has coined as the "BORG") do what they will. You have to also remember that back in '17, career diplomats and high-ranking State Dep. officials sounded the alarm that Rex Tillerson was down-sizing the Department so much and that it was contrary to American interests abroad etc...fast forward to today, it would not have mattered how much down-sizing Tillerson actually managed to do, they (people like Jeffries) were still able to pursue their own agenda and undermine Trump's original promise of ending the forever wars in the middle east.

The liberal elites managed to 'allegedly' manipulate the election against a sitting president in favor of an highly unappealing candidate in Joe Biden. In all honesty, does anyone think the Blob/Borg would NOT undermine the president's agenda and follow their own permanent objectives aboard?

The Twisted Genius , 14 November 2020 at 11:10 AM

Trump should be furious about this. He should be firing everyone involved in the deception. Those involved don't belong in ANY administration. Was convincing Trump that he was getting the Syrian oil part of this despicable con? As you mentioned last night, this deception is probably also going on in Afghanistan. This is a clear sign of a totally dysfunctional nation security apparatus... Trump's national security apparatus. Could Trump find no one he could trust to carry out his orders? Or did he just not even care? He certainly wasn't up to the task.

However, our troop level in Syria has been widely and openly reported to be above the 200 level since Trump's initial announcement of a total pull out in December 2018. I thought it was odd when shortly after that it was announced that more troops were being sent in to facilitate the withdrawal of the 2,000 plus troops already there. We did reduce the level somewhat, but then we brought in mech infantry with their Bradleys to secure the oil fields and later more to counter the Russian patrols in northeast Syria. And isn't counting whatever we have in Tanf.

Fred , 14 November 2020 at 11:32 AM

TTG,

"He should be firing everyone involved in the deception"

He just fired Esper. "Trump's national security apparatus." You mean America's natonal security apparatus, the one that gave us LTC Vindman and that crew of Ambassadors, and the 'whistlebolower' Chief Justice Robert's wouldn't let any senator name nor ask questions about during the impeachment. You remember all that don't you? I'm sure the same cast of characters Biden would bring back if he succeeds in the rigged election would never do that to him.

JM Gavin , 14 November 2020 at 11:45 AM

COL(R) Mark Mitchell stated the following recently, regarding the duties and responsibilities of the SECDEF in response to POTUS directives. The comments were in regard to Acting SECDEF Miller (a longtime friend and colleague of Mitchell), but apply to any Cabinet or sub-Cabinet post:

"He [POTUS] may make decisions that other people disagree with. They have two options: they can do what he directs them to do, or after they've offered their advice, if they find it illegal, immoral, unethical, unadvisable, they can step down," retired Col. Mark Mitchell, who most recently served in the Pentagon as the principal deputy assistant defense secretary for special operations/low-intensity conflict.

Mitchell added that he resented the implication at the defense secretary should be expected to stand up to the president, or in his way, as the duly elected commander in chief.

"You either carry out your lawful orders or you resign," he said. "We don't get the option to 'stand up to him.' "(End of quote)

Unfortunately, President Trump made many poor personnel decisions, and selected people who believed they had the duty and right to work against the President from within the Administration. This has driven me nuts for the last four years, as I have watched senior civilian and uniformed leaders actively undermining the Commander-in-Chief. They weren't subtle about it. For whatever reason, they mostly got away with it.

To be clear, I am not writing this as a Trump supporter. As a career military professional, I have a duty to support the Commander-in-Chief, and obey lawful orders from the Commander-in-Chief.

It is very easy to play shell games with the BOG caps in the war zones.

JMG

Deap , 14 November 2020 at 11:53 AM

Looking forward to a reprise of Trump's former starring role in The Apprentice, and finally uttering yet again his immortal words: You're Fired!

The final days of Trump's first term are going to be awesome. Banish the Borg. BAMN. Put Biden's fingerprints on any re-hiring.

Typically a new CEO will ask for everyone's resignation, and select and cull according to new needs and new directions. Something Trump should have done, but he too was the apprentice in this office when his term began.

Nothing to stop Trump from doing this now in reverse, and finally cleaning out the dross that was dedicated to his administration's destruction. Better late than never. Our country deserves nothing less. These insider traitors deserve to have their termination for cause permanently be part in their career resumes.

j , 14 November 2020 at 12:33 PM

It appears that POTUS Trump once his re-election is affirmed, urgently needs to fire a large percentage of top-level ranks at the Pentagon, fire the CENTCOM CC and his staff, fire the JCS, close down the NSC until it's thoroughly bleached, and charge all of them under the UCMJ. Bust them down to slick-sleeves and show them the door. How many back-stabbing Vindman types remain within the NSC? They need to be fired and prosecuted under the UCMJ as well.

Robert G Spenser , 14 November 2020 at 01:29 PM

As a citizen I am having great difficulty not concluding that the US is showing all the signs of decline like the late Roman Republic.

James Jeffrey along with the rest of the herd that have run one agitprop disinformation scheme after another since the 2016 election are like the roman senators that had the intent to save the Republic but fatally weakened it by killing Caesar at its very center, in the Senate.

Biden's people are openly calling for even more internet censorship and continuing to rush out inherently dangerous mRNA vaccines without proper testing - and may force us to take it. Groups are starting to create a database of Trump supporters to enable censoring them where they work and live - what is this other than terrorism against half the voting population? If just five percent of the 70M that voted for Trump moves together in resistance then the new regime herd will be holding a tiger by is tail and with the election showing the people are split right down the middle I fail to see how we can avoid even much worse chaos the next four years. The American Republic is disintegrating while the herd is having a romp and thinks it is winning while they are its assassins.

I am sick at heart of this and fear for the future of my children whose standard of living opportunities are in free-fall.

JM Gavin , 14 November 2020 at 02:34 PM

Robert G Spenser,

As the saying goes:

Good times create soft men.

Soft men create hard times.

Hard times create hard men.

Hard men create good times.

Rinse, wash, repeat until your civilization starts to outsource the hard men.

JMG

Fredw , 14 November 2020 at 04:06 PM

We are shocked, SHOCKED! that military bureaucrats are acting in the same ways that they always have. Come on now. The job of president is to get all these people to work in concert to an extent adequate for getting things to come out mostly in our favor. None of this is unique to Trump. Nearly every president in my lifetime has had to learn to deal with these aspects of the military. Jimmy Carter trusted them to plan a rescue mission. They used navy pilots for a mission over the desert! With no extra to enable adaptation to events! Ronald Reagan sent a battleship to Lebanon and then found out the brass wouldn't take the risk of actually using it for anything. Not to mention the superbly uncoordinated near simultaneous invasion of Grenada. John Kennedy accepted a duplicitous projection of events for the bay of pigs. Bill Clinton got caught in Somalia. George W. got sucked into a strategically unplanned invasion of Iraq. Obama was told that an 18-month escalation would resolve Afghanistan. He believed it! Boy were they shocked when he actually enforced the deadline. This is not a criticism of any of those presidents. It is normal, however bizarre that may sound. My point is that they mostly get bit once and learn not to trust the military's own estimates of what they can or should do. Then they begin to do the job more adequately. They learn to pay attention to goals and to manage their resources. Trump does not seem capable of this kind of learning. The last months of an administration are not the time to suddenly discover the nature of the organizations you are leading. And in any case, there is no time left for learning how to get actual results.

Deap , 14 November 2020 at 04:54 PM

JFK never should have unionized the government workforce.

Pits existential self-interests against patriotic national interest, should these interests become in conflict. FDR warned against doing this. More attention needs to be paid to this fundamental national turning point.

What ills were cured by this act (EO) and has the cure become worse than the perceived disease. Must like term limits in California - the cure was 100 times worse than the original disease.

Entrenched political personalities come and go; entrenched and corrupted political systems are forever, because in the process they learned to self-perpetuate.

Much like HAL in the movie 2001.

Deap , 14 November 2020 at 04:57 PM

Name your favorite EO to strike down with an counter-mand EO, before a sitting president leaves office:
1. Anchor baby citizenship triggering chain migration
2. Unionized government workforce

Deap , 14 November 2020 at 05:27 PM

2016: Democrat Game Plan:

1. Use Democrat's standard politics of personal destruction to attack and harass any Trump appointments; make working for the Trump administration so undesirable none dare even ask for consideration.

2. Tie up the President's time with endless personal attacks, lies and investigations, so Trump has no time as elected Chief Executive to oversee and clean up valid government operations;

3. Take advantage of Trump's exclusively private sector experience to lull Trump into thinking entrenched government BORGs are loyal government employees, who serve only to help Trump carry out his Executive Office duties;

4. Leak like crazy; make things up if necessary that ensure the Trump administration narrative appears chaotic and dysfunctional. Claim anonymous sources that undermine positive functioning within Trump administration. Make everyone suspicious of everyone else.

5. Obliterate any recognition for the remarkable Trump administration accomplishments that occurred, regardless of all of the above.

6. Pout relentlessly because regardless of the above, the President and the GOP Senate appointed over 200 new federal judge and 3 new SCOTUS members.

7. In full public view, tear up the SOTU address listing remarkable administration accomplishments mouthing - these are all lies -- laying down the gauntlet for all out war.

8. Gin up pandemic hysteria to fill in any and all loopholes not yet covered by all of the above.

Democrat skullduggery may have effectively destroyed an temporal administration, but Trump Judiciary appointments are the equivalent of a very welcomed forever.

President Trump, you are missed already. But I suspect in short order it is you, who will not miss the office. You are enshrined forever - #45 as President of the United States of America. History will treat you far kinder than your current fellow citizens.

You broke up the Democrat plantation. You exposed the dark underbelly of the body politic. Mission accomplished. There is no going back.

J , 14 November 2020 at 07:27 PM

DHS head Chad Wolf is another anti-Trump in sheep's clothing that Trump needs to get rid of ASAP.

https://nypost.com/2020/11/13/dhs-boss-chad-wolf-defies-trump-order-to-fire-cyber-chief-chris-krebs/

james , 14 November 2020 at 08:21 PM

this sounds like the definition of a traitor to me - jeffery.... on the other hand one could say he is working for wall st and the mil complex and has done a good job... which is it??

Yeah, Right , 15 November 2020 at 12:24 AM

I don't understand this. Trump is the Commander in Chief, at any time he could have asked a straight-up question: How. Many. Troops. Do. We. Still. Have. In. Syria?

I find it astonishing that the military leadership would tell a lie to their Commander in Chief when the question itself leaves no wriggle-room.

Heck, Trump could has asked for a list of every single one of those brave 200 boys, and even if it included Name, Rank, and Serial Number that would still fit on a single letter-sized printout.

I can't understand how Jeffrey's and his band of "we's" could get away with this unless Trump wasn't paying any attention at all.

turcopolier , 15 November 2020 at 12:26 AM

Yeah, right

Yes. He trusted people as I would never have done.

Mike C , 15 November 2020 at 12:33 AM

Questions for the committee:

What legal recourse if any is there against Jeffery or his fellow travelers?

How might Trump "put a kink in the hose" to hobble a potential Biden admin from putting us back into these quagmires?

I'm not at all surprised to see MSM sniping now at Col. Macgregor.

[Nov 13, 2020] Neocons Poised to Join New Government by Phil Geraldi

Notable quotes:

"... It would not be overstating the case to suggest that the neoconservative movement has now been born again, though the enemy is now the unreliable Trumpean-dominated Republican Party rather than Saddam Hussein or Ayatollah Khomeini. ..."

"... The transition has also been aided by a more aggressive shift among the Democrats themselves, with Russiagate and other “foreign interference” being blamed for the party’s failure in 2016. ..."

"... The unifying principle that ties many of the mostly Jewish neocons together is, of course, unconditional defense of Israel and everything it does, which leads them to support a policy of American global military dominance which they presume will inter alia serve as a security umbrella for the Jewish state. ..."

"... That change has now occurred and the surge of neocons to take up senior positions in the defense, intelligence and foreign policy agencies will soon take place. In my notes on the neocon revival, I have dubbed the brave new world that the neocons hope to create in Washington as the “Kaganate of Nulandia” after two of the more prominent neocon aspirants, Robert Kagan and Victoria Nuland. ..."

"... A Dick Cheney and Hillary Clinton protégé, Nuland openly sought regime change for Ukraine by brazenly supporting government opponents in spite of the fact that Washington and Kiev had ostensibly friendly relations. Her efforts were backed by a $5 billion budget, but she is perhaps most famous for her foul language when referring to the potential European role in managing the unrest that she and the National Endowment for Democracy had helped create. The replacement of the government in Kiev was only the prelude to a sharp break and escalating conflict with Moscow over Russia’s attempts to protect its own interests in Ukraine, most particularly in Crimea. ..."

"... A lot of the neocons are Russian Jews who grew up in households that were Bolshevik communists. They're idea of spreading democracy goes back to Trotsky who tried to spread communism through the Soviet Union. Their hatred toward Russia dates back to their ancestors feudal days under the Tsars and the pogroms they suffered and the ice pick Trotsky got to the head. ..."

"... Obama's deep state lied, people died: https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2020/11/outgoing-syria-envoy-admits-hiding-us-troop-numbers-praises-trumps-mideast-record/170012/ ..."

"... I've never quite figured out the "neocon" ideology, beyond the fact that neocons seem devoted to the sort of status quo present in Washington, D.C. during the three administrations prior to Trump. Military adventurism, nation-building, and interventionist foreign policy, all based on nebulous concepts which are applied unevenly around the world. ..."

"... The Neocon movement seems to have morphed into nothing more than a club for bullies trying to one up each other. ..."

"... "It makes no difference what men think of war, said the judge. War endures. As well ask men what they think of stone. War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner. That is the way it was and will be. That way and not some other way." ..."

"... Neocons don't really prefer war, so much as they prefer overseas "engagements" that may look like war and smell like war. All that's missing in neocon military operations is a defined end state. ..."

Nov 13, 2020 | turcopolier.typepad.com

Donald Trump was much troubled during his 2016 and 2020 campaigns by so-called conservatives who rallied behind the #NeverTrump banner, presumably in opposition to his stated intention to end or at least diminish America’s role in wars in the Middle East and Asia. Those individuals are generally described as neoconservatives but the label is itself somewhat misleading and they might more properly be described as liberal warmongers as they are closer to the Democrats than the Republicans on most social issues and are now warming up even more as the new Joe Biden Administration prepares to take office.

To be sure, some neocons stuck with the Republicans, to include the highly controversial Elliott Abrams, who initially opposed Trump but is now the point man for dealing with both Venezuela and Iran. Abrams’ conversion reportedly took place when he realized that the new president genuinely embraced unrelenting hostility towards Iran as exemplified by the ending of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and the assassination of Iranian general Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad. John Bolton was also a neocon in the White House fold, though he is now a frenemy having been fired by the president and written a book.

Even though the NeverTrumper neocons did not succeed in blocking Donald Trump in 2016, they have been maintaining relevancy by slowly drifting back towards the Democratic Party, which is where they originated back in the 1970s in the office of the Senator from Boeing Henry “Scoop” Jackson. A number of them started their political careers there, to include leading neocon Richard Perle.

It would not be overstating the case to suggest that the neoconservative movement has now been born again, though the enemy is now the unreliable Trumpean-dominated Republican Party rather than Saddam Hussein or Ayatollah Khomeini.

The transition has also been aided by a more aggressive shift among the Democrats themselves, with Russiagate and other “foreign interference” being blamed for the party’s failure in 2016. Given that mutual intense hostility to Trump, the doors to previously shunned liberal media outlets have now opened wide to the stream of foreign policy “experts” who want to “restore a sense of the heroic” to U.S. national security policy. Eliot A. Cohen and David Frum are favored contributors to the Atlantic while Bret Stephens and Bari Weiss were together at the New York Times prior to Weiss’s recent resignation.

Jennifer Rubin, who wrote in 2016 that “It is time for some moral straight talk: Trump is evil incarnate,” is a frequent columnist for The Washington Post while both she and William Kristol appear regularly on MSNBC.

The unifying principle that ties many of the mostly Jewish neocons together is, of course, unconditional defense of Israel and everything it does, which leads them to support a policy of American global military dominance which they presume will inter alia serve as a security umbrella for the Jewish state. In the post-9/11 world, the neocon media’s leading publication The Weekly Standard virtually invented the concept of “Islamofascism” to justify endless war in the Middle East, a development that has killed millions of Muslims, destroyed at least three nations, and cost the U.S. taxpayer more than $5 trillion. The Israel connection has also resulted in neocon support for an aggressive policy against Russia due to its involvement in Syria and has led to repeated calls for the U.S. to attack Iran and destroy Hezbollah in Lebanon. In Eastern Europe, neocon ideologues have aggressively sought “democracy promotion,” which, not coincidentally, has also been a major Democratic Party foreign policy objective.

The neocons are involved in a number of foundations, the most prominent of which is the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), that are funded by Jewish billionaires. FDD is headed by Canadian Mark Dubowitz and it is reported that the group takes direction coming from officials in the Israeli Embassy in Washington. Other major neocon incubators are the American Enterprise Institute, which currently is the home of Paul Wolfowitz, and the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at John Hopkins University. The neocon opposition has been sniping against Trump over the past four years but has been biding its time and building new alliances, waiting for what it has perceived to be an inevitable regime change in Washington.

That change has now occurred and the surge of neocons to take up senior positions in the defense, intelligence and foreign policy agencies will soon take place. In my notes on the neocon revival, I have dubbed the brave new world that the neocons hope to create in Washington as the “Kaganate of Nulandia” after two of the more prominent neocon aspirants, Robert Kagan and Victoria Nuland.

Robert was one of the first neocons to get on the NeverTrump band wagon back in 2016 when he endorsed Hillary Clinton for president and spoke at a Washington fundraiser for her, complaining about the “isolationist” tendency in the Republican Party exemplified by Trump. His wife Victoria Nuland is perhaps better known. She was the driving force behind efforts to destabilize the Ukrainian government of President Viktor Yanukovych. Yanukovych, an admittedly corrupt autocrat, nevertheless became Prime Minister after a free election. Nuland, who was the Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs at the State Department, provided open support to the Maidan Square demonstrators opposed to Yanukovych’s government, to include media friendly appearances passing out cookies on the square to encourage the protesters.

A Dick Cheney and Hillary Clinton protégé, Nuland openly sought regime change for Ukraine by brazenly supporting government opponents in spite of the fact that Washington and Kiev had ostensibly friendly relations. Her efforts were backed by a $5 billion budget, but she is perhaps most famous for her foul language when referring to the potential European role in managing the unrest that she and the National Endowment for Democracy had helped create. The replacement of the government in Kiev was only the prelude to a sharp break and escalating conflict with Moscow over Russia’s attempts to protect its own interests in Ukraine, most particularly in Crimea.

And, to be sure, beyond regime change in places like Ukraine, President Barack Obama was no slouch when it came to starting actual shooting wars in places like Libya and Syria while also killing people, including American citizens, using drones. Biden appears poised to inherit many former Obama White House senior officials, who would consider the eager-to-please neoconservatives a comfortable fit as fellow foot soldiers in the new administration. Foreign policy hawks expected to have senior positions in the Biden Administration include Antony Blinken, Nicholas Burns, Susan Rice, Valerie Jarrett, Samantha Power and, most important of all the hawkish Michele Flournoy, who has been cited as a possible secretary of defense. And don’t count Hillary Clinton out. Biden is reportedly getting his briefings on the Middle East from Dan Shapiro, former U.S. Ambassador to Israel, who now lives in the Jewish state and is reportedly working for an Israeli government supported think tank, the Institute for National Security Studies.

Nowhere in Biden’s possible foreign policy circle does one find anyone who is resistant to the idea of worldwide interventionism in support of claimed humanitarian objectives, even if it would lead to a new cold war with major competitor powers like Russia and China. In fact, Biden himself appears to embrace an extremely bellicose view on a proper relationship with both Moscow and Beijing “claiming that he is defending democracy against its enemies.” His language is unrelenting, so much so that it is Donald Trump who could plausibly be described as the peace candidate in the recently completed election, having said at the Republican National Convention in August “Joe Biden spent his entire career outsourcing their dreams and the dreams of American workers, offshoring their jobs, opening their borders and sending their sons and daughters to fight in endless foreign wars, wars that never ended.”

Polish Janitor , 13 November 2020 at 11:34 AM

It should be noted that the return of "neocons" does not mean the return of people like Wolfowitz, Ladeen, Feith, Kristol who are more "straussian" than "liberal/internationalist", but those like Nuland, Rice, Sam Powell, Petraeus, Flournoy, heck even Hilary Clinton as UN Ambassador who are CFR-type liberal interventionist than pure military hawks such as Bolton or Mike Flynn.

These liberal internationalists, as opposed to straussian neocons, will intervene in collaboration with EU/NATO/QUAD (i.e. multilaterally) in the name upholding human rights and toppling authoritarianism, rather than for oil, WMDs, or similar concrete objectives. In very simple terms, the new Biden administration's foreign policy will be none other than the return to "endless wars" for nation-building purposes first and last.

fakebot , 13 November 2020 at 11:43 AM

The name Kagan is the Russianized version of the name Cohen. He was going to be McCain's NSA had he been elected. They pulled a stunt with the Bush admin to make Obama look weak by pushing Georgia into war with Russia in 2008. Sakaasvili, the president of Georgia, was literally eating his own tie:

https://cdn1.img.sputniknews.com/img/102445/69/1024456927_0:98:1000:639_1000x541_80_0_0_d2bb118481dc653ec7d2a8b170b8f6bf.jpg

A lot of the neocons are Russian Jews who grew up in households that were Bolshevik communists. They're idea of spreading democracy goes back to Trotsky who tried to spread communism through the Soviet Union. Their hatred toward Russia dates back to their ancestors feudal days under the Tsars and the pogroms they suffered and the ice pick Trotsky got to the head.

I don't think they have that much influence. They pushed a lot of nonsense in the late 70/early 80s about how the Taliban were George Washingtons and here we are today, they're worst than the Comanche. The last time I saw Richard Perle make a TV appearance, he was crying like a baby. Robert Novak, the prince of darkness, was a Ron Paul supporter. The only ones really kicking around are Bill Kristol and Jennifer Rubin, but Kristol was almost alone when he was talking about putting 50,000 boots on the ground in Syria. Rubin is a harpie who only got crazier and crazier. Kagan had his foot in the door with Hillary only because of his wife. Those two might get back in with Biden on Ukraine, but Biden would do well to keep them at a distance.

Mark K Logan , 13 November 2020 at 11:57 AM

Thanks.

The lone bright spot is Biden's stated intention of restoring the JCPOA. And, I guess, the pending defenestration of Pompeo The Great.

I suspect the condition of the US economy and the massive deficits will assist in discouraging rash actions elsewhere. Have to wait and see.

Fred , 13 November 2020 at 12:36 PM

Obama's deep state lied, people died: https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2020/11/outgoing-syria-envoy-admits-hiding-us-troop-numbers-praises-trumps-mideast-record/170012/

It's great when career professionals sabotage the elected president's foreign policy.

JM Gavin , 13 November 2020 at 01:00 PM

I've never quite figured out the "neocon" ideology, beyond the fact that neocons seem devoted to the sort of status quo present in Washington, D.C. during the three administrations prior to Trump. Military adventurism, nation-building, and interventionist foreign policy, all based on nebulous concepts which are applied unevenly around the world.

It seems now that there is a new breed of neocons, unified by opposition to Trump's messaging, but not much else. Odd to find people like Samantha Power, John Bolton, Jim Mattis, and Paul Wolfowitz marching together in perfect step.

The Beaver , 13 November 2020 at 02:49 PM

Mr Geraldi

A good perspective by Philip Weiss on the same subject. Eliot A Cohen must be communicating a lot with the Kagan brothers , Dennis Ross and Perle to see who can be parachuted either to the WH or Foggy Bottom.

https://mondoweiss.net/2020/10/neoconservatives-are-flocking-to-biden-and-lets-forget-about-the-iran-deal/

BrianC , 13 November 2020 at 03:08 PM

@JM Gavin

I've never quite figured out the "neocon" ideology

The revolutionary spirit (see E. Michael Jones' work). From communism to neoconservatism it's ultimately an attack on the Beatitudes and Christ's Sermon on the Mount. "The works of mercy are the opposite of the works of war" -- Servant of God Dorothy Day

Mark K Logan , 13 November 2020 at 03:23 PM

JM Gavin,

Sir,

I hold the Cold Warriors like Scoop a species distinct from those of the post-USSR era. The current version started at the end of the cold war. We felt like kings of the world after Gulf War 1 and the shoe seemed to fit.

The HW Bush administration pondered how best to use this power for good. I've read some things which report there was a debate within the administration on whether to clean up Yugoslavia or Somalia first. They got Ron to "do the honors" for the invasion of Somalia at Oxford: About 20 minutes in. https://www.c-span.org/video/?35586-1/arising-ashes-world-order

That was played as part of the pep-talk on the Juneau off the coast of Somalia. Stirring stuff.

In some small way I never stopped sipping that Kool Aid. It's hard to stand by and watch unspeakable evil go down when you have the power to stop it...or think you do. Time will tell if the Neocons are capable of perceiving the limits of force. Certainly had some hard lessons in the last few decades.

EEngineer , 13 November 2020 at 03:57 PM

@JM Gavin

Hogs lining up for a spot at the trough? The Neocon movement seems to have morphed into nothing more than a club for bullies trying to one up each other.

Dan , 13 November 2020 at 04:35 PM

I think its generally shocking that Trump or the republicans didn't make a bigger issue of Biden's history of supporting disastrous intervention, especially his Iraq War vote. Maybe they felt like its not a winning issue, that they would lose as many votes as they gain by appearing more isolationist. But overall, Trump favoring diplomacy over cruise missiles should have been a bigger point in his favor in the election.

jerseycityjoan , 13 November 2020 at 04:52 PM

It is distressing to read that we will have people in the government who are looking for a fight. That is especially true in view of China's aggression in recent years and the responses we will have to make to that. I think we will have more than enough to do to handle China. What do the neocons want to do about China?

Here is an article about China that really startled me and made me realize how much of a threat is was becoming. The Air Force chief of staff talks about the challenges of countries trying to compete militarily with us in ways that have not occurred for awhile. Here are two quotes that really got me:

"Tomorrow's Airmen are more likely to fight in highly contested environments, and must be prepared to fight through combat attrition rates and risks to the nation that are more akin to the World War II era than the uncontested environments to which we have since become accustomed," Brown writes."

And

"Wargames and modeling have repeatedly shown that if the Air Force fails to adapt, there will be mission failure, Brown warns. Rules-based international order may "disintegrate and our national interests will be significantly challenged," according to the memo."

https://www.airforcemag.com/brown-air-force-must-speed-up-change-or-face-harsh-consequences/#.X02DjeMiZQM.mailto

The article doesn't say we will have another arms race but that is an obvious response to China's competition with us. I thought all that was done and gone. I do not want to resume it. I don't want another period of foreign entanglements, period. We still haven't paid for the War Against Terrorism. I look into the future and all I see is us racking up bills that we have no ability to pay. And then there is the human cost of all this, I don't want to even think about that.

turcopolier , 13 November 2020 at 05:40 PM

jerseycityjoan

"I thought all that was done and gone. I do not want to resume it." Childish. "Only the dead have seen the end of war."

JM Gavin , 13 November 2020 at 05:54 PM

EEngineer,

Snouts in the trough accounts for a certain amount of neocons, I'm sure. There is, however, a unifying vision beyond that which puzzles me, given the very different political orientations of various neocons. Neocons are found in academia and the media as well. Those types are less dependent on taxpayer dollars in exchange for their views (they'll get whatever tax money gets pushed their way in grants, etc regardless).

I find Polish Janitor's "straussian" and "liberal/internationalist" flavors of neocon intriguing, as I hadn't considered that before.

JMG

JM Gavin , 13 November 2020 at 05:59 PM

COL Lang's quote from Plato reminds me of another (from Cormac McCarthy): "It makes no difference what men think of war, said the judge. War endures. As well ask men what they think of stone. War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner. That is the way it was and will be. That way and not some other way."

Neocons don't really prefer war, so much as they prefer overseas "engagements" that may look like war and smell like war. All that's missing in neocon military operations is a defined end state.

JMG

JM Gavin , 13 November 2020 at 06:10 PM

Mark K. Logan,

I concur with your thoughts about standing by as evil occurs. We just have a habit of jumping into complex situations we don't understand, and making things worse. I suspect you feel the same way.

The military misadventures during my career (Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Syria) were marked by our own black and white thinking. The more successful adventures (Colombia, Nepal) were marked by our appreciation (to a certain extent) of the complex nature of the environments we were getting involved in...and the fact that we weren't involved in nation-building in the latter two locales. There were viable governments in place, and we weren't trying to replace them.

JMG

Deap , 13 November 2020 at 06:53 PM

Here is another Biden clip that should have been exploited too - way back when - when the media was a little more trusted, but no less pompous. However, Biden The Plagerizer had it coming.

Now tell me America is not the Land of Opportunity, when one can continuously shoot themselves in the foot and then rise from the dead yet again, and again: https://rumble.com/vb3c09-resurfaced-video-of-joe-biden-should-destroy-him.html?mref=23gga&mrefc=2

Though I am warming more and more to Trump Media becoming the real soul of America. Plus someone, in time. will need to pick up Rush Limbaugh's empire. America needs a counter-weight to fake news more than it needs the keys to the White House, with all its entangling webs, palace intrigues, chains and pitfalls.

Godspeed President Trump. If someone with as few talents s Biden can rise like Lazarus, just think what you can do with your little finger. No wonder the Democrats want Trump destroyed; not just defeated in a re-election. We have your back, Mr President.

TV , 13 November 2020 at 07:03 PM

Mark Logan:
Iran celebrates "Death to America" as a national day.
So let's give them a path to nuclear weapons.

Deap , 13 November 2020 at 07:11 PM

Ex-CIA analyst, Mich Rep. Elissa Slotkin refuses to back Pelosi for Speaker - anyone know her? https://www.newsmax.com/politics/elissa-slotkin-nancy-pelosi-democrat-house/2020/11/13/id/996905/ She wants more mid-West, and less Calif and NY, as the new face of the Democrat Party.

Fred , 13 November 2020 at 07:14 PM

Mark,

"It's hard to stand by and watch unspeakable evil go down when you have the power to stop it...."

I hear Trump is evil/Hitler/worse. I wonder if anyone who thinks that is true has the power to rig an election, or thinks they do?

jerseycityjoan , 13 November 2020 at 07:50 PM

Colonel,

You are right of course.

Are the people of America up for another arms race and a more or less cold war with China? I think the Chinese will give us a lot more trouble than the Soviets ever did.

And yet we allow their students to come here and learn all we know and their elites to bring their dirty money here and we give them green cards and citizenship and protect the money they took from the Chinese people. Not so smart on our part.

I am very concerned about all of this.

Serge , 13 November 2020 at 07:57 PM

What is the next theater of war that Biden's new friends will involve us in? I noticed lots of Cold War era conflicts are heating up lately, Ethiopia Morocco Armenia being recent examples. IS in Syria/Iraq is still castrated due to the continued mass internment of their population base in the dozens of camps, but they have established thriving franchises in Africa and their other provinces continue to smolder.

[Nov 10, 2020] Neoliberal Dems, Russia and neo McCarthyism campaign in the USA in 2016-2020

Nov 10, 2020 | www.unz.com

Realist , says: November 10, 2020 at 5:15 pm GMT • 4.1 hours ago

Third, on the international front, we can expect even more hysterical Russia bashing (the Dems all hate Russia with a passion, especially since they have brainwashed themselves for four years that "Putin" had "attacked" the US elections). But there is really nothing the US can do to Russia, it is way too late for that. So I would expect even more hot air than from the Trump Administration, and probably not much more action, although that is by no means certain, since a braindead nominal President like Biden would not have Trump's intelligence to understand that a war against Russia, China or Iran would end in a disaster: Dems always start wars to try to convince the public that they are "tough" (Dukakis in his M-1 tank).

The Dems don't hate Russia it is used as a bogeyman to re direct the populace anget at the neoliberal social system .

Russia, China, Iran and all the rest of the world probably can't believe their good fortune the US is destroying itself.

Biden will not be in control of the US, or any part of it he will be in the corner pissing his pants. The Deep State will be calling the shots.

[Nov 07, 2020] A tried and trusted mechanism to "unite" the people is some designated foreign enemy. Given the xeiai of neoliberlaisn , it is all the more imperative for the US ruling class retain the some level of legitimacy and restore the essential authority of governing power. Tt can therefore be expected that American foreign policy will become more aggressive and militaristic in the next four years.

Nov 07, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Down South , Nov 6 2020 19:22 utc | 117

What is patently clear is how bitterly polarized and divisive US domestic politics have become. This is due to the historic failing of the two-party system which has, over decades, left whole swathes of the population, in particular the majority working class, alienated from the political class. There is irreparable distrust and distortion among the American populace. To the point where it would seem impossible for any nominal winner of the election to be able to command a mandate.

A tried and trusted mechanism for galvanizing is to "unite" the people by rallying them around the flag against some designated foreign enemy. Given the increasing unwieldy, fractious nature of American society, it is all the more imperative for the US ruling class to impose some level of coherence in order to restore the essential authority of governing power. With this paramount need to shore up a sense of authority, it can therefore be expected that American foreign policy will become more aggressive and militaristic in the next four years.

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2020/11/06/american-election-is-not-a-reset-for-better-global-relations/

[Nov 06, 2020] Biden- A War Cabinet? by Mariamne Everet

Nov 06, 2020 | original.antiwar.com

"Let's bring decency and integrity back to the White House." I can't count the number of times I have heard and read this phrase uttered by U.S. expats here in Paris, France. As one of many American expats living here, of course I share in the desire for an end to a Donald Trump presidency. But at what cost? And will a Biden presidency – which promises a return to "normalcy" – really merit the sigh of relief that so many think it will? Below I summarize some of the most troubling information I have uncovered about some of the most likely foreign policy picks for key positions in a Biden cabinet.

Susan Rice for Secretary of State

Susan Rice, who was also reportedly being considered for the role of Biden's Vice President, served as United States Ambassador to the United Nations and as National Security Advisor, both under the Obama administration.

While Benghazi has been the focus of much criticism of Rice, she has received virtually no scrutiny for her backing of the invasion of Iraq and claiming that there were WMDs there. Some of her statements:

"I think he [then Secretary of State Colin Powell] has proved that Iraq has these weapons and is hiding them, and I don't think many informed people doubted that." (NPR, Feb. 6, 2003)

"It's clear that Iraq poses a major threat. It's clear that its weapons of mass destruction need to be dealt with forcefully, and that's the path we're on. I think the question becomes whether we can keep the diplomatic balls in the air and not drop any, even as we move forward, as we must, on the military side." (NPR, Dec. 20, 2002)

"I think the United States government has been clear since the first Bush administration about the threat that Iraq and Saddam Hussein poses. The United States policy has been regime change for many, many years, going well back into the Clinton administration. So it's a question of timing and tactics. We do not necessarily need a further Council resolution before we can enforce this and previous resolutions." (NPR, Nov. 11, 2002; requests for audio of Rice's statements on NPR were declined by the publicly funded network.)

She has also been criticized extensively for her record on the African continent, which judging by the following quote at the beginning of the 1994 Rwandan genocide seems to have been to adopt a "laissez faire" attitude : "If we use the word 'genocide' and are seen as doing nothing, what will be the effect on the November [congressional] election?"

Susan Rice's past rhetoric also includes choice generous words for African dictators . One great example is former prime minister of Ethiopia, Meles Zenawi, a man who ordered security services to open fire on protesters during its controversial 2005 election, has a track record of imprisoning journalists , used food aid as a political tool and stole land in south Ethiopia. In her speech at his funeral, Susan Rice described him as "brilliant" and a "close friend ".

Although Rice has often been portrayed as someone who is anti-Israel , her mild criticisms pale in comparison to her staunch record and discourse on the Israeli-Palestinian issue.

In a speech given at the AIPAC Synagogue Initiative Lunch back in 2012, Rice boasted about vetoing a UN resolution that would deem Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian land as illegal, and further characterized the Goldstone Report as "flawed" and "insisted on Israel's right to defend itself and maintained that Israel's democratic institutions could credibly investigate any possible abuses." Her position has changed little since then, as recently as 2016, she proclaimed that "Israel's security isn't a Democratic interest or a Republican interest -- it's an enduring American interest."

Tony Blinken for National Security Adviser

Tony Blinken is also an old member of the Obama administration, having served first as VP Biden's National Security Advisor from 2009 to 2013, Deputy National Security Advisor from 2013 to 2015 and then as United States Deputy Secretary of State from 2015 to 2017.

Blinken had immense influence over Biden in his role as Deputy National Security Advisor, helping formulate Biden's approach and support for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"For Biden ", he argued , "and for a number of others who voted for the resolution, it was a vote for tough diplomacy." He added "It is more likely that diplomacy will succeed, if the other side knows military action is possible."

The two of them were responsible for delivering on Obama's campaign promise to get American troops out of Iraq, a process so oversimplified and poorly handled that it led to even more chaos than the initial occupation and insurgency.

Blinken seems to be of the view that it is up to the US, and only the US, to take charge of world affairs : "On leadership, whether we like it or not, the world just doesn't organize itself. And until this [Trump] administration, the US had played a lead role in doing a lot of that organizing, helping to write the rules, to shape the norms and animate the institutions that govern relations among nations. When we're not engaged, when we don't lead, then one or two things is likely to happen. Either some other country tries to take our place – but probably not in a way that advances our interests or values – or no one does. And then you get chaos or a vacuum filled by bad things before it's filled by good things. Either way, that's bad for us."

Blinken also appears to be steering Biden's pro-Israel agenda, recently stating that Biden "would not tie military assistance to Israel to any political decisions that it makes, period, full stop," which includes an all out rejection of BDS , the Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions Movement against Israel's occupation of Palestine.

Michèle Flournoy for Secretary of Defense

Michele Flournoy was Under Secretary of Defense for Policy from 2009 to 2012 in the Obama administration under Secretaries Robert Gates and Leon Panetta.

Flournoy, in writing the Quadrennial Defense Review during her time as Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy under President Clinton, has paved the way for the U.S.'s endless and costly wars which prevent us from investing in life saving and necessary programs like Medicare for All and the Green New Deal. It has effectively granted the US permission to no longer be bound by the UN Charter's prohibition against the threat or use of military force. It declared that, "when the interests at stake are vital, we should do whatever it takes to defend them, including, when necessary, the unilateral use of military power."

While working at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a "Top Defense and National Security Think Tank" based in Washington D.C., in June 2002, as the Bush administration was threatening aggression towards Iraq, she declared , that the United States would "need to strike preemptively before a crisis erupts to destroy an adversary's weapons stockpile" before it "could erect defenses to protect those weapons, or simply disperse them." She continued along this path even in 2009, after the Bush administration, in a speech for the CSIS : "The second key challenge I want to highlight is the proliferation – continued proliferation of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction, as these also pose increasing threats to our security. We have to respond to states such as Iran, North Korea, who are seeking to develop nuclear weapons technologies, and in a globalized world there is also an increased risk that non-state actors will find ways to obtain these materials or weapons."

It is extremely important to note that Flournoy and Blinken co-founded the strategic consulting firm, WestExec Advisors, where the two use their large database of governmental, military, venture capitalists and corporate leader contacts to help companies win big Pentagon contracts. One such client being Jigsaw, a technology incubator created by Google that describes itself on its website as "a unit within Google that forecasts and confronts emerging threats, creating future-defining research and technology to keep our world safer." Their partnership on the AI initiative entitled Project Maven led to a rebellion by Google workers who opposed their technology being used by military and police operations.

Furthermore, Flournoy and Blinken, in their jobs at WestExec Advisors, co-chaired the biannual meeting of the liberal organization Foreign Policy for America. Over 50 representatives of national-security groups were in attendance. Most of the attendees supported "ask(ing) Congress to halt U.S. military involvement in the (Yemen) conflict." Flournoy did not. She said that the weapons should be sold under certain conditions and that Saudi Arabia needed these advanced patriot missiles to defend itself.

Conclusion

If a return to "normalcy" means having the same old politicians that are responsible for endless wars, that work for the corporate elite, that lack the courage to implement real structural change required for major issues such as healthcare and the environment, then a call for "normalcy" is nothing more than a call to return to the same deprived conditions that led to our current crisis. Such a return with amplified conditions and circumstances, could set the stage for the return of an administration with dangers that could possibly even exceed those posed by the current one in terms of launching new wars.

Mariamne Everett is an intern at the Institute for Public Accuracy currently living in France.

[Nov 03, 2020] America's Biggest Problem Isn't Trump; It's That We Can't Hold Iraq War Hawks Accountable by WILLIAM S. SMITH

The Deep State will never allow to hold Iraq War Hawks accountable

Nov 02, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Neocon Eliot Cohen says a Trump reelection would amount to a moral collapse. He clearly hasn't learned a thing. Eliot Cohen, professor of strategic studies at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies, speaks during a discussion hosted by the Hudson Institute titled "Grand Strategy in the Age of Trump" in Washington, USA on February 21, 2017. (Photo by Samuel Corum/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)

One of the more troubling features of America's current political culture is its inability to cashier politicians, policymakers, military leaders, and other establishment figures who have been proven not only wrong but wildly wrong. Those who led the nation into the unmitigated disaster that was the Iraq War, for example, should have been quietly ushered off the nation's public stage and, if not prosecuted, at least stigmatized for the horrors that they inflicted upon the Iraqi people and our brave American troops. Members of Congress who supported the war should have been defeated, public policy "intellectuals" who argued for it should have been whisked off to private life, and generals who promised that victory was "around the corner" should have been retired. There must be public accountability in the res publica .

But rather than being stigmatized, these establishment figures have been feted by the establishment institutions that promoted their disastrous policies. Iraq hawk John McCain assumed the chairmanship of the Senate Armed Services Committee years after it was apparent that the war was a fiasco. Paul Wolfowitz, another Iraq War architect, became president of the World Bank. Many American military leaders who urged us into Iraq, and then urged us to stay there for many long years, were given book deals, lobbying contracts, and think tank appointments. Even today, the prestigious journal Foreign Affairs is providing prime real estate to the intellectual godfather of the Iraq War, Eliot A. Cohen.

https://lockerdome.com/lad/13045197114175078?pubid=ld-dfp-ad-13045197114175078-0&pubo=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theamericanconservative.com&rid=original.antiwar.com&width=838

Cohen not only argued that the invasion of Iraq would be effortless, a mere mopping up after the "cakewalk" that was the first Gulf War, he also went "all in" on the presence of WMDs and the Baghdadian origins of the 9/11 attacks. He wrote boldly in the Wall Street Journal in late 2001 that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein would lead to a "far, far better life for the Iraqi people." In short, he was not only wrong, he was wildly wrong.

Yet here he is again, in October of 2020, with the lead article in Foreign Affairs, arguing with the same clichés he employed to lead us into Iraq, this time to attack Trump. If reelected, Cohen says, Trump will destroy America's "moral purpose on the international stage." With the Trump presidency, he declares, "the shining city on a hill has grown dim." Trump has made it clear that he has "no intention of engaging in projects to expand liberty." And of course, the unending string of clichés would not be complete without multiple references to "isolationism" and a "world akin to the chaotic 1920s and 1930s," i.e. the Nazis will have a huge renaissance if we reelect Trump.

This is nothing short of astonishing. That these hackneyed banalities, which were used to launch a war that led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocents in the Middle East, could be resurrected and published by one of the leading journals on American foreign policy simply boggles the mind.

Yet if one is to critique Cohen, one finds oneself in the unenviable position of defending Trump. With this Hobson's choice, one can only keep in mind Burke's admonition that "circumstances give in reality to every political principle its distinguishing color and discriminating effect." In other words, when critiquing Trump's foreign policy, one is obliged to ask: compared to what?

me title=

00:13 / 00:59

Trump's foreign policy is one of profound strategic incoherence yet instinctual political acumen. What many foreign policy realists and restrainers cannot seem to understand is that Trump's policy is full of contradictions yet very much aligned with the views of his voters. Populism is always full of contradictions.

For example, there is clear evidence that, in 2016, Trump carried key Midwestern states because people in working-class counties were sick and tired of seeing casualties return home from our endless wars in the Middle East. Politically, Trump's desire to bring the troops home makes great sense. But to the chagrin of libertarians, so does his desire to spend big money on the military. We probably can't afford it, and the military-industrial complex is the primary beneficiary of profligate military spending -- yet Trump's base loves fighter planes and aircraft carriers, so they are enthusiastic about robust American power.

Keep going down the list. Are barbs directed at "Euroweenies" who freeload in NATO popular? You bet they are. Is belligerence toward China, which hollowed out America's Midwestern industrial base, popular? Check. Is Trump's unwise and unremitting hostility towards the mullahs in Iran popular? Since those are the guys who took American hostages in 1979, yes, his base chooses Trump over the mullahs. None of these foreign policy positions are driven by strategic thought, but they are driven by an uncanny political sense.

If one believes that the U.S. needs to adopt a more restrained and coherent foreign policy, then Trump's record is certainly a mixed bag. His political reticence to avoid new wars has been the most attractive feature and his occasional bombastic and militaristic threats has been the least attractive feature.

But in politics, one can only choose the options that are available, and what one gets with Eliot Cohen's foreign policy is both politically unpopular and strategically disastrous. We know, for example, what Cohen means when he says the United States should engage in "projects to expand liberty." He means we need to act in Syria in 2020 as we did in Iraq in 2003: another regime change quagmire with boots on the ground. America would become again, in Robespierre's words, a nation of "armed missionaries."

The most ominous theme of the Cohen essay, however, reflects the sentiment now so common -- and so dangerous -- in the national security establishment: a Trump reelection would be illegitimate. This would signal, Cohen says, that our American republic is "fundamentally flawed" and that the United States had "undergone some kind of moral collapse."

Cohen's position reflects the establishment's absolute refusal to come to terms with their 2016 loss. There is no self-reflection, no sense that, with terrible errors such as the Iraq War and the Wall Street bailouts, our elites may have themselves unleashed this Trumpian populism. While the Framers of the American Constitution certainly feared populism, the one thing they may have feared more is an intemperate, arrogant, and unaccountable elite.

William S. Smith is a senior research fellow and managing director of the Center for the Study of Statesmanship at The Catholic University of America. His recent book Democracy and Imperialism is from the University of Michigan Press.

[Nov 03, 2020] Election Day- One Thing's for Sure, an Interventionist Will Win - Antiwar.com Original

Nov 03, 2020 | original.antiwar.com

Election Day: One Thing's for Sure, an Interventionist Will Win

by Dave DeCamp Posted on November 03, 2020

The 2020 presidential election is here. Americans are turning out in record numbers to vote, with pre-election voting surpassing two-thirds of the number of all ballots cast in 2016 . The country is divided, and the two major-party candidates are presented as starkly different options. But one thing Donald Trump and Joe Biden have in common is their admiration for the US empire, and both candidates have plans to keep the war machine chugging along.

Comparing the foreign policy of a second Trump term to a new Biden administration is tough. There are certain areas where Trump is marginally better, and there are areas where a Biden administration could be better.

Afghanistan is one place where Trump seems superior to Biden. Although Trump dropped a record number of bombs on Afghanistan in 2018 and 2019 , the US-Taliban peace deal signed in February paved the way for a complete US withdrawal by Spring 2021. The timing of the withdrawal means Trump could reverse the plan after being elected for a second term, but he seems committed to ending this one war. Biden, on the other hand, said in an interview with Stars and Stripes in September that he cannot promise a full withdrawal from Afghanistan and that he favors keeping a small troop presence in the country.

Biden said the same for Syria and Iraq in the Stripes interview, two other countries Trump has said he would like to get out of. Regarding Syria, Trump failed miserably to follow through on a withdrawal and decided to stay in the country to "secure" the oil . Besides the criminality of occupying a sovereign country to steal its resources, the small US occupation force risks confrontation with Russia. With Syrian President Bashar al-Assad being a favorite enemy of the Democratic establishment, it's possible the number of US troops in the Syria could increase under a Biden administration.

In Iraq, the US recently announced its plan to draw down troops from 5,200 to 3,000 . Trump says he wants a full withdrawal from the country , where US troops are no longer welcome since the assassination of Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani. Iraq's parliament voted unanimously to expel US troops after Trump's enormous provocation towards Iran that brought the region to the brink of a major new war. Trump's Iran policy clashes with his desire to withdraw from Iraq. It's likely the Iran hawks driving the "maximum pressure" campaign would not want to give up bases in Iraq, which could serve as a launchpad for attacks against Iran.

Iran is one area where Biden could be much better than Trump. The "maximum pressure" campaign against the Islamic Republic has been disastrous and shows no sign of waning. Biden has said he would work with Iran to restore the 2015 Iran nuclear deal , a foreign policy achievement of the Obama administration.

Recent comments from Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) suggest Biden will face pressure from both Republicans and Democrats to try to make a tougher deal with Iran. Menendez said Biden should seek an agreement that further restricts Iran's nuclear and military capabilities, something Tehran would never agree to before sanctions relief. Biden will also face pressure from Israel to be tough on Iran.

Some believe Biden is the most pro-Israel presidential nominee ever from either side of the aisle. President Trump has arguably been the most pro-Israel president of all time, recognizing Jerusalem as the country's capital, recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, changing US policy to no longer consider Jewish settlements in the West Bank illegal, and the so-called "Vision for Peace" that would essentially formalize apartheid rule over Palestinians.

Biden says he opposes Israeli annexation of the West Bank, but there's no reason to believe he would reverse any of Trump's policies, like moving the US embassy to Jerusalem, something Biden said he would not change . As far annexation, the Israelis have decided to hold off on annexing portions of the West Bank allocated to them in Trump's plan and are going back to the slower, more politically palatable form of annexation, through settlements , something Biden would probably not interfere with.

Perhaps the worst stain on the Trump administration is the war in Yemen. President Trump chose to continue this genocidal war in April 2019, when he vetoed a war powers resolution passed by Congress that called for an end to US military involvement in Yemen. The president did it again in July 2019, when he vetoed three separate resolutions that would have banned US arms sales to Saudi Arabia. Experts agree , if the US cuts off support for the Saudis in Yemen, the war would quickly come to an end.

Joe Biden has repeatedly said he would end US support for the war in Yemen. "Under a Biden-Harris administration, we will reassess our relationship with the Kingdom, end US support for Saudi Arabia's war in Yemen, and make sure America does not check its values at the door to sell arms or buy oil," the former vice president said in a statement on the anniversary of Jamal Khashosggi's death.

President Trump also significantly escalated the war against al-Qaeda in Yemen and carried out more ground and air operations in the country than the administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama combined. Trump also broke records in Somalia. The first seven months of 2020 saw more US airstrikes on the African country than under Bush and Obama combined. With virtually no opposition in Washington to the drone war against al-Shabab in Somalia, the Biden administration would likely continue the campaign.

There's no telling which candidate would be worse on Russia and China. Despite every liberal news outlet saying otherwise, President Trump has been extremely hawkish on Russia . One area where Biden outshines Trump with respect to Moscow is arms control treaties. The Trump administration has withdrawn from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty , which banned medium-range missiles, and the Open Skies Treaty , which allowed unarmed aerial surveillance between its signatories.

The New START is the last nuclear arms control treaty between the US and Russia and will expire in February 2021. Russia has repeatedly offered to extend the agreement for five years with no preconditions, but the Trump administration is demanding more and seems to be intentionally sabotaging the vital treaty . If the New START expires, there will be no constraint on the US and Russia's nuclear arsenal for the first time in decades, setting up a new nuclear arms race, something the Trump administration seems prepared for . Biden's policy plan says he will pursue the extension of New START and use it as a foundation for new arms control treaties. Despite being better on arms control, Biden would still be a Russia hawk. In an interview with 60 Minutes in October , Biden identified Russia as the greatest national security threat to the US and said China is Washington's greatest competitor.

In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, the Trump administration's hawkish China policies have been thrown into hyper-drive. The US has increased its military presence in the Indo-Pacific, frequently sending warships into the South China Sea and flying spy planes near China's coast . Although they got bogged down in the Middle East, the Obama administration started the "pivot to Asia," and a Biden administration would likely continue boosting the US military presence in the region.

One of the Trump administration's most embarrassing failures is its Venezuela policy, which Trump appointed washed up neocon Elliot Abrams to run. Since January 2019, the US has recognized Juan Guaido as the president of Venezuela, despite Nicolas Maduro still holding power in Caracas. Guaido's coup attempts were utter failures , and the crippling economic sanctions on the country have done nothing but made the civilian population suffer . Democrats criticize Trump for his Venezuela policy, not for the harm it does to the people, but because it failed to depose Maduro .

Another disgraceful thing about the Trump administration is the attempt to prosecute WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for exposing US war crimes. On the campaign trail in 2016, Trump praised WikiLeaks for exposing corruption in the DNC. After Assange was arrested in the UK, Trump said he knew "nothing" about WikiLeaks .

The British judge presiding over Assange's extradition case is expected to make a decision in January 2021. This author has little faith that Joe Biden would drop the charges against Assange since he has previously likened the WikiLeaks founder to a "hi-tech terrorist." It's clear Biden does not consider Assange to be a journalist.

Unfortunately, the issues listed above are far down on the list of priorities for Americans today. Throughout the pandemic, the civil unrest, and the antics surrounding the election, the drones have continued to buzz, the bombs continued to fall, and the sanctions continued to strangle economies. While these crimes committed by the empire are just background noise to the subjects living within the 50 states, they are absolutely everything to the people affected.

It's tough to blame Americans for their lack of awareness of their country's murderous foreign policy. The corporate press ignores the atrocities going on overseas and amplifies the skirmishes on the streets of the US between people with opposing political views. It's easy to keep people unaware of the mass-murder funded by their tax dollars on the other side of the world while they are fighting with each other.

The lack of concern over US foreign policy was put on stark display by the two presidential debates. The two men auditioning to control the military of the largest empire in the history of the world didn't even have to tell the voters what they plan to do with it. The best the candidates could muster up was some tough talk on Russia and China, and Biden criticized one of the few good things Trump did in his term – meeting with North Korea's Kim Jong-un.

For these reasons, it is more important than ever for independent media outlets like Antiwar.com to continue to shine a light on the crimes of the empire, even when so few care. We can guarantee that no matter who wins on Tuesday, we will cover their foreign policy critically. And if by some freak chance Libertarian Party candidate Jo Jorgensen wins, we will not rest until she fulfills her plan to withdraw US troops from every foreign country.

While our staff might celebrate Trump's declarations to bring the troops home and is hopeful Biden would end the war in Yemen, we are under no illusions. The major-party options this year are this: An incumbent president who campaigned on ending "endless war" but has only escalated them or a lifelong politician who led the charge in the Senate to give George W Bush his invasion of Iraq and now lies about it . Antiwar.com needs your help to cover the interventionist foreign policy of whichever candidate wins on Tuesday. Consider making a donation today , and spread the word. Tell your friends and family about us and help make Washington's imperialist wars part of the national conversation.

Dave DeCamp is the assistant news editor of Antiwar.com and is based in Richmond, VA. Follow him on Twitter @decampdave .

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[Oct 25, 2020] The Trillion-Dollar F-35 Fighter Program Does Not Make Americans Safer

Notable quotes:

"... Overspending on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program does not make America any safer. The president's military spending increase is based on the false premise that more spending equals more security. More spending may even make America less safe by spending us into bankruptcy. ..."

"... One big problem with this massive spending on one defense program is that it gives interventionist politicians the tools of war that they desire. ..."

"... While some support this flawed program no matter how much it costs and actually advocate spending more taxpayer cash on it, Americans want that $1.7 trillion spent at home and not on a transnational defense spending program to defend other nations. ..."

"... The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program is not worthy of a massive investment by the taxpayer when it does not make America safer while also being a poorly negotiated government contract that has stuck the taxpayer with a massive bill. ..."

Oct 24, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

Authored by Norm Singleton via The Mises Institute,

Overspending on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program does not make America any safer. The president's military spending increase is based on the false premise that more spending equals more security. More spending may even make America less safe by spending us into bankruptcy.

The F-35 program is expected to cost well over $1 trillion when it is fully operational and deployed. That massive investment will serve to enrich government contractors while giving interventionist politicians an offensive weapon of war. This program was created as a "too big to fail" scheme where once the government starts the process of making these fighter jets, they will have spent so much money that they can't back away. The F-35 program is a bad deal for the taxpayer while promoting a policy that will make these same taxpayers less safe.

It appears that the massive amount put into the program has purchased a lemon of a jet. The program has been troubled from day one and is currently experiencing some padding of the contract. On September 11, 2020, Bloomberg reported, "the Pentagon's five-year budget plan for the F-35 falls short by as much as $10 billion, the military's independent cost analysis unit has concluded, a new indication that the complex fighter jet may be too costly to operate and maintain." The plan for the F-35 for the next five years was an estimated "$78 billion for research and development, jet procurement, operations and maintenance and military construction dedicated to the F-35 built by Lockheed Martin Corp." This $10 billion mistake is going to fall on the shoulders of an already overtaxed taxpayer.

One big problem with this massive spending on one defense program is that it gives interventionist politicians the tools of war that they desire. The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program contains a number of versions of a stealth fighter jet that can engage other aircraft and conduct military strikes. The goal is to use these aircraft as the primary fighter jets for the air force, navy, and marines. These can be used as offensive weapons in the hands of politicians who desire to engage in the endless war policies that have left the United States vulnerable to attack. This is a very expensive program that will not provide $1 trillion in security for American citizens.

Typical with government defense contracting, there have been numerous problems that have shifted significant increased cost onto the Pentagon. Defense News reported recently that the contractor was trying to stick the taxpayer with the cost of spare parts for the F-35. According to Bloomberg , the taxpayer received more bad news: "the F-35's total 'life cycle' cost is estimated at $1.727 trillion in current dollars." That is an insane amount of taxpayer cash and "$1.266 trillion is for operations and support of the advanced plane that's a flying supercomputer." When pressed by Bloomberg , a Pentagon spokesman bragged that a Pentagon "cost analysis office projects that the average procurement cost for an F-35, including its engines, is dropping from a planned $109 million to $101.3 million in 2012 dollars." Only in Washington would a bureaucrat brag about ripping off American citizens by just under $8 million less as a deal for the taxpayer.

While some support this flawed program no matter how much it costs and actually advocate spending more taxpayer cash on it, Americans want that $1.7 trillion spent at home and not on a transnational defense spending program to defend other nations.

The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program is not worthy of a massive investment by the taxpayer when it does not make America safer while also being a poorly negotiated government contract that has stuck the taxpayer with a massive bill.

[Oct 25, 2020] Putin on NGO, color revolutions and "export of democracy"

Notable quotes:

"... We, in Russia, went through a fairly long period where foreign funds were very much the main source for creating and financing non-governmental organisations. Of course, not all of them pursued self-serving or bad goals, or wanted to destabilise the situation in our country, interfere in our domestic affairs, or influence Russia's domestic and, sometimes, foreign policy in their own interests. Of course not. ..."

Oct 25, 2020 | valdaiclub.com

Genuine democracy and civil society cannot be "imported." I have said so many times. They cannot be a product of the activities of foreign "well-wishers," even if they "want the best for us." In theory, this is probably possible. But, frankly, I have not yet seen such a thing and do not believe much in it. We see how such imported democracy models function. They are nothing more than a shell or a front with nothing behind them, even a semblance of sovereignty. People in the countries where such schemes have been implemented were never asked for their opinion, and their respective leaders are mere vassals. As is known, the overlord decides everything for the vassal. To reiterate, only the citizens of a particular country can determine their public interest.

We, in Russia, went through a fairly long period where foreign funds were very much the main source for creating and financing non-governmental organisations. Of course, not all of them pursued self-serving or bad goals, or wanted to destabilise the situation in our country, interfere in our domestic affairs, or influence Russia's domestic and, sometimes, foreign policy in their own interests. Of course not.

There were sincere enthusiasts among independent civic organisations (they do exist), to whom we are undoubtedly grateful. But even so, they mostly remained strangers and ultimately reflected the views and interests of their foreign trustees rather than the Russian citizens. In a word, they were a tool with all the ensuing consequences.

A strong, free and independent civil society is nationally oriented and sovereign by definition. It grows from the depth of people's lives and can take different forms and directions. But it is a cultural phenomenon, a tradition of a particular country, not the product of some abstract "transnational mind" with other people's interests behind it.

[Oct 24, 2020] The World Order: New Rules or a Game Without Rules. So, what is happening now? Regrettably, the game without rules is becoming increasingly horrifying and sometimes seems to be a fait accompli."

Oct 24, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

gm , Oct 22 2020 19:00 utc | 9

@Posted by: karlof1 | Oct 22 2020 18:19 utc | 6

Re: "...Thus, six years ago, in 2014, we spoke about this issue when we discussed the theme The World Order: New Rules or a Game Without Rules. So, what is happening now? Regrettably, the game without rules is becoming increasingly horrifying and sometimes seems to be a fait accompli."

Putin said this virtually in the same breath directly after his previous paragraph you excerpted where he speaks of the serious ongoing challenges of the coronavirus pandemic.

What that says to me is that he is hinting with his trademark subtlety that he thinks the CV pandemic may not be a naturally arising event. In other words, a plandemic.

karlof1 , Oct 22 2020 19:12 utc | 12

gm @9--

Yes, that's the ongoing rhetorical battle between the Collectivist nations who uphold the sanctity of International Law and the Neoliberal Nations controlled by Financial Parasites that can't survive under a functional International Law System. That distinction is constantly becoming clearer particularly to those residing within the Neoliberal nations as they watch their lives being destroyed. IMO, we're on the cusp of entering the most critical decade of this century which will determine humanity's condition when 2101 is reached.

[Oct 23, 2020] Hating Russia is a full time and well paid job

Neocons do not want to fight Russia, they just want to profit from Russophobia while getting nice money from the US MIC.

Oct 23, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

---

Mister Delicious , 7 hours ago

1. Introduction
2. The euphemisms
3. Hostility to Putin's Russia is largely a Jewish phenomenon
4. The media
5. A de facto violation of free speech
6. Shutting down an honest examination of Russian history
7. The best alt-media journalists are neutered
8. Much of what is written about Russian relations and history becomes meaningless and deceptive
9. A lesson in relevance from the Alt-Right
10. Malice towards none
11. The problem extends to all areas of public life
12. We need serious scholarship and analysis
13. Low expectations from the existing alt-media
14. A call for articles and support
15. https://www.unz.com/pgiraldi/hating-russia-is-a-full-time-job/

ebear , 6 hours ago

Has any nation on Earth suffered more destruction and loss of life in the 20th century? And yet, there they still are.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btff8DmOg1k

John Hansen , 7 hours ago

I'd have more hope for Russia if the Russian ruling class weren't so obsessed with the West and didn't send their children to Western (woke) schools, etc.

theallseeinggod , 7 hours ago

They're not doing that well, but they're not repeating many of the west's mistakes.

Normal , 5 hours ago

Now the West has rules only for poor people.

Helg Saracen , 6 hours ago

Advice to Americans (for the sake of experiment): prohibit lobbying in US and the right of citizens with dual citizenship to hold public office in US. I assure - you will be surprised how quickly Russians go from non-kosher to kosher for Americans and how American politicians, the media will convince Americans of this at every intersection. :) Ha ha ha

Nayel , 5 hours ago

If the [Vichy] Left in America weren't so determined to project their own Bolshevik leanings on to a possible great ally that their ideology now fears, Russia would be just that: a great ally that could help America shake the Bolsheviks that have infiltrated the American government and plan the same program their Soviet forefathers once held over Russia...

Arising 2.0 , 1 hour ago

Western zionist controlled propaganda reminds me of Mohamed Ali- he used to talk up the ******** so much before a fight that when the time came to fight the opponent was usually traumatised or confused. Until Ali met with Joe Frazier (Russia) who didn't fall for all the pre-fight BS.

ThePinkHole , 39 minutes ago

Time for a pop quiz! Name the two countries below:

Country A - competency, attention to first principles, planning based on reality, consistency of purpose, and unity of execution.

Country B - incompetency, interfering in everything everywhere, planning based on hubris and sloppy assumptions, confusion, and disunity.

(Source: Adapted from Patrick Armstrong)

foxenburg , 3 hours ago

This one is always good for a laugh....the Daily Telegraph's Con Coughlin explaining in 2015 how Putin will fail in Syria...

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/6990/russia-failure-syria

Money-Liberty , 6 hours ago

We have all this talk of the 'Ruskies' when in fact it is not the ordinary Russian people but rather a geopolitical power struggle. The ordinary US citizen or European just wants to maintain their liberty and be able to profit from their endeavours. The rich and powerful globalists who hide behind their military are the ones that play these games. I am no friend of Putin but equally I am no friend of our own political establishment that have been captured by Wall Street. I care about Main Street and as the US dollar loses its privilege there will be real pain to share amongst our economies. The last thing we need is for the elites of the Western alliance to profit with cold/hot wars on the backs of ourselves.

Having been behind the iron curtain as a young Merchant Navy Officer I found ordinary citizens fine and even organized football matches with the local communist parties. People have the same desires and aspirations and whether rich or poor we should respect each others cultures and territories. http://www.money-liberty.com/gallery/Predictions-2021.pdf

[Oct 23, 2020] Russia has been a fixture of the US military-industrial complex for a reason: they need more money and threat inflation is possible only with a suitable bogeyman

Oct 23, 2020 | www.zerohedge.com

rotorhead1871 , 5 hours ago

..they have always been the reason for the industrial-military complex....but now, who needs them.....we got china to point the finger at. so having 2 useful idiot countries...will keep the weapons boys going for quite some time....

Snaffew , 7 hours ago

...he boogeyman has never been Russia, it resides right here in the US under the guise of government, military, mainstream media, propaganda and sanctions, sanctions, sanctions against anyone that rightfully takes our slice of entitled pie because they built a far better and far cheaper mousetrap.

Oh the horrors of claiming to be a democracy and a capitalist nation when you just can't seem to play by the rules. **** America---we have let the elites take us down the road to ruins. We are as much at fault as they are for believing their nonsensical bs the whole while all the evidence was smoking right in front of our face. Who's more stupid...them or us? I'd tell everyone to take a good long look in the mirror if you are looking for an answer to that question---

[Oct 23, 2020] A stark note from Lavrov about the USA neoliberal elite

In America, Truth is a Foreign Agent and World Peace is a threat to National Security.

Oct 23, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

kiwiklown , Oct 22 2020 9:05 utc | 7

The Russians ( Putin / Lavrov) say ever so politely that the US is not agreement-capable.

I add that the US ( politicians, Wall Streeters, MSM, think tanks ) are:

• not truth-capable;
• not ethics-capable;
• not shame-capable;
• not honour-capable.

What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world, but loses his soul? He turns into a ghoul without a soul, says I, a devil without human-ness! How dare they call us deplorables when they are the despicables?

[Oct 21, 2020] How Trump Got Played By The Military-Industrial Complex by Akbar Shahid Ahmed

Highly recommended!

Tramp was essentially the President from military industrial complex and Israel lobby. So he was not played. That's naive. He followed the instructions.

Oct 21, 2020 | www.huffpost.com

On March 20, 2018, President Donald Trump sat beside Saudi crown prince Muhammed bin Salman at the White House and lifted a giant map that said Saudi weapons purchases would support jobs in "key" states -- including Pennsylvania, Michigan, Florida and Ohio, all of which were crucial to Trump's 2016 election victory .

"Saudi Arabia has been a very great friend and a big purchaser of equipment but if you look, in terms of dollars, $3 billion, $533 million, $525 million -- that's peanuts for you. You should have increased it," Trump said to the prince, who was (and still is) overseeing a military campaign in Yemen that has deployed U.S. weaponry to commit scores of alleged war crimes.

Trump has used his job as commander-in-chief to be America's arms-dealer-in-chief in a way no other president has since Dwight Eisenhower, as he prepared to leave the presidency, warned in early 1961 of the military-industrial complex's political influence. Trump's posture makes sense personally ― this is a man who regularly fantasizes about violence, usually toward foreigners ― and he and his advisers see it as politically useful, too. The president has repeatedly appeared at weapons production facilities in swing states, promoted the head of Lockheed Martin using White House resources, appointed defense industry employees to top government jobs in an unprecedented way and expanded the Pentagon's budget to near-historic highs ― a guarantee of future income for companies like Lockheed and Boeing.

Trump is "on steroids in terms of promoting arms sales for his own political benefit," said William Hartung, a scholar at the Center for International Policy who has tracked the defense industry for decades. "It's a targeted strategy to get benefits from workers in key states."

In courting the billion-dollar industry, Trump has trampled on moral considerations about how buyers like the Saudis misuse American weapons, ethical concerns about conflicts of interest and even part of his own political message, the deceptive claim that he is a peace candidate. He justifies his policy by citing job growth, but data from Hartung , a prominent analyst, shows he exaggerates the impact. And Trump has made clear that a major motivation for his defense strategy is the possible electoral benefit it could have.

Next month's election will show if the bargain was worth it. As of now, it looks like Trump's bet didn't pay off ― for him, at least. Campaign contribution records, analysts in swing states and polls suggest arms dealers have given the president no significant political boost. The defense contractors, meanwhile, are expected to continue getting richer, as they have in a dramatic way under Trump.

Playing Corporate Favorites

Trump has thrice chosen the person who decides how the Defense Department spends its gigantic budget. Each time, he has tapped someone from a business that wants those Pentagon dollars. Mark Esper, the current defense secretary, worked for Raytheon; his predecessor, Pat Shanahan, for Boeing; and Trump's first appointee, Jim Mattis, for General Dynamics, which reappointed him to its board soon after he left the administration.

Of the senior officials serving under Esper, almost half have connections to military contractors, per the Project on Government Oversight. The administration is now rapidly trying to fill more Pentagon jobs under the guidance of a former Trump campaign worker, Foreign Policy magazine recently revealed ― prioritizing political reasons and loyalty to Trump in choosing people who could help craft policy even under a Joe Biden presidency.

Such personnel choices are hugely important for defense companies' profit margins and risk creating corruption or the impression of it. Watchdog groups argue Trump's handling of the hiring process is more evidence that lawmakers and future presidents must institute rules to limit the reach of military contractors and other special interests.

"Given the hundreds of conflicts of interest flouting the rule of law in the Trump administration , certainly these issues have gotten that much more attention and are that much more salient now than they were four years ago," said Aaron Scherb, the director of legislative affairs at Common Cause, a nonpartisan good-government group.

The theoretical dangers of Trump's approach became a reality last year, when a former employee for the weapons producer Raytheon used his job at the State Department to advocate for a rare emergency declaration allowing the Saudis and their partner the United Arab Emirates to buy $8 billion in arms ― including $2 billion in Raytheon products ― despite congressional objections. As other department employees warned that Saudi Arabia was defying U.S. pressure to behave less brutally in Yemen, former lobbyist Charles Faulkner led a unit that urged Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to give the kingdom more weapons. Pompeo pushed out Faulkner soon afterward, and earlier this year, the State Department's inspector general criticized the process behind the emergency declaration for the arms.

MOHAMED AL-SAYAGHI / REUTERS

Even Trump administration officials not clearly connected to the defense industry have shown an interest in moves that benefit it. In 2017, White House economic advisor Peter Navarro pressured Republican lawmakers to permit exports to Saudi Arabia and Jared Kushner, the president's counselor and son-in-law, personally spoke with Lockheed Martin's chief to iron out a sale to the kingdom, The New York Times found.

Subscribe to the Politics email. From Washington to the campaign trail, get the latest politics news.

When Congress gave the Pentagon $1 billion to develop medical supplies as part of this year's coronavirus relief package, most of the money went to defense contractors for projects like jet engine parts instead, a Washington Post investigation showed .

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"It's a very close relationship and there's no kind of sense that they're supposed to be regulating these people," Hartung said. "It's more like they're allies, standing shoulder to shoulder."

Seeking Payback

In June 2019, Lockheed Martin announced that it would close a facility that manufactures helicopters in Coatesville, Pennsylvania, and employs more than 450 people. Days later, Trump tweeted that he had asked the company's then-chief executive, Marillyn Hewson, to keep the plant open. And by July 10, Lockheed said it would do so ― attributing the decision to Trump.

The president has frequently claimed credit for jobs in the defense industry, highlighting the impact on manufacturing in swing states rather than employees like Washington lobbyists, whose numbers have also grown as he has expanded the Pentagon's budget. Lockheed has helped him in his messaging: In one instance in Wisconsin, Hewson announced she was adding at least 45 new positions at a plant directly after Trump spoke there, saying his tax cuts for corporations made that possible.

Trump is pursuing a strategy that the arms industry uses to insulate itself from political criticism. "They've reached their tentacles into every state and many congressional districts," Scherb of Common Cause said. That makes it hard for elected officials to question their operations or Pentagon spending generally without looking like they are harming their local economy.

Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, a Democrat who represents Coatesville, welcomed Lockheed's change of course, though she warned, "This decision is a temporary reprieve. I am concerned that Lockheed Martin and [its subsidiary] Sikorsky are playing politics with the livelihoods of people in my community."

The political benefit for Trump, though, remains in question, given that as president he has a broad set of responsibilities and is judged in different ways.

"Do I think it's important to keep jobs? Absolutely," said Marcel Groen, a former Pennsylvania Democratic party chair. "And I think we need to thank the congresswoman and thank the president for it. But it doesn't change my views and I don't think it changes most people's in terms of the state of the nation."

With polls showing that Trump's disastrous response to the health pandemic dominates voters' thoughts and Biden sustaining a lead in surveys of most swing states , his argument on defense industry jobs seems like a minor factor in this election.

Hartung of the Center for International Policy drew a parallel to President George H.W. Bush, who during his 1992 reelection campaign promoted plans for Taiwan and Saudi Arabia to purchase fighter jets produced in Missouri and Texas. Bush announced the decisions at events at the General Dynamics facility in Fort Worth, Texas, and the McDonnell Douglas plant in St. Louis that made the planes. That November, as Bill Clinton defeated him, he lost Missouri by the highest margin of any Republican in almost 30 years and won Texas by a slimmer margin than had become the norm for a GOP presidential candidate.

MANDEL NGAN VIA GETTY IMAGES

Checking The Receipts

The defense industry can't control whether voters buy Trump's arguments about his relationship with it. But it could, if it wanted to, try to help him politically in a more direct way: by donating to his reelection campaign and allied efforts.

Yet arms manufacturers aren't reciprocating Trump's affection. A HuffPost review of Federal Election Commission records showed that top figures and groups at major industry organizations like the National Defense Industrial Association and the Aerospace Industries Association and at Lockheed, Trump's favorite defense firm, are donating this cycle much as they normally do: giving to both sides of the political aisle, with a slight preference to the party currently wielding the most power, which for now is Republicans. (The few notable exceptions include the chairman of the NDIA's board, Arnold Punaro, who has given more than $58,000 to Trump and others in the GOP.)

Data from the Center for Responsive Politics shows that's the case for contributions from the next three biggest groups of defense industry donors after Lockheed's employees.

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One smaller defense company, AshBritt Environmental, did donate $500,000 to a political action committee supporting Trump ― prompting a complaint from the Campaign Legal Center, which noted that businesses that take federal dollars are not allowed to make campaign contributions. Its founder told ProPublica he meant to make a personal donation.

For weapons producers, backing both parties makes sense. The military budget will have increased 29% under Trump by the end of the current fiscal year, per the White House Office of Management and Budget. Biden has said he doesn't see cuts as "inevitable" if he is elected, and his circle of advisers includes many from the national security world who have worked closely with ― and in many cases worked for ― the defense industry.

And arms manufacturers are "busy pursuing their own interests" in other ways, like trying to get a piece of additional government stimulus legislation, Hartung said ― an effort that's underway as the Pentagon's inspector general investigates how defense contractors got so much of the first coronavirus relief package.

Meanwhile, defense contractors continue to have an outsize effect on the way policies are designed in Washington through less political means. A recent report from the Center for International Policy found that such companies have given at least $1 billion to the nation's most influential think tanks since 2014 ― potentially spending taxpayer money to influence public opinion. They have also found less obvious ways to maintain support from powerful people, like running the databases that many congressional offices use to connect with constituents, Scherb of Common Cause said.

"This goes into a much bigger systemic issue about big money in politics and the role of corporations versus the role of Americans," Scherb said.

Given its reach, the defense industry has little reason to appear overtly partisan. Instead, it's projecting confidence despite the generally dreary state of the global economy: Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun has said he expects similar approaches from either winner of the election, arguing even greater Democratic control and the rise of less conventional lawmakers isn't a huge concern.

In short, whoever is in the White House, arms dealers tend to do just fine.

[Oct 19, 2020] New report shows more than $1B from war industry and govt. going to top 50 think tanks

Highly recommended!

Oct 19, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Richard Steven Hack , Oct 17 2020 23:20 utc | 76

New report shows more than $1B from war industry and govt. going to top 50 think tanks

Esper's speech demonstrates a confluence of policies, ideas, and funds that permeate through the system, and are by no means unique to a single service, think tank, or contractor.

First, Esper consistently situated his future expansion plans in a need to adapt to "an era of great power competition." CNAS is one of the think tanks leading the charge in highlighting the threat from Beijing.

They also received at least $8,946,000 from 2014-2019 from the U.S. government and defense contractors, including over $7 million from defense contractors like Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, Huntington Ingalls, General Dynamics, and Boeing who would stand to make billions if the 500-ship fleet were enacted.

It's all about the money. Foreign and domestic policy is always all about the money, either directly or indirectly. Of course, the ultimate goal is power - or more precisely, the ultimate goal is relief of the fear of death, which drives every single human's every action, and only power can do that, and in this world only money can give you power (or so the chimpanzees believe.)

[Oct 03, 2020] Top US general rushes to defend Pentagon after Trump accuses it of colluding with weapon manufacturers to fight endless wars

Oct 03, 2020 | www.rt.com

foxenburg 9 September, 2020 9 Sep, 2020 01:48 AM

An interviewer should test this man's integrity with a simple question, such as.. "When you retire, will promise to live off your generous pension....like Eisenhower in his rocking chair....and not go to work for an arms manufacturer or think tank or any other paid position?"

Rocky_Fjord 9 September, 2020 9 Sep, 2020 05:18 AM

John boy McCain just went into apoplexy in hell.

[Oct 01, 2020] Steve's insistence on speaking the truth about Ukraine and US-Russia relations cost him -- but he never gave up by Lev Golinkin

Highly recommended!

I draw your attention to the irrefutable fact that Mr. Cohen said that the Buk missile, which brought down Malaysian Flight 370 over the skies of Donbas, was the Ukraine government "playing with its new toys and made a big mistake." -- and I draw your attention to the irrefutable fact that Mr. Cohen said that the Buk missile, which brought down Malaysian Flight 370 over the skies of Donbas, was the Ukraine government "playing with its new toys and made a big mistake."

He was a real giant in comparison with intellectual scum like Fiona Hill, Michael McFaul and other neocons.

Notable quotes:

"... I tried to explain to American friends what was happening, but quickly realized that ultimately, even friends believe what they read in the newspapers, and the newspapers were pushing the Washington line. Except for Steve Cohen. Steve was the only major figure in America who insisted on remembering the Russian-speaking Ukrainians who, like my family members, distrusted and hated the new Kiev government. He spoke of neo-Nazi paramilitiaries who fought for the US-backed government committing war crimes against civilians in eastern Ukraine. He spoke the truth, regardless of how unwieldy it was. ..."

"... There's a lot to say about Steve. He was extraordinarily kind, never forgetting that in geopolitics, the ones who have the most to lose aren't strategists but everyday individuals impacted by policy. He was a consummate teacher, insisting on giving mentees the skills to navigate the world, a real proponent of the Teach a man to fish philosophy. He had facets and stories and memories; he lived life with empathy and gusto. ..."

"... Steve's insistence on speaking the truth about Ukraine and US-Russia relations drew all sorts of attention. America was hurtling toward a new cold war with Russia, and Steve well, from the perspective of Washington's foreign policy establishment, Steve was fucking up the narrative. Steve talked about inconvenient things, things like US-backed war criminals and America's own meddling in Russian affairs; in the process, he himself had become inconvenient. ..."

"... After all, this wasn't some random blogger. This was one of America's foremost Russia experts, a tenured professor at Princeton and New York University, someone who didn't just write about history but had dinner with it, had briefed US presidents, and was friends with legends like Mikhail Gorbachev. Steve had clout earned from decades of brilliant work; by 2014, he was using that clout to throw a wrench in the think tank world. ..."

"... It was something far colder, more sustained, something that ironically the Soviets did to dissidents: a relentless crusade to render the target untouchable, a leper without a platform. The barrage of articles and diatribes hurled at Steve in the national press painted him as not just a dissenter but a supporter of dictators and murderers. It was a vicious, prolonged assault carried out by think tank toadies, the kind of people who win races by kneecapping the competition. ..."

"... I'd often talk with Steve after a new hatchet job or smear on national television. Of course, the attacks were hurtful -- the only way to not be affected was to not care, and Steve cared. But I also noticed he was remarkably free of bitterness. Every time I thought he'd snap, he'd return the next day to write, discuss, keep fighting. ..."

"... It took me a couple of years to understand that what kept Steve going was faith in his beloved institutions. He believed in academia, in scholarship, in discourse, debate, and civility. He believed in the capacity of everyday people to explore and engage with their world, he believed in Russia, and he always believed in America. He believed in these things far more than he believed in the power of today's warmongers. ..."

"... In 1967 Noam Chomsky wrote an article in the NY Review entitled "the Responsibility of Intellectuals" the first sentence ran like this: "IT IS THE RESPONSIBILITY of intellectuals to speak the truth and to expose lies.". Stephen Cohen did precisely that when all the parrots and pundits were lined up against him. ..."

"... Always I was skeptical of prevailing scholarly interpretive trends on the Soviet experience that were echoed by colleagues claiming expertise on the subject. Cohen provided the foundation for my skepticism and invigorated my lectures on American foreign policy. ..."

"... Once Cohen plied his knowledge against the hysterical narrative that culminated in 4 years of frothing neo-McCarthyism (by the freakin' "left," no less), we were no longer gonna see him on the PBS newshour any more likely than we would and will see chris hedges, chomsky, or margaret kimberly. ..."

"... His book War With Russia? was an oasis of counter-narrative when I picked it up. Losing voices like his is immeasurable as we hurtle toward total war with Russia and/or China, both of whom are finally, naturally, and perfectly predictably beginning to draw a line in the sand. ..."

Oct 01, 2020 | www.thenation.com

I first reached out to Stephen Cohen because I was losing my mind.

In the spring of 2014, a war broke out in my homeland of Ukraine. It was a horrific war in a bitterly divided nation, which turned eastern Ukraine into a bombed-out wasteland. But that's not how it was portrayed in America. Because millions of eastern Ukrainians were against the US-backed government, their opinions were inconvenient for the West. Washington needed a clean story about Ukraine fighting the Kremlin; as a result, US media avoided reporting about the "wrong" half of the country. Twenty-plus million people were written out of the narrative, as if they never existed.

I tried to explain to American friends what was happening, but quickly realized that ultimately, even friends believe what they read in the newspapers, and the newspapers were pushing the Washington line. Except for Steve Cohen. Steve was the only major figure in America who insisted on remembering the Russian-speaking Ukrainians who, like my family members, distrusted and hated the new Kiev government. He spoke of neo-Nazi paramilitiaries who fought for the US-backed government committing war crimes against civilians in eastern Ukraine. He spoke the truth, regardless of how unwieldy it was.

And so I e-mailed him, asking for guidance as I began my own writing career. Of course, there were many who clamored for Steve's time, but I had an advantage over others. Steve and I were both night owls, real night owls, the kind who have afternoon tea at three am. It was then, when the east coast was sleeping, that he became my mentor and friend.

There's a lot to say about Steve. He was extraordinarily kind, never forgetting that in geopolitics, the ones who have the most to lose aren't strategists but everyday individuals impacted by policy. He was a consummate teacher, insisting on giving mentees the skills to navigate the world, a real proponent of the Teach a man to fish philosophy. He had facets and stories and memories; he lived life with empathy and gusto.

But one thing Steve taught me is to stick to my strengths, and truth be told, there are others who can describe his life better than I. I'll stick to what I learned during our conversations at three in the morning, which is that, above all else, Stephen F. Cohen was a man of faith.

Steve's insistence on speaking the truth about Ukraine and US-Russia relations drew all sorts of attention. America was hurtling toward a new cold war with Russia, and Steve well, from the perspective of Washington's foreign policy establishment, Steve was fucking up the narrative. Steve talked about inconvenient things, things like US-backed war criminals and America's own meddling in Russian affairs; in the process, he himself had become inconvenient.

After all, this wasn't some random blogger. This was one of America's foremost Russia experts, a tenured professor at Princeton and New York University, someone who didn't just write about history but had dinner with it, had briefed US presidents, and was friends with legends like Mikhail Gorbachev. Steve had clout earned from decades of brilliant work; by 2014, he was using that clout to throw a wrench in the think tank world.

The DC apparatchiks couldn't discredit Steve's credentials or track record -- he'd predicted events in Ukraine and elsewhere years before they occurred. They couldn't intimidate him -- he'd faced far worse threats, like the KGB. Instead, they set out to turn him into an America-hating, Putin-loving pariah.

This went beyond an ad hominem campaign. It was something far colder, more sustained, something that ironically the Soviets did to dissidents: a relentless crusade to render the target untouchable, a leper without a platform. The barrage of articles and diatribes hurled at Steve in the national press painted him as not just a dissenter but a supporter of dictators and murderers. It was a vicious, prolonged assault carried out by think tank toadies, the kind of people who win races by kneecapping the competition.

I'd often talk with Steve after a new hatchet job or smear on national television. Of course, the attacks were hurtful -- the only way to not be affected was to not care, and Steve cared. But I also noticed he was remarkably free of bitterness. Every time I thought he'd snap, he'd return the next day to write, discuss, keep fighting.

It took me a couple of years to understand that what kept Steve going was faith in his beloved institutions. He believed in academia, in scholarship, in discourse, debate, and civility. He believed in the capacity of everyday people to explore and engage with their world, he believed in Russia, and he always believed in America. He believed in these things far more than he believed in the power of today's warmongers.

Steve liked movies and would often end a lecture with a movie reference to drive home the thesis. When I think of him, I think of the ending of The Shawshank Redemption , the line about Andy Dufresne crawling through filth and coming out clean on the other side. Steve didn't live in a movie; I can't claim he emerged unscathed. What he did was come through without bitterness or cynicism. He refused to turn away from the ugliness, but he didn't allow it to blind him to beauty. He walked with grace. And he lost neither his convictions nor his faith.

Lev Golinkin Lev Golinkin is the author of A Backpack, a Bear, and Eight Crates of Vodka, Amazon's Debut of the Month, a Barnes & Noble's Discover Great New Writers program selection, and winner of the Premio Salerno Libro d'Europa. Golinkin, a graduate of Boston College, came to the US as a child refugee from the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkov (now called Kharkiv) in 1990. His writing on the Ukraine crisis, Russia, the far right, and immigrant and refugee identity has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, CNN, The Boston Globe, Politico Europe, and Time (online), among other venues; he has been interviewed by MSNBC, NPR, ABC Radio, WSJ Live and HuffPost Live.

---

Pierre Guerlain says: October 1, 2020 at 12:42 pm

In 1967 Noam Chomsky wrote an article in the NY Review entitled "the Responsibility of Intellectuals" the first sentence ran like this: "IT IS THE RESPONSIBILITY of intellectuals to speak the truth and to expose lies.". Stephen Cohen did precisely that when all the parrots and pundits were lined up against him. He was a Mensch. History will bear him the historian out.

Valera Bochkarev says to Lance Haley: October 1, 2020 at 11:09 am

Hmm, who's the apologist here ?

If the Ukraine is SO sovereign how is it I did not see any outrage in your diatribe against 'Toria, Pyatt and the rest orchestrating the Maidan putsch or the $5Billion US spent on softening up the ukraine for the regime change ?

I believe in numbers, as in the number of military bases any given country has surrounding the ones it wants to subvert, in the amount of money allocated to vilify and eventually bring down the "unwanted" regimes and the quantity and 'quality' of sanctions imposed against those regimes; and the sum of all of the above perpetrated against humanity in the past 75 or so years.

Your vapid drivel, Mr Haley, evaporates almost without a trace once seen with those parameters in mind.

Numbers don't lie.

Michael Batinski says: September 30, 2020 at 5:48 pm

Let me add from the perspective of an American historian who taught for forty years in a midwestern university. From the start I depended on William Appleman Williams to keep perspective and to counter prevailing interpretive trends.

Always I was skeptical of prevailing scholarly interpretive trends on the Soviet experience that were echoed by colleagues claiming expertise on the subject. Cohen provided the foundation for my skepticism and invigorated my lectures on American foreign policy.

I will always be thankful.

Michael Batinski

Tim Ashby says: September 30, 2020 at 2:37 pm

The smothering agitprop in America trumps even Goebbels and co. with its beautifully dressed overton window and first-amendment-free-press bullshit.

Once Cohen plied his knowledge against the hysterical narrative that culminated in 4 years of frothing neo-McCarthyism (by the freakin' "left," no less), we were no longer gonna see him on the PBS newshour any more likely than we would and will see chris hedges, chomsky, or margaret kimberly.

Let's face it, we were lucky to win the editorial fight to even give him space in the Nation.

His book War With Russia? was an oasis of counter-narrative when I picked it up. Losing voices like his is immeasurable as we hurtle toward total war with Russia and/or China, both of whom are finally, naturally, and perfectly predictably beginning to draw a line in the sand.

[Oct 01, 2020] Getting Rid of the Myth of 'Isolationism' -

Notable quotes:

"... The Tragedy of American Diplomacy ..."

Oct 01, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

Getting Rid Of The Myth Of 'Isolationism'

'Isolationism' is not real, and never has been. It is an insult thrown at realists by the architects of senseless wars. (By Mike Focus/Shutterstock)

SEPTEMBER 30, 2020

|

12:01 AM

DANIEL LARISON

No one claims to be an isolationist, but foreign policy analysts keep imagining and fearing a "resurgence" of isolationism around every corner. This fear was on display in a recent Atlantic article by Charles Kupchan, who tries to rehabilitate the label in order to oppose the substance of a policy of nonintervention and non-entanglement. Kupchan allows that a policy of avoiding entangling alliances and staying out of European wars was important for the growth and prosperity of the United States, but then rehearses the same old and misleading story about the terrible "isolationist" interwar years that we have heard countless times before. This misrepresents the history of that period and compromises our ability to rethink our foreign policy today.

Kupchan's article is not just an exercise in beating a dead horse, since he fears that the same thing that happened between the world wars is happening again: "If the 19th century was isolationism's finest hour, the interwar era was surely its darkest and most deluded. The conditions that led to this misguided run for cover are making a comeback." Kupchan wants to borrow a little from the people he calls "isolationists" so that the U.S. will remain thoroughly ensnared in most of its global commitments.

https://lockerdome.com/lad/13045197114175078?pubid=ld-dfp-ad-13045197114175078-0&pubo=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theamericanconservative.com&rid=www.theamericanconservative.com&width=838

At the same time that he warns that "U.S. statecraft has become divorced from popular will," he seems to want to keep it this way by rejecting what he calls the "isolationist temptation." If "a majority of the country favors either America First or global disengagement," as he says, the goal seems to be to ignore what the majority wants in favor of making a few tweaks to the same old strategy of U.S. primacy. Those tweaks aren't going to lessen popular support for a reduced U.S. role in the world, and they will likely make the public even more disillusioned with the remaining costs and demands of U.S. "leadership."

The key thing to remember in all this is that the U.S. has never been isolationist in its foreign relations. The thing that Kupchan calls America's "default setting" is not real. Isolationism is the pejorative term that expansionists and interventionists have used over the last century to ridicule and dismiss opposition to unnecessary wars. Isolationism as U.S. policy in the 1920s and 1930s is a myth , and the myth is deployed whenever there has been a serious challenge to the status quo in post-1945 U.S. foreign policy. Bear Braumoeller summed it up very well in his article , "The Myth of American Isolationism," this way: "the characterization of America as isolationist in the interwar period is simply wrong." We can't learn from the past if we insist on distorting it. As William Appleman Williams put it in The Tragedy of American Diplomacy , "It not only deforms the history of the decade from 1919 to 1930, but it also twists the story of American entry into World War II and warps the record of the cold war." Williams also remarked in a note that the use of the term isolationist "has thus crippled American thought about foreign policy for 50 years." Today we can say that it has done so for a century.

Our government eschewed permanent alliances for most of its history, and it refrained from taking sides in the European Great Power conflicts of the nineteenth century, but it never sought to cut itself from the world and could not have done that even if it had wished to do so. The U.S. was a commercial republic from the start, and it cultivated economic and diplomatic ties with as many states as possible. You can call the steady expansion of the U.S. across North America and into the Pacific and Caribbean "isolationism," but that just shows how misleading and inaccurate the label has always been.

Post-WWI America was a rising power and increasingly involved in the affairs of the world. Its economic and diplomatic engagement with the world increased during these years. If it wasn't involved in the way that later internationalists would have liked, that didn't make the U.S. isolationist. Braumoeller makes this point explicitly: "America was not isolationist in affairs relating to international security in Europe for the bulk of the period: in fact, it was perhaps more internationalist than it had ever been." The U.S. was behaving as a great power, but one that strove to maintain its neutrality. That was neither deluded nor disastrous, and we need to stop pretending that it was if we are ever going to be able to make the needed changes to our foreign policy today.

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Kupchan acknowledges that there has to be an "adjustment" after the last several decades of overreach, but he casts this as a way of preventing more significant retrenchment: "The paramount question is whether that adjustment takes the form of a judicious pullback or a more dangerous retreat." No one objects to the desire for a responsible reduction in U.S. commitments, but one person's "judicious pullback" will often be denounced as a "dangerous retreat" by others. Just consider how many times we have been warned about a U.S. "retreat" from the Middle East over the last 11 years. Even now, the U.S. is still taking part in multiple wars across the region, and the "retreat" we have been told has happened several times never seems to take place. Warning about the perils of an "isolationist comeback" hardly makes it more likely that these withdrawals will ever happen.

He recommends that "judicious retrenchment should entail shedding U.S. entanglements in the periphery, not in the strategic heartlands of Europe and Asia." Certainly, any reduction in unnecessary U.S. commitments is welcome, but a thorough rethinking of U.S. foreign policy has to include every region. Kupchan is right to criticize slapdash, incompetent withdrawals, but one gets the impression that he thinks there shouldn't be any withdrawals except from the Middle East. He cites "Russian and Chinese threats" as the main reasons not to pull back at all in Europe or Asia, but this seems like an uncritical endorsement of the status quo.

It is in East Asia where the U.S. might be fighting a war against a major, nuclear-armed power in the future, and it is also there where the U.S. has some of the wealthiest and most capable allies. If the U.S. can't reduce its exposure to the risk of a major war where that risk is the greatest and its allies are strongest, when will it ever be able to do that? Reducing the U.S. military presence in East Asia will make it easier to manage U.S.-Chinese tensions, and it will give allies an additional incentive to assume more responsibility for their own security.

The U.S. has far more security commitments than it can afford and far more than can possibly be justified by our own security interests. That includes, but is not limited to, our overcommitment to the Middle East. Our foreign entanglements have been allowed to grow and spread to such an extent over the last seventy-five years that modest pruning won't be good enough to put U.S. foreign policy on a sound footing that will have reliable public support. There needs to be a much more comprehensive review of all U.S. commitments to determine which ones are truly necessary for our security and which ones are not. Ruling out the bulk of those commitments as untouchable in advance is a mistake.

There is broad public support for constructive international engagement, but there is remarkably little backing for preserving U.S. hegemony in its current form. In order to have a more sustainable foreign policy, the U.S. needs to scale back its ambitions in most parts of the world, and it needs to shift more of the security burdens for different regions to the countries that have the most at stake. That should be done deliberately and carefully, but it does need to happen if we are to realign our foreign policy with protecting the vital interests of the United States. ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Daniel Larison is a senior editor at TAC , where he also keeps a solo blog . He has been published in the New York Times Book Review , Dallas Morning News , World Politics Review , Politico Magazine , Orthodox Life , Front Porch Republic, The American Scene, and Culture11, and was a columnist for The Week . He holds a PhD in history from the University of Chicago, and resides in Lancaster, PA. Follow him on Twitter .

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Gaius Gracchus • 19 hours ago

Richard Hofsteder is largely responsible for this falsehood, like he is for making "populist" a by-word, as Thomas Frank points out in his new book.

I prefer the term "non-interventionist" or Washingtonian, myself. I continue to be stuck by the amazing wisdom of Washington's Farewell Address (largely written by Hamilton). It really should be our guide to this day.

Room_237 • 13 hours ago

The US had an active and fairly successful foreign policy in the 1920s. What hurt our foreign policy activities was the Great Depression.

bournite Room_237 • 11 hours ago

Try a seance and tell this Augusto Cesar Sandino. Two American brothers who owned a gold mine in his country had another brother at the State Department. That's how FP was "successful." https://en.wikipedia.org/wi...

Disqus10021 bournite • 9 hours ago

Europe would have been better off if the US had stayed out of WWI and let major belligerents fight it out until they reached a cease fire on their own. The US entry into the war, tipped the scales in favor of Britain and France and resulted in a very harsh peace treaty being imposed on Germany in 1919. Four years later, Germany's currency collapsed, wiping out the savings of millions of average Germans. The Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1930 made economic conditions for people in central Europe very bad and conrtibuted to the rising popularity of the Nazi party in Germany.

RAF • 12 hours ago • edited

The world is so much smaller today than it was when this country was formed and organized by the Founding Fathers. (Mothers were not allowed)

The idea of international associations and cooperation is required with today's world. When some country like China sneezes, the whole world needs a face mask!

The Age of Daniel Boone is dead. America must be fully engaged in world matters. That does not mean going into every country with our military. America needs to continue to give some leadership in world affairs. It would be suicidal to close the windows to the rest of the world.

rayray RAF • 4 hours ago

I agree. The world is interconnected, engagement is a necessity. The problem with the US FP at this point is to see every issue as an opportunity to throw around our military weight and call it "engagement". Being fully engaged in the world is a state department issue - smart and educated diplomats working the lines of communication and cooperation with every nation to build a reputation for US leadership, to foment peace, and to build prosperity. Obviously, under Trump and Pompeo this is a waste of breath.

Worth noting, a friend of mine, ex-CIA, has made an absolute fortune off of our military preoccupations. And even he said (perhaps exaggerating) that you could get rid of 90% of the traditional military with little or no loss in actual national security. Most of it is, as he said, corporate welfare and window dressing.

(Of course he then said you should spend what you've saved entirely on cyber-security)

bournite • 12 hours ago

Using the 'I' Word for War and Profit
Column by Tim Hartnett, posted on April 03, 2013
in War and Peace
Column by Tim Hartnett.

Exclusive to STR

For about a century now, Humpty-Dumpty has been the go-to man for fans of elaborate American foreign adventures. Unwelcome inquiries are put down with a one word incantation that blesses and immunizes government-funded schemes that are always cash cows for somebody. "Isolationist" means exactly what its users mean it to mean--no more and no less. Every entry on the first page of my online search for the word "isolationism" provided the same definition: "The national policy of abstaining from political or economic relations with other countries." Nobody on the furthest fringes of the political spectrum who gets ink or air time comes close calling for a plan fitting that description.

The word remains in healthy circulation despite the total absence of public figures advocating anything of the kind. Its real linguistic purpose is to obstruct examination of extra-territorial programs that don't work and often do considerable harm.

Most of us first learned of the dreaded I-beast in grade school study of WWI. Back in that good old day, the authorities had sense enough to put these naysayers in prisons after allowing hostile crowds to have at 'em for an hour or so. If the folks at The Weekly Standard, the Heritage Foundation, AEI, Fox News et al get their way, hoosegow entrepreneurs will be back in that market before too long. How could anyone oppose US entry into The Great War, anyway? It's what catapulted us to the top of the economic heap. We are probably only one good war away from reclaiming that title.

The first people to stoke lynch mobs with the "I" word claimed we were fighting a war "to make the world safe for democracy." The Irish, Indians, Algerians, Pacific Islanders, Russian peasants, Filipinos, the Congolese and millions of other Africans were not educated well enough to accept this as readily as freedom-loving Americans did. Without guys like J.P. Morgan, J.D. Rockefeller, Charles Schwab and others who hired PR men to keep the country thinking right thoughts, foreigners are often easily misled. Isolationists are as rare on Wall Street as atheists are in foxholes.

To understand the perfidious way that isolationism works, try and visualize a typical slice of American policy from say 1968. Some experts and officers in a room at the Pentagon decide a spot on the map could use a good bombing, and the order is relayed via satellite to South Vietnam. At five they leave work to fight rush hour traffic and get home in time for a smoke with Walter Cronkite. Some Navy fliers get dispatched, and once the napalm is fixed to the jets, they're airborne. Thirty-five minutes later, the right patch below them, it's bombs away and a U-turn. An undernourished five year old girl foolishly lives nearby and an eight ounce blob of gel burning at 1,800 degrees lands on her back. She is immediately screaming and burns for six minutes until an adult manages to put the incinerating child out.

Meanwhile, the flyboys are on terra firma again with beers, joints, Steppenwolf on the turntable and much lamenting of St. Louis' undeserved defeat at the hands of Detroit. The little girl's screaming still pierces the tropical air. The engineers and the chemists who designed the people-melting device are on the other side of the world asleep in their suburban beds. And the tiny thing can't stop screaming. The next day at Harvard, William Kristol is expounding on communism, the domino theory, social responsibility, moral courage and careful reading. And the 32 lb. waif is still going through an endless agony that no man of oxen strength should ever have to endure in a lifetime. Isolating on these kinds of details misses the "big picture," I've been told. Only communists, terrorists and other abominable -ists focus on this kind of inhumane minutiae.

Forty years later, John McCain was wittily singing the lyrics "bomb Iran" while doubtless a child was on fire somewhere that US ordnance had exploded. The one certain outcome of such events is a profit for weapons manufacturers. Isolationists are oddly skeptical of the many benefits anti-isolationists find in all-purpose bombing campaigns. What's always clear is that people who speak publicly about their love for humanitarian bombing expect to be paid for it.

There are a lot of things that "isolationists" just don't know, and it must be for this ignorance they are so despised by both mainstream media and Wall Street's favorite politicians. They don't know why we have 50,000 soldiers in Germany or another 30,000 in Japan. Why we paid to keep an incorrigible thug like Mubarak in business for 30 years. Why we need missiles in Eastern Europe. Why we helped every bloodthirsty, misanthropic power monger in Central America. Why we needed to help Turkey get Ocalan. Why South Ossetia's nationalistic prerogatives are our business. Why foreign governments should be pressured by our diplomats on Wall Street's behalf. Why our government takes some kind of stand in every foreign war, election, national event or internal matter of almost any kind. How we can indict one country for human rights violations while buddying up to worse offenders like Saudi Arabia regularly. Why our foreign initiatives proceed based on fantastic ideologies in contempt of facts. These are just a few of the quandaries that afflict the minds of people who aren't buying the divine right of American altruist aristocracy to fine tune the rest of the world. They aren't exactly keen on the hyper-interventionist tendencies that keep so many beltway bandits in the chips, either.

What they also don't know is why the elite media, the experts and elected officials, if they truly understand these things, can't be called upon to explain any of them to the rest of us satisfactorily. On March 20, Dana Milbank called Rand Paul an "isolationist" in his column without any explanation. In the future, he might want to right click on Microsoft Word and choose the Look up option before deploying the term.

After American involvement in Vietnam ended, many proponents of the action claimed the death toll there would have been even worse without our presence. Others go so far as to maintain that fighting in such conflicts protects US citizens' privileges, like freedom of speech, here at home. They expect us all to believe that "Isolationists," by any definition, wouldn't get away with spouting their un-American propaganda in public places, or on television if any were allowed there, but for a policy that napalms little girls.

While people smeared with the I-word persistently point out that they are merely against policies that are misguided, immoral and often murderous, their detractors insist that what they really oppose is America. In the "big picture" mindset of the interventionist, you can't have one without the other.

kouroi • 9 hours ago

Beat them over the head with a stick, that might do it.

As for the entanglements in east Asia, none of the countries under direct US vassalage have major disputes with China and do not need US protection. And it is likely that without the US Korea would be on a path to reunification. The US is trying to beat everyone in line to show who's the boss... So it seems, this K guy, like all his ilk are presenting things in a very Manichean way: either primacy or "isolationism". There is so much in between these two...

[Sep 29, 2020] Some excellently timed next level trolling of the USA from Putin.

Sep 29, 2020 | thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com

ET AL September 27, 2020 at 9:17 am

Neuters via Antiwar.com : Putin Calls For Mutual Ban on Election Meddling With US
https://news.antiwar.com/2020/09/25/putin-calls-for-mutual-ban-on-election-meddling-with-us/

US intel agencies claim Russia, China, and Iran are meddling in 2020 election

On Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said the US and Russia should sign an agreement promising not to meddle in each other's elections. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-usa-putin/putin-says-russia-and-u-s-should-agree-not-to-meddle-in-each-others-elections-idUSKCN26G1LJ

Putin proposed, "exchanging guarantees of non-interference in each other's internal affairs, including electoral processes, including using information and communication technologies and high-tech methods."..

####

That is some excellently timed next level trolling from Pootie-McPoot-Face.

MARK CHAPMAN September 27, 2020 at 12:19 pm

Of course the USA will never agree to such a proposal, because (a) it does not regard its meddling as 'interference' but as the bringing of the gift of freedom, (b) it stands on its absolute right of judgment as to what is a situation that requires more democracy and what is not, and (c) it probably knows at some level that Russia did not meddle in the US elections, and that it would therefore in that case be constraining its own behavior in exchange for nothing.

But then, when refused – I imagine the US will try to extract something from the offer, such as "A-HA!! So you ADMIT to meddling in our elections!! – Russia can obviously claim, "Well, we tried."

[Sep 28, 2020] I wonder if anybody here have considered a possibility that the neoliberal cabal now in power in the US wants to destroy the standard of living of common people and eliminate all social protections of the New Deal, living in place for the police state and oversized the military

Recruiting for military is much easier if there is no jobs.

Notable quotes:

"... They want to eliminate the EPA, vacate the State Dept and many other Depts, except for a few high-placed cronies, wipe all financial, labour, consumer and environmental regulations off the books; eliminate or reduce to a bare minimum federal health insurance, medicaid, medicare and Social Security, crush public education, privatize everything they can sell, and so on. They are not in power to "govern" but to destroy government. This is all being done with a fairly unified agenda: to free "the market" from any restrictions whatsoever, so that they -- global elites -- can make as much money as possible. It's a cabal of global corporations, militarists, Christian sovereign white supremacists, fossil fuel giants and bankers ..."

Sep 28, 2020 | peterturchin.com

Shaun Bartone February 27, 2017 at 3:47 pm

I wonder if any of the commentators here have considered that the [neoliberal] cabal now in power in the US (not elsewhere) are not in power to "take power" except for a temporary period. They don't want to run the federal government, they want to destroy it, except for the police state and the military.

They want to eliminate the EPA, vacate the State Dept and many other Depts, except for a few high-placed cronies, wipe all financial, labour, consumer and environmental regulations off the books; eliminate or reduce to a bare minimum federal health insurance, medicaid, medicare and Social Security, crush public education, privatize everything they can sell, and so on. They are not in power to "govern" but to destroy government. This is all being done with a fairly unified agenda: to free "the market" from any restrictions whatsoever, so that they -- global elites -- can make as much money as possible. It's a cabal of global corporations, militarists, Christian sovereign white supremacists, fossil fuel giants and bankers , and I think there's a high degree of cooperation for the agenda. The revolution is the cabal run by Trump/Bannon who are more extreme and ideological than any previous faction, who have no tolerance for compromise. They have an apocalyptic vision of grinding it all down to a bare minimum police state.

[Sep 28, 2020] From Conflict to Crisis- The Danger of U.S. Actions by Jeanne M. Haskin

Sep 28, 2020 | www.amazon.com

In the United States, a great deal of study and energy goes into promoting respect for democracy, not just to keep it alive here but also to spread it around the world. It embraces the will of the majority, whether or not its main beneficiaries have more resources than other citizens do, as shown by the election of President Obama, who promised hope and change for the suffering majority, but did not sit long in office before being subjected to an economic vote of no-confidence.

Those who claim we run a plutocracy (government for the rich by the rich) -- or that we're victims of a conspiracy contrived by a shadow government -- are right while being wrong.

Our government is beyond the reach of ordinary American citizens in terms of economic power. However, the creation of a system to keep the majority of the populace at the losing end of a structure which neither promised nor delivered a state of financial equality was a predictable extension of the economic system the U.S. government was formed to protect.

... .... ...

Forty years of Cold War and the ultimate realization that abuse of the communist system and a hierarchy of privilege proved that system to be vulnerable to selfishness -- in common with the triumphant capitalist countries.

Because any desired outcome can be written into an equation to exclude unwanted facts or inputs by holding some things constant while applying chosen variables that may not hold true under every historical circumstance, it's considered "falsifiable" and therefore "scientific." But only if it appeals to the right people and justifies a given political need will it become sacrosanct (until the next round of "progress").

.... .... ...

Abusive Self- Interest

In 1764, twenty- five years before the embrace of Madame Guillotine (when heads rolled literally to put the fear of the mob into politics), contempt for the filth and poverty in which the French commoners lived while the nobility gorged on luxury goods showed how arrogant they were, not just in confidence that their offices of entitlement were beyond reproach and unassailable, but that mockery and insult in the face of deliberate deprivation would be borne with obedience and humility.

It certainly affected Smith's outlook, since he wrote The Wealth of Nations with a focus on self- interest rather than moral sentiments. And while this may be purely pragmatic, based on what

he witnessed, he also wrote about the potential for self- interest to become abusive, both in collusion with individuals and when combined with the power of government. Business interests could form cabals (groups of conspirators, plotting public harm) or monopolies (organizations with exclusive market control) to fix prices at their highest levels. A true laissez- faire economy would provide every incentive to conspire against consumers and attempt to influence budgets and legislation.

Smith's assertion that self- interest leads producers to favor domestic industry must also be understood in the context of the period. While it's true that the Enlightenment was a movement of rational philosophy radically opposed to secrecy, it's important to understand that this had to be done respectfully , insofar as all arguments were intended to impress the monarchy under circumstances where the king believed himself God- appointed and infallible, no matter his past or present policies, and matters were handled with delicacy. Yet, Smith's arguments are clear enough (and certainly courageous enough) to be understood in laymen's terms.

In an era when the very industry he's observing has been fostered by tariffs, monopolies, labor controls, and materials extracted from colonies, he did his best to balance observation with what he thought was best for society. It's not his fault we pick and choose our recipes for what we do and don't believe or where we think Smith might have gone had he been alive today.

The New Double Standard

The only practical way to resolve the contradiction between the existing beneficiaries of state favoritism in this period and Smith's aversion to it is to observe that the means to prevent competition and interference with the transition from one mode of commerce to another that enhances the strength of the favored or provides a new means to grow their wealth is to close the door of government intervention behind them and burn any bridges to it.

In psychological terms, the practice of "negative attribution" is to assume that identical behavior is justifiable for oneself but not another. It may not be inconsistent with a system of economics founded on self- interest, but it naturally begs a justification as to why it rules out everyone else's self- interest. The beauty of this system is that it will always have the same answer.

You may have guessed it.

Progress.

Reallocation of Assets

It was always understood that capitalism produces winners and losers. The art of economizing is to gain maximum benefit for minimum expenditure, which generally translates to asset consolidation and does not necessarily mean there is minimum sacrifice. There's an opportunity cost for everything, whether it's human, financial, environmental, or material. But the most important tenet of free market capitalism is that asset redistribution requires the U. S. government to go to DEFCON 1, unless assets are being reallocated for "higher productivity," in which case the entire universe is saved from the indefensible sin of lost opportunity.

Private property is sacred -- up until an individual decides he can make more productive use of it and appeals to the courts for seizure under eminent domain or until the government decides it will increase national growth if owned by some other person or entity. In like manner, corporations can suffer hostile takeovers, just as deregulation facilitates predatory market behavior and cutthroat competition promotes an efficiency orientation that means fewer jobs and lower incomes, which result in private losses.

In the varying range of causes underlying the loss of assets, the common threat is progress -- the "civilized" justification for depriving some other person or entity of their right to own property, presumably earned by the sweat of their brow, except their sweat doesn't have the same champion as someone who can wring more profit from it. The official explanation is that the government manages the "scarcity" of resources to benefit the world. This is also how we justify war, aggression, and genocide, though we don't always admit to that unless we mean to avoid it.

Perfectly Rational Genocide

History cooperates with the definition of Enlightenment if we imagine that thoughtfulness has something to do with genocide. In the context of American heritage, it has meant that when someone stands in the way of progress, his or her resources are "reallocated" to serve the pursuit of maximum profit, with or without consent. The war against Native Americans was one in which Americans either sought and participated in annihilation efforts or believed this end was inevitable. In the age of rational thought, meditation on the issue could lead from gratitude for the help early settlers received from Native Americans to the observation they didn't enclose their land and had no concept of private property,

to the conviction they were unmotivated by profit and therefore irreconcilable savages. But it takes more than rational thought to mobilize one society to exterminate another.

The belief in manifest destiny -- that God put the settlers in America for preordained and glorious purposes which gave them a right to everything -- turned out to be just the ticket for a free people opposed to persecution and the tyranny of church and state.

Lest the irony elude you, economic freedom requires divorcing the state from religion, but God can be used to whip up the masses, distribute "It's Them or Us" cards, and send people out to die on behalf of intellectuals and investors who've rationalized their chosenness.

CHAPTER TWO: INSTILLING THE ILLUSION OF CHOICE

Selfishness may be exalted as the root and branch of capitalism, but it doesn't make you look good to the party on the receiving end or those whose sympathy he earns. For that, you need a government prepared to do four things, which each have separate dictums based on study, theorization, and experience.

Coercion:	Force is illegitimate only if you can't sell it.
Persuasion:	How do I market thee? Let me count the ways.
Bargaining:	If you won't scratch my back, then how about a piece of the pie?
Indoctrination:	Because I said so. (And paid for the semantics.)

Predatory capitalism is the control and expropriation of land, labor, and natural resources by a foreign government via coercion, persuasion, bargaining, and indoctrination.

At the coercive stage, we can expect military and/ or police intervention to repress the subject populace. The persuasive stage will be marked by clientelism, in which a small percentage of the populace will be rewarded for loyalty, often serving as the capitalists' administrators, tax collectors, and enforcers. At the bargaining stage, efforts will be made to include the populace, or a certain percentage of it, in the country's ruling system, and this is usually marked by steps toward democratic (or, more often, autocratic) governance.

At the fourth stage, the populace is educated by capitalists, such that they continue to maintain a relationship of dependency.

The Predatory Debt Link

In many cases, post- colonial states were forced to assume the debts of their colonizers. And where they did not, they were encouraged to become in debt to the West via loans that were issued through international institutions to ensure they did not fall prey to communism or pursue other economic policies that were inimical to the West. Debt is the tie that binds nation states to the geostrategic and economic interests of the West.

As such, the Cold War era was a time of easy credit, luring postcolonial states to undertake the construction of useless monoliths and monuments, and to even expropriate such loans through corruption and despotism, thereby making these independent rulers as predatory as colonizers. While some countries were wiser than others and did use the funds for infrastructural improvements, these were also things that benefited the West and particularly Western contractors. In his controversial work Confessions of an Economic Hit Man , John Perkins reveals that he was a consultant for an American firm (MAIN), whose job was to ensure that states became indebted beyond their means so they would remain loyal to their creditors, buying them votes within United Nations organizations, among other things.

Predatory capitalists demand export- orientations as the means to generate foreign currency with which to pay back debt. In the process, the state must privatize and drastically slash or eliminate any domestic subsidies which are aimed at helping native industry compete in the marketplace. Domestic consumption and imports must be radically contained, as shown by the exchange rate policies recommended by the IMF. The costs of obtaining domestic capital will be pushed beyond the reach of most native producers, while wages must be depressed to an absolute bare minimum. In short, the country's land, labor, and natural resources must be sold at bargain basement prices in order to make these goods competitive, in what one author has called "a spiraling race to the bottom," as countries producing predominantly the same goods engage in cutthroat competition whose benefactor is the West.

Under these circumstances, foreign investment is encouraged, but this, too, represents a loaded situation for countries that open their markets to financial liberalization. Since, in most cases, the

IMF does not allow restrictions on the conditions of capital inflows, it means that financial investors can literally dictate their terms. And since no country is invulnerable to attacks on its currency, which governments must try to keep at a favorable exchange rate, it means financial marauders can force any country to try to prop up its currency using vital reserves of foreign exchange which might have been used to pay their debt.

When such is the case, the IMF comes to the rescue with a socalled "bailout fund," that allows foreign investors to withdraw their funds intact, while the government reels from the effects of an IMF- imposed austerity plan, often resulting in severe recession the offshoot of which is bankruptcies by the thousands and plummeting employment.

In countries that experienced IMF bailouts due to attacks on their currencies, the effect was to reset the market so the only economic survivors were those who remained export- oriented and were strong enough to withstand the upheaval. This means they remained internationally competitive, which translates to low earnings of foreign exchange. At the same time that the country is being bled from the bottom up through mass unemployment, extremely low wages, and the "spiraling race to the bottom," it is in an even more unfavorable position concerning the payment of debt. The position is that debt slavery ensues, as much an engine of extraction as any colonial regime ever managed.

The Role of Indoctrination

The fact that it is sovereign governments overseeing the work of debt repression has much to do with education, which is the final phase of predatory capitalism, concluding in indoctrination. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the lesson to the world was that socialism can't work, nor were there any remaining options for countries that pursued "the third way" other than capitalism. This produced a virulent strain of neoliberalism in which most people were, and are, being educated. The most high- ranking of civil servants have either been educated in the West or directly influenced by its thinking. And this status of acceptance and adherence finally constitutes indoctrination. The system is now self- sustaining, upheld by domestic agents.

While predatory capitalism can proceed along a smooth continuum from coercion to persuasion to bargaining to formal indoctrination, the West can regress to any of these steps at any point in

time, given the perceived need to interfere with varying degrees of force in order to protect its interests.

Trojan Politics

Democracy is about having the power and flexibility to graft our system of government and predatory capitalism onto any target country, regardless of relative strength or conflicting ideologies. An entire productive industry has grown up using the tools of coercion, persuasion, bargaining, and formal indoctrination to maximize their impact in the arena of U. S. politics. Its actors know how to jerk the right strings, push the right buttons, and veer from a soft sell to a hard sell when resistance dictates war, whether it's with planes overhead and tanks on the ground or with massive capital flight that panics the whole world.

When the U. S. political economy goes into warp overdrive, its job proves far more valuable than anything ever made in the strict material sense because there's never been more at stake in terms of what it's trying to gain. It's the American idea machine made up of corporations, lobbyists, think tanks, foundations, universities, and consultants in every known discipline devoted to mass consumerism, and what they sell is illusory opportunity dressed in American principles. They embrace political candidates who'll play by elitist rules to preserve the fiction of choice, and, in this way, they maintain legitimacy, no matter what kind of "reallocation" is on the economic agenda.

The issue is not whether we'll question it, but who we'll applaud for administering it.

In the Information Age, perception management is king.

[Sep 22, 2020] The hypocrisy of Western democracy promotion

Sep 22, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Jackrabbit , Sep 20 2020 16:45 utc | 8

How the west lost

What I liked most about this article was the highlighting of impossible-to-counter narratives, the hypocrisy of Western democracy promotion (even as Western governments fellate domestic and foreign economic elites), and the denigration of nationalism from 1990-2016.

Sadly, the author does a disservice in suggesting that such manipulations are past. Instead, the Western power-elite has done what it does best: co-opt a 'winning' narrative (nationalism) and double-down.

Other deficiencies:

1. Ignores the fact that the US Deep State, caretakers of the Empire, hasn't accepted defeat. Since 2014 they have been actively trying to reverse what they see as a major set-back (not defeat).

   Via economic sanctions, trade wars, propaganda, and military tensions the Empire is waging a hybrid war against what it calls the "revisionist" efforts of Russia and China.

2. Plays into the propaganda narrative of Trump as populist.
3. Fails to see the 1990's 'economic shock therapy' as a deliberate attempt to push Russia into total capitulation. This, darker view, was confirmed obliquely by Kissinger in his interview with ft in which he stated that no one could foresee the ability of Russia to absorb pain.

!!

[Sep 21, 2020] Stephen Cohen Has Died. Remember His Urgent Warnings Against The New Cold War by Caitlin Johnstone

Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God

"... In a world that is increasingly confusing and awash with propaganda, Cohen's death is a blow to humanity's desperate quest for clarity and understanding. ..."

Sep 19, 2020 | www.strategic-culture.org

Stephen F Cohen, the renowned American scholar on Russia and leading authority on US-Russian relations, has died of lung cancer at the age of 81.

As one of the precious few western voices of sanity on the subject of Russia while everyone else has been frantically flushing their brains down the toilet, this is a real loss. I myself have cited Cohen's expert analysis many times in my own work, and his perspective has played a formative role in my understanding of what's really going on with the monolithic cross-partisan manufacturing of consent for increased western aggressions against Moscow.

In a world that is increasingly confusing and awash with propaganda, Cohen's death is a blow to humanity's desperate quest for clarity and understanding.

I don't know how long Cohen had cancer. I don't know how long he was aware that he might not have much time left on this earth. What I do know is he spent much of his energy in his final years urgently trying to warn the world about the rapidly escalating danger of nuclear war, which in our strange new reality he saw as in many ways completely unprecedented.

The last of the many books Cohen authored was 2019's War with Russia? , detailing his ideas on how the complex multi-front nature of the post-2016 cold war escalations against Moscow combines with Russiagate and other factors to make it in some ways more dangerous even than the most dangerous point of the previous cold war.

"You know it's easy to joke about this, except that we're at maybe the most dangerous moment in US-Russian relations in my lifetime, and maybe ever," Cohen told The Young Turks in 2017. "And the reason is that we're in a new cold war, by whatever name. We have three cold war fronts that are fraught with the possibility of hot war, in the Baltic region where NATO is carrying out an unprecedented military buildup on Russia's border, in Ukraine where there is a civil and proxy war between Russia and the west, and of course in Syria, where Russian aircraft and American warplanes are flying in the same territory. Anything could happen."

Cohen repeatedly points to the most likely cause of a future nuclear war: not one that is planned but one which erupts in tense, complex situations where "anything could happen" in the chaos and confusion as a result of misfire, miscommunication or technical malfunction, as nearly happened many times during the last cold war.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/kqQbK_6meM8?feature=oembed

"I think this is the most dangerous moment in American-Russian relations, at least since the Cuban missile crisis," Cohen told Democracy Now in 2017. "And arguably, it's more dangerous, because it's more complex. Therefore, we -- and then, meanwhile, we have in Washington these -- and, in my judgment, factless accusations that Trump has somehow been compromised by the Kremlin. So, at this worst moment in American-Russian relations, we have an American president who's being politically crippled by the worst imaginable -- it's unprecedented. Let's stop and think. No American president has ever been accused, essentially, of treason. This is what we're talking about here, or that his associates have committed treason."

"Imagine, for example, John Kennedy during the Cuban missile crisis," Cohen added. "Imagine if Kennedy had been accused of being a secret Soviet Kremlin agent. He would have been crippled. And the only way he could have proved he wasn't was to have launched a war against the Soviet Union. And at that time, the option was nuclear war."

"A recurring theme of my recently published book War with Russia? is that the new Cold War is more dangerous, more fraught with hot war, than the one we survived," Cohen wrote last year . "Histories of the 40-year US-Soviet Cold War tell us that both sides came to understand their mutual responsibility for the conflict, a recognition that created political space for the constant peace-keeping negotiations, including nuclear arms control agreements, often known as détente. But as I also chronicle in the book, today's American Cold Warriors blame only Russia, specifically 'Putin's Russia,' leaving no room or incentive for rethinking any US policy toward post-Soviet Russia since 1991."

"Finally, there continues to be no effective, organized American opposition to the new Cold War," Cohen added. "This too is a major theme of my book and another reason why this Cold War is more dangerous than was its predecessor. In the 1970s and 1980s, advocates of détente were well-organized, well-funded, and well-represented, from grassroots politics and universities to think tanks, mainstream media, Congress, the State Department, and even the White House. Today there is no such opposition anywhere."

"A major factor is, of course, 'Russiagate'," Cohen continued. "As evidenced in the sources I cite above, much of the extreme American Cold War advocacy we witness today is a mindless response to President Trump's pledge to find ways to 'cooperate with Russia' and to the still-unproven allegations generated by it. Certainly, the Democratic Party is not an opposition party in regard to the new Cold War."

"Détente with Russia has always been a fiercely opposed, crisis-ridden policy pursuit, but one manifestly in the interests of the United States and the world," Cohen wrote in another essay last year. "No American president can achieve it without substantial bipartisan support at home, which Trump manifestly lacks. What kind of catastrophe will it take -- in Ukraine, the Baltic region, Syria, or somewhere on Russia's electric grid -- to shock US Democrats and others out of what has been called, not unreasonably, their Trump Derangement Syndrome, particularly in the realm of American national security? Meanwhile, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has recently reset its Doomsday Clock to two minutes before midnight."

https://www.youtube.com/embed/owbMRxC382A?feature=oembed

And now Stephen Cohen is dead, and that clock is inching ever closer to midnight. The Russiagate psyop that he predicted would pressure Trump to advance dangerous cold war escalations with no opposition from the supposed opposition party has indeed done exactly that with nary a peep of criticism from either partisan faction of the political/media class. Cohen has for years been correctly predicting this chilling scenario which now threatens the life of every organism on earth, even while his own life was nearing its end.

And now the complex cold war escalations he kept urgently warning us about have become even more complex with the addition of nuclear-armed China to the multiple fronts the US-centralized empire has been plate-spinning its brinkmanship upon, and it is clear from the ramping up of anti-China propaganda since last year that we are being prepped for those aggressions to continue to increase.

We should heed the dire warnings that Cohen spent his last breaths issuing. We should demand a walk-back of these insane imperialist aggressions which benefit nobody and call for détente with Russia and China. We should begin creating an opposition to this world-threatening flirtation with armageddon before it is too late. Every life on this planet may well depend on our doing so.

Stephen Cohen is dead, and we are marching toward the death of everything. God help us all.

medium.com

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novictim , 55 minutes ago

People are just now starting to realize that possible alternate path. But the Demoncrats in the USA must first be put down, politically euthanized, along with their neocon never-Trump Republican partners. And that cleaning up is on the way. Trump's second term will be the advancement of the USA-Russia initiative that is so long overdue.

PerilouseTimes , 48 minutes ago

Putin won't let western billionaires rape Russia's enormous natural resources and on top of that Putin is against child molesters, that is what this Russia bashing is all about.

awesomepic4u , 1 hour ago

Sad to hear this.

What a good man. It is a real shame that we dont have others to stand up to this crazy pr that is going on right now. Making peace with the world at this point is important. We dont need or want another war and i am sure that both Europe and Russia dont want it on their turf but it seems we keep sticking our finger in their eye. If there is another war it will be the last war. As Einstein said, after the 3rd World War we will be using sticks and stones to fight it.

Clint Liquor , 44 minutes ago

Cohen truly was an island of reason in a sea of insanity. Ironic that those panicked over climate change are unconcerned about the increasing threat of Nuclear War.

thunderchief , 41 minutes ago

One of the very few level headed people on Russia.

All thats left are anti Russia-phobic nut jobs.

Send in the clowns.

Stephen Cohen isn't around to call them what they are anymore.

Eastern Whale , 55 minutes ago

cooperate with Russia

Has the US ever cooperated with anyone?

fucking truth , 3 minutes ago

That is the crux. All or nothing.

Mustafa Kemal , 49 minutes ago

Ive read several of his books. They are essential, imo, if you want to understand modern russian history.

Normal , 1 hour ago

The bankers created the new CCP cold war.

evoila , 19 minutes ago

Max Boot is an effing idiot. Tucker wiped him clean too. It was an insult to Stephen to even put them on the same panel.

RIP Stephen.

Gary Sick is the equivalent to Stephen, except for Iran. He too is of an era of competence which is and will be missed as their voices are drowned out by neocon warmongers

thebigunit , 17 minutes ago

I heard Stephen Cohen a number of time in John Bachelor's podcasts.

He seemed very lucid and made a lot of sense.

He made it very clear that he thought the Democrat's "Trump - Russia collusion schtick" was a bunch of crap.

He didn't sound like a leftie, but I'm sure he never told me the stuff he discussed with his wife who was editor of the left wing "The Nation" magazine.

Boogity , 9 minutes ago

Cohen was a traditional old school anti-war Liberal. They're essentially extinct now with the exception of a few such as Tulsi Gabbard and Dennis Kucinich who have both been ostracized from the Democrat Party and the political system.

[Sep 18, 2020] September 14, 2001- The Day America Became Israel - Antiwar.com Original

Notable quotes:

"... Apocalypse Now- ..."

"... Wall Street Journal ..."

"... War on the Rocks ..."

"... An Army Like No Other: How the Israel Defense Forces Made a Nation ..."

"... a defense industry with a country ..."

Sep 18, 2020 | original.antiwar.com

September 14, 2001: The Day America Became Israel

by Maj. Danny Sjursen, USA (ret.) Posted on September 18, 2020

This article is dedicated to the memory of an activist, inspiration, and recent friend: Kevin Zeese. Its scope, sweep, and ambition are meant to match that of Kevin's outsized influence. At that, it must inevitably fail – and its shortfalls are mine alone. That said, the piece's attempt at a holistic critique of 19 years worth of war and cultural militarization would, I hope, earn an approving nod from Kevin – if only at the attempt. He will be missed by so many; I count myself lucky to have gotten to know him. – Danny Sjursen

The rubble was still smoldering at Ground Zero when the U.S. House of Representatives voted to essentially transform itself into the Israeli Knesset , or parliament. It was 19 years ago, 11:17pm Washington D.C. time on September 14, 2001 when the People's Chamber approved House Joint Resolution 64, the Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) "against those responsible for the recent attacks." Naturally, that was before the precise identities, and full scope, of "those responsible" were yet known – so the resolution's rubber-stamp was obscenely open-ended by necessity, but also by design.

The Senate had passed their own version by roll call vote about 12 hours earlier. The combined congressional tally was 518 to one. Only Representative Barbara Lee of California cast a dissenting vote , and even delivered a brief, prescient speech on the House floor. It's almost hard to watch and listen all these years later as her voice cracks with emotion amidst all that truth-telling :

I am convinced that military action will not prevent further acts of international terrorism against the United States. This is a very complex and complicated matter

However difficult this vote may be, some of us must urge the use of restraint. Our country is in a state of mourning. Some of us must say, let's step back for a moment and think through the implications of our actions today, so that this does not spiral out of control

Now I have agonized over this vote. But I came to grips with opposing this resolution during the very painful, yet very beautiful memorial service. As a member of the clergy so eloquently said, "As we act, let us not become the evil that we deplore."

For her lone stance – itself courageous, even had she not since been vindicated – Rep. Lee suffered insults and death threats so intense that she needed around-the-clock bodyguards for a time. It's hard to be right in a room full of the wrong – especially angry, scared, and jingoistic ones. Yet the tragedy is America has become many of the things we purport to deplore: the US now boasts a one-trick-pony foreign policy and a militarized society to boot.

Endless imperial interventions and perennial policing at home and abroad, counterproductive military adventurism, governance by permanent "emergency" fiat, and an ever more martial-society? We've seen this movie before; in fact it's still playing – in Israel. Without implying that Israel, as an entity, is somehow "evil," theirs was simply not a path the US need or ought to have gone down.

"A Republic, If You Can Keep It"

In the nearly two decades since its passing, the AUMF has been cited at least 41 times in some 17 countries and on the high seas . The specified nations-states included Afghanistan, Cuba (Guantanamo Bay), Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Georgia, Iraq, Kenya, Libya, Philippines, Somalia, Syria, Yemen, Jordan, Turkey, Niger, Cameroon, and the broader African "Sahel Region" – which presumably also covers the unnamed, but real, US troop presence in Nigeria, Chad and Mali. That's a lot of unnecessary digressions – missions that haven't, and couldn't, have been won. All of that aggression abroad predictably boomeranged back home , in the guise of freedoms constrained, privacy surveilled, plus cops and culture militarized.

Inevitably, just a few days ago, every publication, big and small, carried obligatory and ubiquitous 9/11 commemoration pieces. Far fewer will even note the AUMF anniversary. Yet it was the US government's response – not the attacks themselves – which most altered American strategy and society. For in dutifully deciding on immediate military retaliation, a "global war," even, on a tactic ("terror") and a concept ("evil") at that, this republic fell prey to the Founders' great obsession . Unable to agree on much else, they shared fears that the nascent American experiment would suffer Rome's " ancestral curse " of ambition – and its subsequent path to empire. Hence, Benjamin Franklin's supposed retort to a crowd question upon exiting the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, on just what they'd just framed: "A republic, if you can keep it!"

Yet perhaps a modern allegory is the more appropriate one: by signing on to an endless cycle of tit-for-tat terror retaliation on 9/14, We the People's representatives chose the Israeli path. Here was a state forged by the sword that it's consequently lived by ever since, and may well die by – though the cause of death, no doubt, would likely be self-inflicted. The first statutory step towards Washington transforming into Tel Aviv was that AUMF sanction 19 years ago tonight.

No doubt, some militarist fantasies came far closer on the heels of the September 11th suicide strikes: According to notes taken by aides, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld waited a whole five hours after Flight 77 impacted his Pentagon to instruct subordinates to gather the "best info fast. Judge whether good enough to hit [Saddam Hussein] at same time Not only [Osama Bin Laden]." As for the responsive strike plans, "Go massive," the notes quote Rumsfeld as saying. "Sweep it all up. Things related and not."

Nonetheless, it was Congress' dutiful AUMF-acquiescence that made America's Israeli-metamorphosis official. The endgame that ain't even ended yet has been dreadful. It's almost impossible to fathom, in retrospect, but remember that as of September 14, 2001, 7,052 American troops and, very conservatively, at least 800,000 foreigners (335,000 of them civilians) hadn't yet – and need not have – died in the ensuing AUMF-sanctioned worldwide wars.

Now, US forces didn't directly kill all of them, but that's about 112 September 11ths-worth of dead civilians by the very lowest estimates – perishing in wars of (American) choice. That's worth reckoning with; and needn't imply a dismissive attitude to our 9/11 fallen. I, for one, certainly take that date rather seriously.

My 9/11s

There are more than a dozen t-shirts hanging in my closet right now that are each emblazoned with the phrase "Annual Marty Egan 5K Memorial Run/Walk." This event is held back in the old neighborhood, honoring a very close family friend – a New York City fire captain killed in the towers' collapse. As my Uncle Steve's best bud, he was in and out of my grandparents' seemingly communal Midland Beach, Staten Island bungalow – before Hurricane Sandy washed many of them away – throughout my childhood. When I was a teenager, just before leaving for West Point, Marty would tease me for being "too skinny for a soldier" in the local YMCA weight-room and broke-balls about my vague fear of heights as I shakily climbed a ladder in Steve's backyard just weeks before I left for cadet basic training. Always delivered with a smile, of course.

Marty was doing some in-service training on September 11th, and didn't have to head towards the flames, but he hopped on a passing truck and rode to his death anyway. I doubt anyone who knew him would've expected anything less. Mercifully, Marty's body was one of the first – and at the time, only – recovered , just two days after Congress chose war in his, and 2,976 others' name. He was found wearing borrowed gear from engine company he'd jumped in with.

I was a freshman cadet at West Point when I heard all of this news – left feeling so very distant from home, family, neighborhood, though I was just a 90 minute drive north. Frankly, I couldn't wait to get in the fights that followed. It's no excuse, really: but I was at that moment exactly 18 years and 41 days old. And indeed, I'd spend the next 18 training, prepping, and fighting the wars I then wanted – and, ( Apocalypse Now- style ) "for my sins" – "they gave me."

Anyway, Marty's family – and more so his memory – along with the general 9/11 fallout back home, have swirled in and out of my life ever since. In the immediate term, after the attacks my mother turned into a sort of wake&funeral-hopper, attending literally dozens over that first year. As soon as Marty had a headstone in Moravian Cemetery – where my Uncle Steve once dug graves – I draped a pair of my new dog tags over it on a weekend trip home. It was probably a silly and indulgent gesture, but it felt profound at the time. Then, soon enough, the local street signs started changing to honor fallen first responders – including the intersection outside my church, renamed "Martin J. Egan Jr. Corner." (Marty used to joke , after all, that he'd graduated from UCLA – that is, the University, corner of Lincoln Avenue, in the neighborhood.)

Five years later, while I was fighting a war in a country (Iraq) that had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks, Marty's mother Pat still worked at the post office from which my own mom shipped me countless care packages. They'd chat; have a few nostalgic laughs; then Pat would wish me well and pass on her regards. When some of my soldiers started getting killed, I remember my mother telling me it was sometimes hard to look Pat in the eye on the post office trips – perhaps she feared an impending kinship of lost sons. But it didn't go that way.

So, suffice it to say, I don't take the 9/11 attacks, or the victims, lightly. That doesn't mean the US responses, and their results, were felicitous or forgivable. They might even dishonor the dead. I don't pretend to precisely know, or speak for, the Egan family's feelings. Still, my own sense is that few among the lost or their loved ones left behind would've imagined or desired their deaths be used to justify all of the madness, futility, and liberties-suppression blowback that's ensued.

Nevertheless, my nineteen Septembers 11th have been experienced in oft-discomfiting ways, and my assessment of the annual commemorations, rather quickly began to change. By the tenth anniversary, a Reuters reporter spent a couple of days on the base I commanded in Afghanistan. At the time the outpost sported a flag gifted by my uncle, which had previously flown above a New York Fire Department house. I suppose headquarters sent the journalist my way because I was the only combat officer from New York City – but the brass got more than they'd bargained for. By then, amidst my second futile war "surge," and three more of the lives and several more of the limbs of my soldiers lost on this deployment, I wasn't feeling particularly sentimental. Besides, I'd already turned – ethically and intellectually – against what seemed to me demonstrably hopeless and counterproductive military exercises.

Much to the chagrin of my career-climbing lieutenant colonel, I waxed a bit (un)poetic on the war I was then fighting – "against farm boys with guns," I not-so-subtly styled it – and my hometown's late suffering that ostensibly justified it. "When I see this place, I don't see the towers," I said, sitting inside my sandbagged operations center near the Taliban's very birthplace in Kandahar province. Then added: "My family sees it more than I do. They see it dead-on, direct. I'm a professional soldier. It's not about writing the firehouse number on the bullet. I'm not one for gimmicks." It was coarse and a bit petulant, sure, but what I meant – what I felt – was that these wars, even this " good " Afghan one (per President Obama), no longer, and may never have, had much to do with 9/11, Marty, or all the other dead.

The global war on terrorism (GWOT, as it was once fashionable to say) was but a reflex for a sick society pre-disposed to violence, symptomatic of a militarist system led by a government absent other ideas or inclinations. Still, I flew that FDNY flag – even skeptical soldiers can be a paradoxical lot.

Origin Myths: Big Lies and Long Cons

Although the final approved AUMF declared that "such acts [as terrorism] continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States," that wasn't then, and isn't now, even true . The toppled towers, pummeled Pentagon, and flying suicide machines of 9/11 were no doubt an absolute horror; and such visions understandably clouded collective judgment. Still, more sober statistics demonstrate, and sensible strategy demands, the prudence of perspective.

From 1995 to 2016, a total of 3,277 Americans have been killed in terrorist acts on US soil. If we subtract the 9/11 anomaly, that's just 300 domestic deaths – or 14 per year. Which raises the impolite question: why don't policymakers talk about terrorism the same way they do shark attacks or lightning strikes? The latter, incidentally, kill an average of 49 Americans annually. Odd, then, that the US hasn't expended $6.4 trillion, or more than 15,000 soldier and contractor lives , responding to bolts from the blue. Nor has it kicked off or catalyzed global wars that have directly killed – by that conservative estimate – 335,000 civilians.

See, that's the thing: for Americans, like the Israelis, some lives matter more than others. We can just about calculate the macabre life-value ratios in each society. Take Israel's 2014 onslaught on the Gaza Strip. In its fifty-day onslaught of Operation Protective Edge, the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) killed 2,131 Palestinians – of whom 1,473 were identified as civilians, including 501 children. As for the wildly inaccurate and desperate Hamas rocket strikes that the IDF "edge" ostensibly "protected" against: those killed a whopping four civilians. To review: apparently one Israeli non-combatant is worth 368 Palestinian versions. Now, seeing as everything – including death-dealing is "bigger in Texas" – consider the macro American application. To wit, 3,277 US civilians versus 335,000 foreign innocents equals a cool 102-to-1 quotient of the macabre.

Such formulas become banal realities when one believes the big lies undergirding the entire enterprise. Here, Israel and America share origin myths that frame the long con of forever wars. That is, that acts of terror with stateless origins are best responded to with reflexive and aggressive military force. In my first ever published article – timed for Independence Day 2014 – I argued that America's post-9/11 "original sin" was framing its response as a war in the first place. As a result, I – then a serving US Army captain – concluded, "In place of sound strategy, we've been handed our own set of martyrs: more than 6,500 dead soldiers, airmen, sailors, and marines." More than 500 American troopers have died since, along with who knows how many foreign civilians. It's staggering how rare such discussions remain in mainstream discourse.

Within that mainstream, often the conjoined Israeli-American twins even share the same cruelty cheerleaders. Take the man that author Belen Fernandez not inaccurately dubs "Harvard Law School's resident psychopath:" Alan Dershowitz. During Israel's brutal 2006 assault on Lebanon, this armchair-murderer took to the pages of the Wall Street Journal with a column titled " Arithmetic of Pain ."

Dershowitz argued for a collective "reassessment of the laws of war" in light of increasingly blurred distinctions between combatants and civilians. Thus, offering official "scholarly" sanction for the which-lives-matter calculus, he unveiled the concept of a "continuum of 'civilianality." Consider some of his cold and callous language:

Near the most civilian end of this continuum are the pure innocents – babies, hostages at the more combatant end are civilians who willingly harbor terrorists, provide material resources and serve as human shields; in the middle are those who support the terrorists politically, or spiritually.

Got that? Leaving aside Dershowitz's absurd assumption that there are loads of Palestinians just itching to volunteer as "human shields," it's clear that when conflicts are thus framed – all manner of cruelties become permissible.

In Israel, it begins with stated policies of internationally- prohibited collective punishment. For example, during the 2006 Lebanon War that killed exponentially more innocent Lebanese than Israelis, the IDF chief of staff's announced intent was to deliver "a clear message to both greater Beirut and Lebanon that they've swallowed a cancer [Hezbollah] and have to vomit it up, because if they don't their country will pay a very high price." It ends with Tel Aviv's imposition of an abusive calorie-calculus on Palestinians.

In 2008, Israeli authorities actually drew up a document computing the minimum caloric intake necessary for Gaza's residents to suffer (until they yield), but avoid outright starvation. Two years earlier, that wonderful wordsmith Dov Weisglass, senior advisor to then Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, explained that Israeli policy was designed "to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger."

Lest that sound beyond the pale for we Americans, recall that it was the first female secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, who ten years earlier said of 500,000 Iraqi children's deaths under crippling U.S. sanctions: "we think, the price is worth it." Furthermore, it's unclear how the Trump administration's current sanctions- clampdown on Syrians unlucky enough to live in President Bashar al Assad-controlled territory is altogether different from the "Palestinian diet."

After all, even one of the Middle East Institute's resident regime-change-enthusiasts, Charles Lister, recently admitted that America's criminally-euphemized "Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act" may induce a "famine." In other words, according to two humanitarian experts writing on the national security website War on the Rocks , "hurting the very civilians it aims to protect while largely failing to affect the Syrian government itself."

It is, and has long been, thus: Israeli prime ministers and American presidents, Bibi and The Donald, Tel Aviv and Washington – are peas in a punishing pod.

Emergencies as Existences

In both Israel and America, frightened populations finagled by their uber-hawkish governments acquiesce to militarized states of "emergencies" as a way of life. In seemingly no time at all, the latest U.S. threshold got so low that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo matter-of-factly declared one to override a congressional-freeze and permit the $8.1 billion sale of munitions to Gulf Arab militaries. When some frustrated lawmakers asked the State Department's inspector general to investigate, the resultant report found that the agency failed to limit [Yemeni] civilian deaths from the sales – most bombed by the Saudi's subsequent arsenal of largesse. (As for the inspector general himself? He was " bullied ," then fired, by Machiavelli Mike).

Per the standard, Israel is the more surface-overt partner. As the IDF-veteran author Haim Bresheeth-Zabner writes in his new book , An Army Like No Other: How the Israel Defense Forces Made a Nation , Israel is the "only country in which Emergency Regulations have been in force for every minute of its existence."

Perhaps more worryingly, such emergency existences boomerang back to militarized Minneapolis and Jerusalem streets alike. It's worth nothing that just five days after the killing of George Floyd, an Israeli police officer gunned down an unarmed, autistic, Palestinian man on his way to a school for the disabled. Even the 19-year-old killer's 21-year-old commander (instructive, that) admitted the cornered victim wasn't a threat. But here's the rub: when the scared and confused Palestinian man ran from approaching police at 6 a.m. , initial officers instinctually reported a potential "terrorist" on the loose.

Talk about global terror coming home to roost on local streets. And why not here in the States? It wasn't but two months back that President Trump labeled peaceful demonstrators in D.C., and nationwide protesters tearing down Confederate statues, as "terrorists." That's more than a tad troubling, since, as noted, almost anything is permissible against terrorists, thus tagged.

In other words, the Israeli-American, post-9/11 (or -9/14) militarized connections go beyond the cosmetic and past sloganeering. Then again, the latter can be instructive. In the wake of the latest Jerusalem police shooting, protesters in Israel's Occupied Territories held up placards declaring solidarity with Black Lives Matter (BLM). One read: "Palestinians support the black intifada." Yet the roots of shared systemic injustices run far deeper.

Though it remains impolitic to say so here in the US, both "BLM and the Palestinian rights movement are [by their own accounts] fighting settler-colonial states and structures of domination and supremacy that value, respectively, white and Jewish lives over black and Palestinian ones." They're hardly wrong. All-but-official apartheid reigns in Occupied Palestine, and a de-facto two-tier system favoring Jewish citizens, prevails within Israel itself. Similarly, the US grapples with chattel slavery's legacy, lingering effects institutional Jim Crow-apartheid, and its persistent system of gross, if unofficial, socio-economic racial disparity.

Though there are hopeful rumblings in post-Floyd America, neither society has much grappled with the immediacy and intransigency of their established and routine devaluation of (internal and external) Arab and African lives. Instead, in another gross similarity, Israelis and Americans prefer to laud any ruling elites who even pretend towards mildly reformist rhetoric (rather than action) as brave peacemakers.

In fact, two have won the Nobel Peace Prize. In America, there was the untested Obama: he the king of drones and free-press-suppression – whose main qualification for the award was not being named George W. Bush. In Israel, the prize went to late Prime Minister Shimon Peres. According to Bresheeth-Zabner, Peres was the "mind behind the military-industrial complex" in Israel, and also architect of the infamous 1996 massacre of 106 people sheltering at a United Nations compound in South Lebanon. In such societies as ours and Israel's, and amidst interminable wars, too often politeness passes for principle.

Military Mirrors

Predictably, social and cultural rot – and strategic delusions – first manifest in a nation's military. Neither Israel's nor America's has a particularly impressive record of late. The IDF won a few important wars in its first 25 years of existence, then came back from a near catastrophic defeat to prevail in the 1973 Yom Kippur War; but since then, it's at best muddled through near-permanent lower-intensity conflicts after invading Southern Lebanon in 1978. In fact, its 22-year continuous counter-guerilla campaign there – against Palestinian resistance groups and then Lebanese Hezbollah – slowly bled the IDF dry in a quagmire often called " Israel's Vietnam ." It was, in fact, proportionally more deadly for its troops than America's Southeast Asian debacle – and ended (in 2000) with an embarrassing unilateral withdrawal.

Additionally, Tel Aviv's perma-military-occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip hasn't just flagrantly violated International law and several UN resolutions – but blown up in the IDF's face. Ever since vast numbers of exasperated and largely abandoned (by Arab armies) Palestinians rose up in the 1987 Intifada – initially peaceful protests – and largely due to the IDF's counterproductively vicious suppression, Israel has been trapped in endless imperial policing and low-to-mid-level counterinsurgency.

None of its major named military operations in the West Bank and/or Gaza Strip – Operations Defensive Shield (2002), Days of Penitence (2004), Summer Rains (2006), Cast Lead (2008-09), Pillar of Defense (2012), Protective Edge (2014), among others – has defeated or removed Hamas, nor have they halted the launch of inaccurate but persistent Katyusha rockets.

In fact, the wildly disproportionate toll on Palestinian civilians in each and every operation, and the intransigence of Israel's ironclad occupation has only earned Tel Aviv increased international condemnation and fresh generations of resistors to combat. The IDF counts minor tactical successes and suffers broader strategic failure. As even a fairly sympathetic Rand report on the Gaza operations noted, "Israel's grand strategy became 'mowing the grass' – accepting its inability to permanently solve the problem and instead repeatedly targeting leadership of Palestinian militant organizations to keep violence manageable."

The American experience has grown increasingly similar over the last three-quarters of a century. Unless one counts modern trumped-up Banana Wars like those in Grenada (1983) and Panama (1989), or the lopsided 100-hour First Persian Gulf ground campaign (1991), the US military, too, hasn't won a meaningful victory since 1945. Korea (1950-53) was a grinding and costly draw; Vietnam (1965-72) a quixotic quagmire; Lebanon (1982-84) an unnecessary and muddled mess ; Somalia (1992-94) a mission-creeping fiasco; Bosnia/Kosovo (1992-) an over-hyped and unsatisfying diversion. Yet matters deteriorated considerably, and the Israeli-parallels grew considerably, after Congress chose endless war on September 14, 2001.

America's longest ever war, in Afghanistan, started as a seeming slam dunk but has turned out to be an intractable operational defeat. That lost cause has been a dead war walking for over a decade. Operations Iraqi Freedom (2003-11) and Inherent Resolve (2014-) may prove, respectively, America's most counterproductive and aimless missions ever. Operation Odyssey Dawn, the 2011 air campaign in pursuit of Libyan regime change, was a debacle – the entire region still grapples with its detritus of jihadi profusion, refugee dispersion, and ongoing proxy war.

US support for the Saudi-led terror war on Yemen hasn't made an iota of strategic sense, but has left America criminally complicit in immense civilian-suffering. Despite the hype, the relatively young US Africa Command (AFRICOM) was never really "about Africans," and its dozen years worth of far-flung campaigns have only further militarized a long-suffering continent and generated more terrorists. Like Israel's post-1973 operations, America's post-2001 combat missions have simply been needless, hopeless, and counterproductive.

Consider a few other regrettable U.S.-Israeli military connections over these last two decades:

• Both have set their loudly proclaimed principles aside and made devil's bargains with the venal Saudis (many of whom really do hate our values), as well as with the cynical military coup-artists in Egypt.
• Both have increasingly engaged in " wars of choice " and grown reliant on the snake oil of "magical" air power to [not] win them. In fact, during the 2006 war there, the IDF's first-ever air force officer to serve as chief of staff declared his intent to use such sky power to "turn back the clock in Lebanon by 20 years." How's that for the head of a force that still styles itself "the most moral army in the world." It's hard to see much moral difference between that and America's ever-secretive drone program (perhaps 14,000 total strikes) and the US government's constant and purposeful underreporting of the thousands of civilians they've killed.
• Both vaunted militaries broke their supposedly unbreakable backs in ill-advised invasions built on false pretenses. The Israeli historian Martin van Creveld has famously called Israel's 1982 Lebanon War – and the quagmire that resulted – his country's "greatest folly." The mainstream US national security analyst Tom Ricks – hardly a dove himself – went a step further: the 2003 "American military adventure in Iraq" was nothing short of a Fiasco .
• Both armies have seen their conventional war competence and ethical standards measurably deteriorate amidst lengthy militarized-policing campaigns. As van Creveld said of the IDF during the 1982 Lebanon invasion (after it enabled the vicious massacre of Palestinian refugees by Christian militiamen: it was reduced from the superb fighting force of a "small but brave people" into a "high-tech, but soft, bloated, strife-ridden, responsibility-shy and dishonest army."

The wear and tear from the South Lebanon occupation and from decades of beating up on downtrodden and trapped Palestinians damaged Israel's vaunted military. According to an after-action review, these operations"weakened the IDF's operational capabilities." Thus, when Israel's nose was more than a bit bloodied in the 2006 war with Hezbollah, IDF analysts and retired officers were quick – and not exactly incorrect – to blame the decaying effect of endless low-intensity warfare.

At the time, two general staff members, Major Generals Yishai Bar and Yiftach Ron-Tal, "warned that as a result of the preoccupation with missions in the territories, the IDF had lost its maneuverability and capability to fight in mountainous terrain." Van Creveld added that: "Among the commanders, the great majority can barely remember when they trained for and engaged in anything more dangerous than police-type operations."

Similar voices have sounded the alarm about the post-9/11 American military. Perhaps the loudest has been my fellow West Point History faculty alum, retired Colonel Gian Gentile. This former tank battalion commander and Iraq War vet described "America's deadly embrace of counterinsurgency" as a Wrong Turn . Specifically, he's argued that "counterinsurgency has perverted [the way of] American war," pushed the "defense establishment into fanciful thinking," and thus "atrophying [its] core fighting competencies."

Instructively, Gentile cited "The Israeli Defense Forces' recent [2006] experience in Lebanon There were many reasons for its failure, but one of them, is that its army had done almost nothing but [counterinsurgency] in the Palestinian territories, and its ability to fight against a strident enemy had atrophied." Maybe more salient was Gentile's other rejoinder that, historically, "nation-building operations conducted at gunpoint don't turn out well" and tend to be as (or more) bloody and brutal as other wars.

• Finally, and related to Gentile's last point, both militaries fell prey to the brutality and cruelty so common in prolonged counterinsurgency and counter-guerilla combat. Consider the resurrected utility of that infamous adage of absurdity mouthed by a US Army major in Vietnam: "it became necessary to destroy the town to save it." He supposedly meant the February 1968 decision to bomb and shell the city of Ben Tre in the Mekong Delta, regardless of the risk to civilians therein.

Fast forward a decade, and B?n Tre's ghost was born again in the matter-of-fact admission of the IDF's then chief of staff, General Mordecai Gur. Asked if, during its 1978 invasion of South Lebanon, Israel had bombed civilians "without discrimination," he fired back : "Since when has the population of South Lebanon been so sacred? They know very well what the terrorists were doing. . . . I had four villages in South Lebanon bombarded without discrimination." When pressed to confirm that he believed "the civilian population should be punished," Gur's retort was "And how!" Should it surprise us then, that 33 years later the concept was rebooted to flatten presumably (though this has been contested) booby-trapped villages in my old stomping grounds of Kandahar, Afghanistan?

In sum, Israel and America are senseless strategy-simpatico. It's a demonstrably disastrous two-way relationship. Our main exports have been guns – $142.3 billion worth since 1949 (significantly more than any other recipient) – and twin umbrellas of air defense and bottomless diplomatic top-cover for Israel's abuses. As to the top-cover export, it's not for nothing that after the U.S. House rubber-stamped – by a vote of 410-8 – a 2006 resolution (written by the Israel Lobby) justifying IDF attacks on Lebanese civilians, the "maverick" Republican Patrick Buchanan labeled the legislative body as " our Knesset ."

Naturally, Tel Aviv responds in kind by shipping America a how-to-guide for societal militarization, a built-in foreign policy script to their benefit, and the unending ire of most people in the Greater Middle East. It's a timeless and treasured trade – but it benefits neither party in the long run.

"Armies With Countries"

It was once said that Frederick the Great's 18th century Prussia, was "not a country with an army, but an army with a country." Israel has long been thus. It's probably still truer of them than us. The Israelis do, after all, have an immersive system of military conscription – whereas Americans leave the fighting, killing, and dying to a microscopic and unrepresentative Praetorian Guard of professionals. Nevertheless, since 9/11 – or, more accurately, 9/14/2001 – US politics, society, and culture have wildly militarized. To say the least, the outcomes have been unsatisfying: American troops haven't "won" a significant war 75 years. Now, the US has set appearances aside once and for all and " jumped the shark " towards the gimmick of full-throated imperialism.

There are, of course, real differences in scale and substance between America and Israel. The latter is the size of Massachusetts, with the population of New York City. Its "Defense Force" requires most of its of-age population to wage its offensive wars and perennial policing of illegally occupied Palestinians. Israeli society is more plainly " prussianized ." Yet in broader and bigger – if less blatant – ways, so is the post-AUMF United States. America-the-exceptional leads the world in legalized gunrunning and overseas military basing . Rather than the globe's self-styled " Arsenal of Democracy ," the US has become little more than the arsenal of arsenals. So, given the sway of the behemoth military-industrial-complex and recent Israelification of its political culture, perhaps it's more accurate to say America is a defense industry with a country – and not the other way around.

As for 17 year-old me, I didn't think I'd signed up for the Israeli Defense Force on that sunny West Point morning of July 2, 2001. And, for the first two months and 12 days of my military career – maybe I hadn't. I sure did serve in its farcical facsimile, though: fighting its wars for an ensuing 17 more years.

Yet everyone who entered the US military after September 14, 2001 signed up for just that. Which is a true tragedy.

This originally appeared at Popular Resistance .

Danny Sjursen is a retired US Army officer and contributing editor at Antiwar.com His work has appeared in the NY Times, LA Times, The Nation, Huff Post, The Hill, Salon, Popular Resistance, and Tom Dispatch, among other publications. He served combat tours with reconnaissance units in Iraq and Afghanistan and later taught history at his alma mater, West Point. He is the author of a memoir and critical analysis of the Iraq War, Ghostriders of Baghdad: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Myth of the Surge . His forthcoming book, Patriotic Dissent: America in the Age of Endless War is now available for pre-order . Sjursen was recently selected as a 2019-20 Lannan Foundation Cultural Freedom Fellow . Follow him on Twitter @SkepticalVet . Visit his professional website for contact info, to schedule speeches or media appearances, and access to his past work.

Copyright 2020 Danny Sjursen

[Sep 18, 2020] Exposing war crimes should always be legal. Committing and hiding them should not by Caitlin Johnstone

Sep 18, 2020 | www.rt.com

By Caitlin Johnstone , an independent journalist based in Melbourne, Australia. Her website is here and you can follow her on Twitter @caitoz ...Amid all the pedantic squabbling over when it is and is not legal under US law for a journalist to expose evidence of US war crimes, we must never lose sight of the fact that (A) it should always be legal to expose war crimes, (B) it should always be illegal for governments to hide evidence of their war crimes, (C) war crimes should always be punished, (D) people who start criminal wars should always be punished, (E) governments should not be permitted to have a level of secrecy that allows them to start criminal wars, and (F) power and secrecy should always have an inverse relationship to one another.

The Assange case needs to be fought tooth and claw, but we must keep in mind that it is so very, very many clicks back from where we need to be as a civilization. In an ideal situation, governments should be too afraid of the public to keep secrets from them; instead, here we are begging the most powerful government in the world to please not imprison a journalist because he arguably did not break the rules that that government made for itself.

Do you see how far that point is from where we need to be?

It's important to remember this. It's important to remember that the amount of evil deeds power structures will commit is directly proportional to the amount of information they are permitted to hide from the public. We will not have a healthy world until power and secrecy have an inverse relationship to each other: privacy for rank-and-file individuals, and transparency for governments and their officials.

"But what about military secrets?" one might object. Yes, what about military secrets? What about the fact that virtually all military violence perpetrated by the world's largest power structures is initiated based on lies ? What about the utterly indisputable fact that the more secrecy we allow the war machine, the more wars it deceives the public into allowing it to initiate?

https://platform.twitter.com/embed/index.html?creatorScreenName=RT_com&dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-0&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1028347374765318144&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.rt.com%2Fop-ed%2F501031-caitlin-johnstone-exposing-war-crimes%2F&siteScreenName=RT_com&theme=light&widgetsVersion=219d021%3A1598982042171&width=550px

In a healthy world, the most powerful government on Earth wouldn't be trying to squint at its own laws in such a way that permits the prosecution of a journalist for telling the truth.

In a healthy world, the most powerful government on Earth wouldn't prosecute anyone for telling the truth at all.

In a healthy world, governments would prosecute their own war crimes, instead of those who expose them.

In a healthy world, governments wouldn't commit war crimes at all.

In a healthy world, governments wouldn't start wars at all.

In a healthy world, governments would see truth as something to be desired and actively sought, not something to be repressed and punished.

In a healthy world, governments wouldn't keep secrets from the public, and wouldn't have any cause to want to.

In a healthy world, if governments existed at all, they would exist solely as tools for the people to serve themselves, with full transparency and accountability to those people.

We are obviously a very, very far cry from the kind of healthy world we would all like to one day find ourselves in. But we should always keep in mind what a healthy world will look like, and hold it as our true north for the direction that we are pushing in.

Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!

By Caitlin Johnstone , an independent journalist based in Melbourne, Australia. Her website is here and you can follow her on Twitter @caitoz

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

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Reality007 3 hours ago 18 Sep, 2020 10:07 AM

Unfortunately, no criminals that have committed or covered up war crimes, decades ago to present, will ever be indicted. They are all above the law while all innocents that revealed the truths must pay highly. We can only pray and hope for the best for Julian Assange.

Fred Dozer Reality007 1 hour ago 18 Sep, 2020 12:16 PM

I see nothing wrong with robbing banks in criminal controlled countries. These governments, murder, cheat, lie, & steal.

T. Agee Kaye 2 hours ago 18 Sep, 2020 11:10 AM

The right of a people to know what their government is doing, and the potential consequences of those actions on the people, nation, and society, is inalienable. The exposure of war crimes and any corruption is not illegal and cannot be made illegal. The trial of Assange is not about the legality of Assange's actions. It is a display of the influence that criminal interests have over the government and judiciary. It is an attempt to create legitimacy by creating precedent. Murder has plenty of precedent. It will never be legitimate.

Jewel Gyn 3 hours ago 18 Sep, 2020 10:21 AM

Agreed but having said that, we are not living in a perfect world. Bully with big fists exist and the lesser countries just stood by frustrated and sucking their thumbs, silent lest they be targeted for voicing out. And you can see clearly why US is walking away from any form of organised voice eg UN.

Odinsson 2 hours ago 18 Sep, 2020 10:51 AM

What we need in the case of Julian Assange is factual reporting. While the motivation to prosecute Assange is most likely political, there would be no ability to prosecute him were it not for his active support of PFC Manning's hacking of a DOD information system. It is not unlawful to publish classified information which was provided to you, so long as you are not involved in the criminal acts leading to the exfiltration of the data. Had Assange not aided PFC Manning by looking up hash codes in spreadsheets of known password to hash code translations then the grand jury would not have indicted him. FWIW, it is my opinion that the statute of limitations expired long ago and this should be grounds for dismissal of all charges against him.

jholf 1 hour ago 18 Sep, 2020 12:04 PM

These world leaders, claim to be Christians, ... their God 'commands', "Thou shalt not kill." Yet, for more than 6 decades, that is exactly what each of these Christian Commanders in Chief, have done for no reason, other than to fill the pockets of the elite. A man is known by his deeds, Assange gave us truth, while these world leaders gave us war and destructi

[Sep 17, 2020] Why the Blob Needs an Enemy by ARTA MOEINI

Highly recommended!

Crisis of neoliberal undermines the USA supremacy and the US elite hangs by the stras to the Full Specturm Domionanc edoctrine, whih it now can't enforce and which is financially unsustainable for the USA.

Collapse of neoliberalism means the end of the USA supremacy and the whole political existence on the USA was banked on this single card.

Notable quotes:

"... In America, this unfortunate status quo in support of primacy persists even in the Trumpian Age and within debates around the eccentric and unconventional presidency of Donald Trump. In fact, despite all the talk of political polarization in the United States, it appears that when it comes to naming new threats and enemies to "contain," "deter," and deem "existential," bipartisan consensus is found swiftly and quite readily. ..."

"... In a recent speech delivered in Europe, the U.S. defense secretary and former corporate lobbyist for Raytheon, Mark Esper, unified these two faces of the Janus that embodies the North Atlantic foreign policy establishment. Esper referred to both China and Russia as disruptive forces working to unravel the international order, which "we have created together," and called on the international community to preserve that order by countering both powers. As it stands, we are on the path to a series of cold wars throughout this century, if not a hot conflict between rival great powers that could spiral into World War III. Despite increased calls for realism and restraint in foreign policy, primacy is alive and well. ..."

"... There is, however, a more significant psychosociological reason for the blob's remarkable persistence. When it comes to foreign policy, Western policymakers today suffer from a Manichean worldview, a caustic mindset crystalized during a decades-running Cold War with the Soviet Union. ..."

"... Frozen in this Cold War mindset, the Atlanticist blob has internalized the bipolar moment that followed the Second World War, treating it as a permanent fixture and the normal state of the international system. In fact, the bipolar and unipolar periods we have undergone over the past 75 years are nothing but aberrations and historical anomalies. In truth, the reality of the international system tends toward multi-polarity -- and at long last it appears that the system is self-correcting. The North Atlantic establishment came of age during that time of exception, forming its (liberal) identity through the process of "alterity" and in a nemetic opposition to communism. ..."

"... Not surprisingly then, the North Atlantic elites continue to seek adversaries to demonize and "monsters to destroy" in order to justify their moral universalism and presumed ideological superiority, doing so under the garb of a totalizing and absolutist idea of exceptionalism. ..."

Sep 09, 2020 | www.theamericanconservative.com

The international order is no longer bipolar, despite the elites' insistence otherwise. Fortunately there is hope for change.

Despite its many failings and high human, social, and economic costs, American foreign policy since the end of the Second World War has shown a remarkable degree of continuity and inflexibility. This rather curious phenomenon is not limited to America alone. The North Atlantic foreign policy establishment from Washington D.C. to London, which some have aptly dubbed the "blob," has doggedly championed the grand strategic framework of "primacy" and armed hegemony, often coated with more docile language such as "global leadership," "American indispensability," and "strengthening the Western alliance."

In America, this unfortunate status quo in support of primacy persists even in the Trumpian Age and within debates around the eccentric and unconventional presidency of Donald Trump. In fact, despite all the talk of political polarization in the United States, it appears that when it comes to naming new threats and enemies to "contain," "deter," and deem "existential," bipartisan consensus is found swiftly and quite readily.

On the Left, and in the wake of President Trump's election, the Democratic establishment began fixating its wrath on Russia–adopting a confrontational stance toward Moscow and fueling fears of a renewed Cold War. On the Right, the realigning GOP has increasingly, if at times inconsistently, singled out China as the greatest threat to U.S. national security, a hostile attitude further exacerbated in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Alarmingly, Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee, has recently joined the hawkish bandwagon toward China, even attempting to outflank Trump on this issue and attacking the president's China policy as too weak and accommodating of China's rise.

In a recent speech delivered in Europe, the U.S. defense secretary and former corporate lobbyist for Raytheon, Mark Esper, unified these two faces of the Janus that embodies the North Atlantic foreign policy establishment. Esper referred to both China and Russia as disruptive forces working to unravel the international order, which "we have created together," and called on the international community to preserve that order by countering both powers. As it stands, we are on the path to a series of cold wars throughout this century, if not a hot conflict between rival great powers that could spiral into World War III. Despite increased calls for realism and restraint in foreign policy, primacy is alive and well.

Indeed, the dominant tendency among many foreign policy observers is to overprivilege the threat of rising superpowers and to insist on strong containment measures to limit the spheres of influence of the so-called revisionist powers. Such an approach, coupled with the prospect of ascendant powers actively resisting and confronting the United States as the ruling global hegemon, has one eminent International Relations scholar warning of the Thucydides Trap.

There are others, however, who insist that the structural shifts undermining the liberal international order mark the end of U.S. hegemony and its "unipolar moment." In realist terms, what Secretary Esper really means to protect, they would argue, is a conception of "rules-based" global order that was a structural by-product of the Second World War and the ensuing Cold War and whose very rules and institutions were underwritten by U.S. hegemony. This would be an exercise in folly -- not corresponding to the reality of systemic change and the return of great power competition and civilizational contestation.

What's more, the sanctimony of this "liberal" hegemonic order and the logic of democratic peace were both presumably vindicated by the collapse of the Soviet Union and its totalitarian system, a black swan event that for many had heralded the "end of history" and promised the advent of the American century. A great deal of lives, capital, resources, and goodwill were sacrificed by America and her allies toward that crusade for liberty and universality, which was only the most recent iteration of a radically utopian element in American political thought going back to Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine. Alas, as it had eluded earlier generations of idealists, that century never truly arrived, and neither did the empire of liberty and prosperity that it loftily aimed to establish.

Today, the emerging reality of a multipolar world and alternate worldviews championed by the different cultural blocs led by China and Russia appears to have finally burst the bubble of American Triumphalism, proving that the ideas behind it are "not simply obsolete but absurd." This failure should have been expected since the very project the idealists had espoused was built on a pathological "savior complex" and a false truism that reflected the West's own absolutist and distorted sense of ideological and moral superiority. Samuel Huntington might have been right all along to cast doubt on the long-term salience of using ideology and doctrinal universalism as the dividing principle for international relations. His call to focus, instead, on civilizational distinction, the permanent power of culture on human action, and the need to find common ground rings especially true today. Indeed, fostering a spirit of coexistence and open dialogue among the world's great civilizational complexes is a fundamental tenet of a cultural realism.

And yet, despite such permanent shifts in the global order away from universalist dichotomies and global hegemony and toward culturalism and multi-polarity, there exists a profound disjunction between the structural realities of the international system and the often business-as-usual attitude of the North Atlantic foreign policy elites. How could one explain the astonishing levels of rigidity and continuity on the part of the "blob" and the military-industrial-congressional complex regularly pushing for more adventurism and interventionism abroad? Why would the bipartisan primacist establishment, which their allies in the mainstream media endeavor still to mask, justify such illiberal acts of aggression and attempts at empire by weaponizing the moralistic language of human rights, individual liberty, and democracy in a world increasingly awakened to arbitrary ideological framing?

There are, of course, systemic reasons behind the power and perpetuation of the blob and the endurance of primacy. The vast economic incentives of war and its instruments, institutional routinization and intransigence, stupefaction and groupthink of government bureaucracy, and the significant influence of lobbying efforts by foreign governments and other vested interest groups could each partly explain the remarkable continuity of the North Atlantic foreign policy establishment. The endless stream of funding from the defense industry, neoliberal and neoconservative foundations, as well as the government itself keeps the "blob" alive, while the general penchant for bipartisanship around preserving the status quo allows it to thrive. What is more, elite schools produce highly analytic yet narrowly focused and conventional minds that are tamed to be agreeable so as to not undermine elite consensus. This conveyor belt feeds the "blob," supplying it with the army of specialists, experts, and wonks it requires to function as a mind melding hive, while in practice safeguarding employment for the career bureaucrats for decades to come.

There is, however, a more significant psychosociological reason for the blob's remarkable persistence. When it comes to foreign policy, Western policymakers today suffer from a Manichean worldview, a caustic mindset crystalized during a decades-running Cold War with the Soviet Union. The world might have changed fundamentally with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the bipolar structure of the international system might have ended irreversibly, but the personnel -- the Baby Boomer Generation elites conducting foreign policy in the North Atlantic -- did not leave office or retire with the collapse of the USSR. They largely remain in power to this day.

Every generation is forged through a formative crisis, its experiences seen through the prism that all-encompassing ordeal. For the incumbent elites, that generational crisis was the Cold War and the omnipresent threat of nuclear annihilation. The dualistic paradigm of the international system during the U.S.-Soviet rivalry bred an entire generation to see the world through a black-and-white binary. It should come as no surprise that this era elevated the idealist strain of thought and the crusading, neo-Jacobin impulse of U.S. foreign policy (personified by Thomas Jefferson and Woodrow Wilson) to new, ever-expanding heights. Idealism prizes a nemesis and thus revels in a bipolar order.

Frozen in this Cold War mindset, the Atlanticist blob has internalized the bipolar moment that followed the Second World War, treating it as a permanent fixture and the normal state of the international system. In fact, the bipolar and unipolar periods we have undergone over the past 75 years are nothing but aberrations and historical anomalies. In truth, the reality of the international system tends toward multi-polarity -- and at long last it appears that the system is self-correcting. The North Atlantic establishment came of age during that time of exception, forming its (liberal) identity through the process of "alterity" and in a nemetic opposition to communism.

Not surprisingly then, the North Atlantic elites continue to seek adversaries to demonize and "monsters to destroy" in order to justify their moral universalism and presumed ideological superiority, doing so under the garb of a totalizing and absolutist idea of exceptionalism. After all, a nemetic zeitgeist during which ideology reigned supreme and realism was routinely discounted was tailor-made for dogmatic absolutism and moral universalism. In such a zero-sum strategic environment, it was only natural to demand totality and frame the ongoing geopolitical struggle in terms of an existential opposition over Good and Evil that would quite literally split the world in two.

Today, that same kind of Manichean thinking continues to handicap paradigmatic change in foreign policy. A false consciousness, it underpins and promotes belief in the double myths of indispensability and absolute exceptionality, suggesting that the North Atlantic bloc holds a certain monopoly on all that is good and true. It is not by chance that such pathological renderings of "exceptionalism" and "leadership" have been wielded as convenient rationale and intellectual placeholders for the ideology of empire across the North Atlantic. This sense of ingrained moral self-righteousness, coupled with an attitude that celebrates activism, utopianism, and interventionism in foreign policy, has created and reinforced a culture of strategic overextension and imperial overreach.

It is this very culture -- personified and dominated by the Baby Boomers and the blob they birthed -- that has made hawkishness ubiquitous, avoids any real reckoning as to the limits of power, and habitually belittles calls for restraint and moderation as isolationism. In truth, however, what has been the exceptional part in the delusion of absolute exceptionalism is Pax Americana, liberal hegemony, and the hubris that animates them having gone uncontested and unchecked for so long. That confrontation could begin in earnest by directly challenging the Boomer blob itself -- and by propagating a counter-elite offering a starkly different worldview.

Achieving such a genuine paradigm shift demands a generational sea-change, to retire the old blob and make a better one in its place. It is about time for the old establishment to forgo its reign, allowing a new younger cohort from among the Millennial and post-Millennial generations to advance into leadership roles. The Millennials, especially, are now the largest generation of eligible voters (overtaking the Baby Boomers) as well as the first generation not habituated by the Cold War; in fact, many of them grew up during the "unipolar moment" of American hegemony. Hence, their generational identity is not built around a dualistic alterity. Free from obsessive fixation on ideological supremacy, most among them reject total global dominance as both unattainable and undesirable.

Instead, their worldview is shaped by an entirely different set of experiences and disappointments. Their generational crisis was brought on by a series of catastrophic interventions and endless wars around the world -- chief among them the debacles in Afghanistan and Iraq and the toppling of Libya's Gaddafi -- punctuated by repeated onslaughts of financial recessions and domestic strife. The atmosphere of uncertainty, instability, and general chaos has bred discontent, turning many Millennials into pragmatic realists who are disenchanted with the system, critical of the pontificating establishment, and naturally skeptical of lofty ideals and utopian doctrines.

In short, this is not an absolutist and complacent generation of idealists, but one steeped in realism and a certain perspectivism that has internalized the inherent relativity of both power and truth. Most witnessed the dangers of overreach, hubris, and a moralized foreign policy, so they are actively self-reflective, circumspect, and restrained. As a generation, they appear to be less the moralist and the global activist and more prudent, level-headed, and temperamentally conservative -- developing a keen appreciation for realpolitik, sovereignty, and national interest. Their preference for a non-ideological approach in foreign policy suggests that once in power, they will be less antagonistic and more tolerant of rival powers and accepting of pluralism in the international system. That openness to civilizational distinction and global cultural pluralism also implies that future Millennial statesmen will subscribe to a more humble, less grandiose, and narrower definition of interest that focuses on securing core objectives -- i.e., preserving national security and recognizing spheres of influence.

Reforming and rehabilitating the U.S. foreign policy establishment will require more than policy prescriptions and comprehensive reports: it needs generational change. To transform and finally "rein in" North Atlantic foreign policy, our task today must be to facilitate and expedite this shift. Once that occurs, the incoming Millennials should be better positioned to discard the deep-seated and routinized ideology of empire, supplanting it with a greater emphasis on partnership that is driven by mutual interests and a general commitment to sharing the globe with the world's other great cultures.

This new approach calls for America to lead by the power of its example, exhibiting the benefits of liberty and a constitutional republic at home, without forcibly imposing those values abroad. Such an outlook means abandoning the coercive regime change agendas and the corrosive projects of nation-building and democracy promotion. In this new multipolar world, America would be an able, dynamic, and equal participant in ensuring sustainable peace side-by-side the world's other great powers, acting as "a normal country in a normal time." Reflecting the spirit of republican governance authentically is far more pertinent now and salutary for the future of the North Atlantic peoples than is promulgating the utopian image of a shining city on a hill.

Arta Moeini is research director at the Institute for Peace and Diplomacy and a postdoc fellow at the Center for the Study of Statesmanship. Dr. Moeini's latest project advances a theory of cultural realism as a cornerstone to a new understanding of foreign policy.

The Institute for Peace and Diplomacy will be co-sponsoring "The Future of Grand Strategy in the Post-COVID World," with TAC, tonight at 6 p.m. ET. Register for free here .

[Sep 17, 2020] Military desperados and Mattis "military messiah syndrome" by Scott Ritter

Highly recommended!

I always assumed that Trump was the candidate of MIC in 2016 elections, while Hillary was the candidate of "Intelligence community." But it looks like US military is infected with desperados like Mattis and Trump was unable fully please them despite all his efforts.

But it looks like US military is infected with desperados like Mattis and Trump was unable fully please them despite all his efforts. Military desperados are not interested in how many American they deprived of decent standard of living due to outside military expenses. All they want is to dominate the word and maintain the "Full Spectrum Dominance" whatever it costs.

Sep 16, 2020 | www.rt.com

... ... ...

It is Trump's tortured relationship with the military that stands out the most, especially as told through the eyes of former Secretary of Defense Jim 'Mad Dog' Mattis, a retired marine general. It is clear that Bob Woodward spent hours speaking with Mattis -- the insights, emotions and internal voice captured in the book show a level of intimacy that could only be reached through in-depth interviews, and Woodward has a well-earned reputation for getting people to speak to him.

The book makes it clear that Mattis viewed Trump as a threat to the US' standing as the defender of a rules-based order -- built on the back of decades-old alliances -- that had been in place since the end of the Second World War.

It also makes it clear that Mattis and the military officers he oversaw placed defending this order above implementing the will of the American people, as expressed through the free and fair election that elevated Donald Trump to the position of commander-in-chief. In short, Mattis and his coterie of generals knew best, and when the president dared issue an order or instruction that conflicted with their vision of how the world should work, they would do their best to undermine this order, all the while confirming to the president that it was being followed.

This trend was on display in Woodward's telling of Trump's efforts to forge better relations with North Korea. At every turn, Mattis and his military commanders sought to isolate the president from the reality on the ground, briefing him only on what they thought he needed to know, and keeping him in the dark about what was really going on.

In a telling passage, Woodward takes us into the mind of Jim Mattis as he contemplates the horrors of a nuclear war with North Korea, and the responsibility he believed he shouldered when it came to making the hard decision as to whether nuclear weapons should be used or not. Constitutionally, the decision was the president's alone to make, something Mattis begrudgingly acknowledges. But in Mattis' world, he, as secretary of defense, would be the one who influenced that decision.

Mattis, along with the other general officers described by Woodward, is clearly gripped with what can only be described as the 'Military Messiah Syndrome'.

What defines this 'syndrome' is perhaps best captured in the words of Emma Sky, the female peace activist-turned adviser to General Ray Odierno, the one-time commander of US forces in Iraq. In a frank give-and-take captured by Ms. Sky in her book 'The Unravelling', Odierno spoke of the value he placed on the military's willingness to defend "freedom" anywhere in the world. " There is, " he said, " no one who understands more the importance of liberty and freedom in all its forms than those who travel the world to defend it ."

Ms. Sky responded in typically direct fashion: " One day, I will have you admit that the [Iraq] war was a bad idea, that the administration was led by a radical neocon program, that the US's standing in the world has gone down greatly, and that we are far less safe than we were before 9/11. "

Odierno would have nothing of it. " It will never happen while I'm the commander of soldiers in Iraq ."

" To lead soldiers in battle ," Ms. Sky noted, " a commander had to believe in the cause. " Left unsaid was the obvious: even if the cause was morally and intellectually unsound.

his, more than anything, is the most dangerous thing about the 'Military Messiah Syndrome' as captured by Bob Woodward -- the fact that the military is trapped in an inherited reality divorced from the present, driven by precepts which have nothing to with what is, but rather by what the military commanders believe should be. The unyielding notion that the US military is a force for good becomes little more than meaningless drivel when juxtaposed with the reality that the mission being executed is inherently wrong.

The 'Military Messiah Syndrome' lends itself to dishonesty and, worse, to self-delusion. It is one thing to lie; it is another altogether to believe the lie as truth.

No single general had the courage to tell Trump allegations against Syria were a hoax

The cruise missile attack on Syria in early April 2017 stands out as a case in point. The attack was ordered in response to allegations that Syria had dropped a bomb containing the sarin nerve agent on a town -- Khan Shaykhun -- that was controlled by Al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamic militants.

Trump was led to believe that the 59 cruise missiles launched against Shayrat Airbase -- where the Su-22 aircraft alleged to have dropped the bombs were based -- destroyed Syria's capability to carry out a similar attack in the future. When shown post-strike imagery in which the runways were clearly untouched, Trump was outraged, lashing out at Secretary of Defense Mattis in a conference call. " I can't believe you didn't destroy the runway !", Woodward reports the president shouting.

" Mr. President ," Mattis responds in the text, " they would rebuild the runway in 24 hours, and it would have little effect on their ability to deploy weapons. We destroyed the capability to deploy weapons " for months, Mattis said.

" That was the mission the president had approved, " Woodward writes, clearly channeling Mattis, " and they had succeeded ."

The problem with this passage is that it is a lie. There is no doubt that Bob Woodward has the audio tape of Jim Mattis saying these things. But none of it is true. Mattis knew it when he spoke to Woodward, and Woodward knew it when he wrote the book.

There was no confirmed use of chemical weapons by Syria at Khan Shaykhun. Indeed, the forensic evidence available about the attack points to the incident being a false flag effort -- a successful one, it turns out -- on the part of the Al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamists to provoke a US military strike against Syria. No targets related to either the production, storage or handling of chemical weapons were hit by the US cruise missiles, if for no other reason than no such targets could exist if Syria did not possess and/or use a chemical weapon against Khan Shaykhun.

Moreover, the US failed to produce a narrative of causality which provided some underlying logic to the targets that were struck at Khan Shaykhun -- "Here is where the chemical weapons were stored, here is where the chemical weapons were filled, here is where the chemical weapons were loaded onto the aircraft." Instead, 59 cruise missiles struck empty aircraft hangars, destroying derelict aircraft, and killing at least four Syrian soldiers and up to nine civilians.

The next morning, the same Su-22 aircraft that were alleged to have bombed Khan Shaykhun were once again taking off from Shayrat Air Base -- less than 24 hours after the US cruise missiles struck that facility. President Trump had every reason to be outraged by the results.

But the President should have been outraged by the processes behind the attack, where military commanders, fully afflicted by 'Military Messiah Syndrome', offered up solutions that solved nothing for problems that did not exist. Not a single general (or admiral) had the courage to tell the president that the allegations against Syria were a hoax, and that a military response was not only not needed, but would be singularly counterproductive.

But that's not how generals and admirals -- or colonels and lieutenant colonels -- are wired. That kind of introspective honesty cannot happen while they are in command.

Bob Woodward knows this truth, but he chose not to give it a voice in his book, because to do so would disrupt the pre-scripted narrative that he had constructed, around which he bent and twisted the words of those he interviewed -- including the president and Jim Mattis. As such, 'Rage' is, in effect, a lie built on a lie. It is one thing for politicians and those in power to manipulate the truth to their advantage. It's something altogether different for journalists to report something as true that they know to be a lie.

On the back cover of 'Rage', the Pulitzer prize-winning historian Robert Caro is quoted from a speech he gave about Bob Woodward. " Bob Woodward ," Caro notes, " a great reporter. What is a great reporter? Someone who never stops trying to get as close to the truth as possible ."

After reading 'Rage', one cannot help but conclude the opposite -- that Bob Woodward has written a volume which pointedly ignores the truth. Instead, he gives voice to a lie of his own construct, predicated on the flawed accounts of sources inflicted with 'Military Messiah Syndrome', whose words embrace a fantasy world populated by military members fulfilling missions far removed from the common good of their fellow citizens -- and often at conflict with the stated intent and instruction of the civilian leadership they ostensibly serve. In doing so, Woodward is as complicit as the generals and former generals he quotes in misleading the American public about issues of fundamental importance.

Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!

Scott Ritter

is a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and author of ' SCORPION KING : America's Suicidal Embrace of Nuclear Weapons from FDR to Trump.' He served in the Soviet Union as an inspector implementing the INF Treaty, in General Schwarzkopf’s staff during the Gulf War, and from 1991-1998 as a UN weapons inspector. Follow him on Twitter @RealScottRitter

See also:

Whose side are generals on? As Joint Chiefs chairman APOLOGIZES for standing by Trump, Biden confident of military support The military is trapped in an inherited reality divorced from the present

Caitlin Johnstone: Tens of millions of people displaced by the 'War On Terror', the greatest scam ever invented Misleading the American public

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Jewel Gyn 21 hours ago 17 Sep, 2020 12:23 AM

Whichever construct you want to believe, the fact remains that US has continued to sow instability around the world in the name of defending the liberty and freedom. Which brings to the question how the world can continue to allow a superpower to dictate what's good or bad for a sovereign country.

Johan le Roux Jewel Gyn 18 hours ago 17 Sep, 2020 03:42 AM

The answer you seek is not in the US's proclaimed vision of 'democracy' ot 'rescuing populations from the clutches of vile dictators.' They just say that to validate their actions which in reality is using their military as a mercenary force to secure and steal the resources of countries.

Joaquin Montano 1 day ago 16 Sep, 2020 04:57 PM

Bob Woodward was enshrined as a great, heroic like journalist by the Hollywood propaganda machine, but reality is he is a US Security agent pretending to be a well informed/connected journalist. And indeed, he is well informed/connected, since he was a Naval intelligence man, part responsible of the demise of the Nixon administration when it fell out of grace with the powerful elites, and the Washington Post being well connected with the CIA, the rest is history. And as they say, once a CIA man, always a CIA man.

DukeLeo Joaquin Montano 22 hours ago 16 Sep, 2020 11:36 PM

That is correct. Woodward is a Naval intelligence man. The elite in the US was not happy about Nixon's foreign policy and his detante with the Soviet Union. Watergate was invented, and Nixon had nothing to do with it. However, it brought him down, thank's to Woodward.

NoJustice Joaquin Montano 1 day ago 16 Sep, 2020 06:48 PM

But he also exposed Trump's lies about Covid-19.

lectrodectus 17 hours ago 17 Sep, 2020 04:45 AM

Another first class article by ....Scott .. The book makes it clear that Mattis viewed Trump as a threat to the Us' standing as the defender of a " rules -based order -built on the back of decades -old alliances-that had been in place since the end of the second World War". It also makes it clear that " Mattis and the Military officials he oversaw placed defending this order above the implementing the will of the American People " These old Military Dinosaurs simply can't let go of the past, unfortunately for the American people / the World I can't see anything ever changing, it will be business as usual ie, war after War after War.

Jonny247364 lectrodectus 5 minutes ago 17 Sep, 2020 09:53 PM

Just because donny signs a dictact it does not equate to the will of the americian people. The americian people did not ask donny to murder Assad.

neeon9 1 day ago 16 Sep, 2020 06:56 PM

"a threat to the US’ standing as the defender of a rules-based order –" Who made that a thing? who voted for the US to be the policeman of the planet? and who said their "rules" are right? I sure didn't, nor did anyone I know, even my american friends don't know whose idea it was!

fezzie035fezzm 1 day ago 16 Sep, 2020 06:29 PM

It's interesting to note that every president since J.F.K. has got America into a military conflict, or has turned a minor conflict into a major one. Trump is the exception. Trump inherited conflicts (Afghanistan, Syria etc) but has not started a new one, and he has spent his three years ending or winding down the conflicts he had inherited.

NoJustice fezzie035fezzm 1 day ago 16 Sep, 2020 06:34 PM

Trump increased military deployment to the Middle East. He increased military spending. He had a foreign general assassinated. He had missiles fired into Syria. He vetoed a bill that would limit his authority to wage war. Trump is not an exception.

T. Agee Kaye 1 day ago 16 Sep, 2020 05:59 PM

Good op ed. 'Rage is built on a lie' applies to many things.

E_Kaos T. Agee Kaye 7 hours ago 17 Sep, 2020 02:46 PM

True, the beginning of a new narrative and the continuation of an old narrative.

PYCb988 1 day ago 16 Sep, 2020 07:25 PM

Something's amiss here. Mattis was openly telling the press that there was no evidence against Assad. Just Google: Mattis Newsweek Assad.

erniedouglas 12 hours ago 17 Sep, 2020 09:14 AM

What was Watergate? Even bet says there were tapes of a private relationship between Nixon and BB Rebozo.

allan Kaplan 1 day ago 16 Sep, 2020 06:03 PM

Continuation of a highly organized and tightly controlled disinformation campaign to do one singularly the most significant and historically one of the most illegal act of American betrayal... overthrow American elections at any and all costs to install one of the most deranged, demoralized sold out brain dead Biden and his equally brown nosing Harris only to unseat a legally and democratically elected US president according to our Constitution! Will their evil acts against America work? I doubt it! But at a price that America has never before seen. Let's sit back and watch this Rose Bowl parade of America's dirtiest of the dirty politics!

E_Kaos allan Kaplan 7 hours ago 17 Sep, 2020 02:49 PM

"brown nosing harris", how apropos with the play on words.

Bill Spence allan Kaplan 1 day ago 16 Sep, 2020 06:29 PM

Both parties and their politicians are totally corrupt. Why would anyone support one side over the other? Is that because you believe the promises and lies?

custos125 17 hours ago 17 Sep, 2020 04:35 AM

Is there any evidence that both Mattis and Woodward knew that the allegations of a Syrian use of chemical weapons by plane were not true, a false flag? On the assumption of this use, the capacity to fly such attack and deploy such weapons was destroyed for some time. I recommend reading of Rage, it is quite interesting, even if some people will not like it and try to keep people away from the book.

E_Kaos custos125 7 hours ago 17 Sep, 2020 02:58 PM

My observations were: 1 - where were the bomb fragments 2 - why use rusted gas cylinders 3 - how do you attach a rusted gas cylinder to a plane 4 - were the rusted gas cylinders tossed out of a plane 5 - how did the rusted gas cylinders land so close to each other My conclusion - False Flag Incident

neeon9 1 day ago 16 Sep, 2020 06:58 PM

The is only one threat to peace in the world, and it's the US/Israeli M.I.C.. War mongering children, who actually believe, against all reason, that they are the most worthy and entitled race on earth! they are not. The US has been responsible for more misery in the world than any other state, which isn't surprising given how many Nazi's were resettled there by the Jews. They are also the only Ppl on the planet who think a nuclear war is winnable! How strange is that!

NoJustice 1 day ago 16 Sep, 2020 06:22 PM

So everything is a lie because Woodward didn't mention that there was no evidence found that linked the Syrian government to the chemical attack?

Strongbo50 6 minutes ago 17 Sep, 2020 09:58 PM

The left is firing up the Russian Interference narrative again, how Russia is trying to take the election. The real truth is in plain sight, The main stream media is trying to deliver Biden a win, along with google yahoo msn facebook and twitter. I say, come on Russia, if you can help stem that tide of lies please Mr Putin help. That's a joke but the media is real. And Woodward in his old age wants one more trophy on his mantle.

CuttySark 1 day ago 16 Sep, 2020 05:41 PM

Trump has become the great white whale. Seems like there are Ahab's everywhere willing to shoot their hearts upon the beast to bring it down whatever the cost. I think it was this kind of rage and attitude that got Adolf off to a good start.

NoJustice CuttySark 1 day ago 16 Sep, 2020 05:44 PM

He's an easy target because he keeps screwing up.

Gryphon_ 1 day ago 16 Sep, 2020 06:59 PM

The Washington Post is owned by Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon. Never in my life have I seen a newspaper that lies as much as the post. Bob Woodward works for the post.

[Sep 17, 2020] Another illustration of the economy of scale effect

Sep 17, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

William Gruff , Sep 15 2020 18:50 utc | 42

While I agree with the statement, I can, with a degree of certainty, say nothing was intercepted, and this is all face saving. As this article elucidates, no such iron dome, exists, or cannot be overcome.
All empire's bases remain exposed in the region. This is why the empire is high tailing it out of SW Asia. Zarif said so, himself.

https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2020/09/14/maintaining-pretence-over-reality-simply-put-iranians-outfoxed-us-defence-systems/

Dr Rubin, the founder and first director of the Israel Missile Defence Organization, which developed the state's first national missile defence shield, wrote in the wake of the 14 September attack on Abqaiq, (the Saudi Armco oil facility) that it was: "A brilliant feat of arms. It was precise, carefully-calibrated, devastating yet bloodless -- a model of a surgical operation the incoming threats [were not] detected by the U.S. air control systems deployed in the area, nor by U.S. satellites

This had nothing to do with flaws in the air and missile defence systems; but with the fact that they were not designed to deal with ground-hugging threats. Simply put, the Iranians outfoxed the defense systems".

William Gruff , Sep 15 2020 18:50 utc | 42

Katyusha rockets are normally fired in salvos of dozens. Two of them being launched against the American fortress in Baghdad is just gentle prodding.

Another interesting point is that Katyusha rockets (BM-21 Grad) are dirt cheap. Whatever was used to intercept them was several orders of magnitude more expensive. I'm sure the Iraqi militias can keep lobbing Katyushas at the Green Zone for much longer than America can afford to try to shoot them down.

Sakineh Bagoom , Sep 15 2020 19:08 utc | 44

Another interesting point is that Katyusha rockets (BM-21 Grad) are dirt cheap. Whatever was used to intercept them was several orders of magnitude more expensive. I'm sure the Iraqi militias can keep lobbing Katyushas at the Green Zone for much longer than America can afford to try to shoot them down.

[Sep 16, 2020] Fake News About Iran, Russia, China Is U.S. Journalism's Daily Bread

Notable quotes:

"... But CNN has and will continue to repeat the allegations as fact, so it's mission accomplished for the deep state. As another poster said on this board about manufacturing consent: "It is important to discuss the story, not its credibility, the more the discussion, the more the reaction and the more it reinforces the narrative." ..."

"... In the 1920s (or 30s), far-rightist Karl Popper coined the concept of systematic manipulation of "public opinion". This would become a hallmark of Western Civilization in the post-war. The public opinion theory states that the masses don't have an opinion for themselves or, if they have, it is sculpting/flexible. The dominant classes can, therefore, guide the masses like a shepherd, to its will. ..."

"... It is an insult to the noble profession, to call what the mainstream media in the west, especially in the USA do, journalism. In my opinion what they do is propaganda and stenography on behalf of those who are in power. I am not sure who coined the term but "presstitution" is not a bad attempt at describing their profession. ..."

"... While the western corporate media lie on a continuous basis - and that has the predictable effect - what is more insidious is not these acts of commissions ( meaning lies), but their acts of omission (meaning excluding or deemphasizing important contextual information) leading people to make the wrong conclusions. NPR in the US is an excellent example of such presstitution. ..."

"... Why are the US promoting conflict with China, with Russia? Why are they beating Europe, maybe with the intention to destroy it? Why is a new civil war in the US promoted? ..."

"... Normal (geopolitically interested) people would think: against China it is better to come together and unite, at least US & Europe, but eventually Russia included. For instance take the population of these three together: far less than China's. ..."

"... Journalism in the US is so superficial, it is a drop above the uppermost wavy comb. Not worth to pay attention to it. ..."

"... Other than few independent blog site such as this, every media outlet is in the service of its home government or foreign sponsors. Only born-suckers take the corporate media at face value. Modern journalism is nothing but an aggressive propaganda racket. ..."

"... Using lies (bearing false witness) to cause murder and theft are not exactly a new phenomenon. These 'groups of individuals', which are employing these fabricated deceptions, are doing nothing less than trying to commit murder and theft. ..."

"... Everything that was accomplished (albeit incompletely or moderately) through the New Deal and then the abortive Great Society absolutely spooked the oligarchy. Lifting much of the working class out of absolute wage slavery to the point where the next rung on Maslow's ladder was at least visible. And when it all culminated in the late 60's and early 70's with the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, the Surface Mining act, and various labor protection measures, the wealthy owner class decided the proles had gained too much power to influence "their" captive government. ..."

"... What differs, however, is the presentation. Trump is criticized (not praised) for being allegedly soft on Russia and Biden criticized for being allegedly soft on China. This clever trick ensures that just about everybody is onboard the bash-China-and-Russia train. ..."

"... In a violently polarized society, with red-blue antagonism reaching ridiculous heights, people tend to act exclusively in contradiction to the cult figure they hate so much. ..."

"... I've been saying for years here to watch the documentary - Century of the Self. If you want to learn about and understand America, its all here. Government, Corporations, Consumerism, Militarism, Deep State, Psychology, Individual selfishness and mental illness. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s ..."

Sep 16, 2020 | www.moonofalabama.org

Every few days U.S. 'intelligence' and 'officials' produce fake claims about this or that 'hostile' country. U.S. media continue to reproduce those claims even if they bare any logic and do not make any sense.

On June 27 the New York Times and the Washington Post published fake news about alleged Russian payments to the Taliban for killing U.S. troops.

The stories ran on the outlets' front pages.

Two week later the story was shown to have no basis :

[T]hat the story was obviously bullshit did not prevent Democrats in Congress, including 'Russiagate' swindler Adam Schiff, to bluster about it and to call for immediate briefings and new sanctions on Russia .

Just a day after it was published the main accusation, that Trump was briefed on the 'intelligence' died. The Director of National Intelligence, the National Security Advisor and the CIA publicly rejected the claim. Then the rest of the story started to crumble. On June 2, just one week after it was launched, the story was declared dead .
...
The NYT buried the above quoted dead corpse of the original story page A-19.

Despite that the Democrats continued to use the fake story for attacks on Donald Trump.

Yesterday the commander of the U.S. forces in the Middle East drove a stake though the heart of the dead corpse of the original story:

Two months after top Pentagon officials vowed to get to the bottom of whether the Russian government bribed the Taliban to kill American service members , the commander of troops in the region says a detailed review of all available intelligence has not been able to corroborate the existence of such a program.

"It just has not been proved to a level of certainty that satisfies me," Gen. Frank McKenzie, commander of the U.S. Central Command, told NBC News. McKenzie oversees U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

But as one fake news zombie finally dies others get resurrected. Politico's 'intelligence' stenographer Natasha Bertrand produced this nonsensical claim :

The Iranian government is weighing an assassination attempt against the American ambassador to South Africa, U.S. intelligence reports say, according to a U.S. government official familiar with the issue and another official who has seen the intelligence.

News of the plot comes as Iran continues to seek ways to retaliate for President Donald Trump's decision to kill a powerful Iranian general earlier this year, the officials said. If carried out, it could dramatically ratchet up already serious tensions between the U.S. and Iran and create enormous pressure on Trump to strike back -- possibly in the middle of a tense election season.

U.S. officials have been aware of a general threat against the ambassador, Lana Marks, since the spring, the officials said. But the intelligence about the threat to the ambassador has become more specific in recent weeks. The Iranian Embassy in Pretoria is involved in the plot, the U.S. government official said.

Ambassador Lana Marks is known for selling overpriced handbags and for her donations to Trump's campaign. To Iran she has zero political or symbolic value. There is no way Iran would ever think about an attack on such a target. Accordingly the South African intelligence services do not believe that there is such a threat:

South African Minister of State Security Ayanda Dlodlo said the matter was "receiving the necessary attention" and that the State Security Agency (SSA) was "interacting with all relevant partners both in the country and abroad, to ensure that no harm will be suffered by the US Ambassador, including any other Diplomatic Officials inside the borders of our country."

However, an informed intelligence source told Daily Maverick that although the "matter has been taken seriously as we approach all such threats, specifically, there appears to be, from our perspective, no discernible threat. Least of all from the source that it purports to emanate from.

There was "no evidence or indicator", the source said, so the plot was "not likely to be real". The "associations made are not sustainable on any level but all precautions will be put in place".

The source suggested this was an instance of the "tail wagging the dog", of the Trump administration wielding a "weapon of mass distraction" to divert attention from its failures in the election campaign running up to President Donald Trump's re-election bid on November 3.

The spokesperson for the Iranian ministry of foreign affairs, Saeed Khatibzadeh, strongly denied the allegation in the Politico report which he called "hackneyed and worn-out anti-Iran propaganda".

In January the U.S. assassinated the Iranian General Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad. Soleimani led the external campaigns of the Iranian Quds Forces. He was the one who orchestrated the campaign that defeated the Islamic State. His mythic-symbolic position for Iran and the resistance in the Middle East is beyond that of any U.S. figure.

There is simply no one in the U.S. military or political hierarchy who could be seen as his equal. Iran has therefore announced that it will take other ways to revenge the assassination of Soleimani.

As an immediate response to the assassination of Soleimani Iran had launched a precise missile attack against two U.S. bases in Iraq. It has also announced that it will make sure that the U.S. military will have to leave the Middle East. That program is in full swing now as U.S. bases in Iraq are again coming under daily missile attacks :

More than eight months after a barrage of rockets killed an American contractor and wounded four American service members in Kirkuk, Iraq, militia groups continue to target U.S. military bases in that country, and the frequency of those attacks has increased.

"We have had more indirect fire attacks around and against our bases the first half of this year than we did the first half of last year," Gen. Frank McKenzie, the commander of the U.S. Central Command, said. "Those attacks have been higher."
...
McKenzie's comments came just hours after he announced the United States would be cutting its footprint in Iraq by almost half by the end of September, with about 2,200 troops leaving the country .

Just hours agon two Katyusha rockets were fired against the U.S. embassy in Baghdad's Green Zone. Two British/U.S.convoys also came under attack . U.S. air defense took the missiles down but its anti-missile fire is only further disgruntling the Iraqi population.

These attacks are still limited and designed to not cause any significant casualties. But they will continue to increase over time until the last U.S. soldier is withdrawn from Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and other Middle East countries. That, and only that, is the punishment Iran promised as revenge for Soleimani's death.

The alleged Iranian thread against the U.S. ambassador to South Africa is just another fake news propaganda story. It is useful only for lame blustering:

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump - 3:04 UTC · Sep 15, 2020

According to press reports, Iran may be planning an assassination, or other attack, against the United States in retaliation for the killing of terrorist leader Soleimani, which was carried out for his planning a future attack, murdering U.S. Troops, and the death & suffering...
...caused over so many years. Any attack by Iran, in any form, against the United States will be met with an attack on Iran that will be 1,000 times greater in magnitude!

The danger of such fake stories about Russia or Iran is that they might be used to justify a response in the case of a false flag attack on the alleged targets.

Should something inconvenient happen to Ambassador Lana Marks the Trump administration could use the fake story as an excuse to respond with a limited attack on Iran.

It is well known by now that U.S. President Donald Trump is lying about every time he opens his mouth. Why do U.S. journalists presume that the agencies and anonymous officials who work under him are more truthful in their utterings than the man himself is hard to understand. Why do they swallow their bullshit?

Posted by b on September 15, 2020 at 11:50 UTC | Permalink

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jo6pac , Sep 15 2020 12:01 utc | 1

Amerikas propaganda machine never sleeps and sadly to many people believe the BS

Sunny Runny Burger , Sep 15 2020 12:27 utc | 2

US and European journalists are also lying constantly, that's why. Even when they make embarrassing attempts at "being unbiased" or "factual". Do they understand it? Many might not, but some do, perhaps fewer than anyone would think reasonable.

Btw a lot of these "journalists" in Europe in particular openly self-identify to "the left" or even as socialists and communists or "greens". So much for ideology as some kind of solution: entirely worthless and superficial.

Christian J. Chuba , Sep 15 2020 12:44 utc | 3

But CNN has and will continue to repeat the allegations as fact, so it's mission accomplished for the deep state. As another poster said on this board about manufacturing consent: "It is important to discuss the story, not its credibility, the more the discussion, the more the reaction and the more it reinforces the narrative."

Just for laughs, I looked at the reviews of Gordon Chang's book, 'The Coming Economic Collapse of China' to see if I could figure out the reasoning and one of the reviewers said that China weakens because they lack a free press to hold their govt accountable. I had a good laugh at that one.

vk , Sep 15 2020 12:54 utc | 4

There's an objective explanation for that.

In the 1920s (or 30s), far-rightist Karl Popper coined the concept of systematic manipulation of "public opinion". This would become a hallmark of Western Civilization in the post-war. The public opinion theory states that the masses don't have an opinion for themselves or, if they have, it is sculpting/flexible. The dominant classes can, therefore, guide the masses like a shepherd, to its will.

Friedrich von Hayek - a colleague of Popper and father of British neoliberalism (the man behind Thatcher) - then developed on the issue, by proposing the institutionalization of public opinion. He proposed a system of three or four tiers of intellectuals which a capitalist society should have. The first tier is the capitalist class itself, who would govern the entire world anonymously, through secret meetings. These meetings would produce secret reports, whose ideas would be spread to the second tier. The second tier is the academia and the more prominent politicians and other political leaderships. The third tier is the basic education teachers, who would indoctrinate the children. The fourth tier is the MSM, whose job is to transform the ideas and opinions of the first tier into "common sense" ("public opinion").

Therefore, it's not a case where the Western journalists are being fooled. Their job was never to inform the public. When they publish a lie about, say, Iran trying to kill an American ambassador in South Africa, they are not telling a lie in their eyes: they are telling an underlying truth through one thousand lies. The objective here is to convince ("teach") the American masses it is good for the USA if Iran was invaded and destroyed (which is a truth). They are like the modern Christian God, who teach its subjects the Truth through "mysterious ways".

Nathan Mulcahy , Sep 15 2020 12:56 utc | 5

It is an insult to the noble profession, to call what the mainstream media in the west, especially in the USA do, journalism. In my opinion what they do is propaganda and stenography on behalf of those who are in power. I am not sure who coined the term but "presstitution" is not a bad attempt at describing their profession.

Unfortunately they have been amazingly successful in brainwashing people. One current example, from numerous ones that could be cited, is the public's opinion on Julian Assange. .

While the western corporate media lie on a continuous basis - and that has the predictable effect - what is more insidious is not these acts of commissions ( meaning lies), but their acts of omission (meaning excluding or deemphasizing important contextual information) leading people to make the wrong conclusions. NPR in the US is an excellent example of such presstitution.

What I am saying is nothing new to the bar flies here. But I am extremely distressed when I see how poorly informed (propagandized, brainwashed) the vast majority of the people I know are. Let's say a decade ago, ideological polarization was the main reason why it was so difficult to have an open discussion on important issues the US. Today it has become even more difficult because, thanks to the success of the presstitutes, people also have different sets of "facts". And most alarmingly, after successfully creating a readership who believe in alternative "facts", the mainstream presstitutes are moving on to creating a logic-free narrative. Examples include Assad supposedly gassing his people when he was winning (even though that was guaranteed to produce western intervention against him). A more recent example is the Navalny affair. Sadly, very sadly, way too many people are affected.

Gerhard , Sep 15 2020 13:07 utc | 6

Hi, thanks, and sorry, but: why does nobody look behind the curtain?

Why are the US promoting conflict with China, with Russia? Why are they beating Europe, maybe with the intention to destroy it? Why is a new civil war in the US promoted?

Are these random developments of history? Are laws of history behind that?
NO!! Surely not!

Normal (geopolitically interested) people would think: against China it is better to come together and unite, at least US & Europe, but eventually Russia included. For instance take the population of these three together: far less than China's.

If something is going against the common sense, then there should be a reason behind. This reason I recommend You, with due respect, to find - and to uncover the plan.

Journalism in the US is so superficial, it is a drop above the uppermost wavy comb. Not worth to pay attention to it.

The actual demand is to understand and to show the forces playing deep underwater.
And to preview where these forces are determined to strike against.

Kind regards, Gerhard

DG , Sep 15 2020 13:30 utc | 7

They are all Judith Miller now.

morongobill , Sep 15 2020 13:39 utc | 8

Like the famed slogan of septic tank pumpers, the Gray Lady's masthead should read, "Your shit is our bread and butter!"

ptb , Sep 15 2020 13:53 utc | 9

Yep. We're into some pretty overt 1984 territory now... It's really a shame.

Richard Steven Hack , Sep 15 2020 14:37 utc | 10

Gareth Porter's latest on "Russian hacking"...

Dark Web Voter Database Report Casts New Doubts on Russian Election Hack Narrative

A new report showing that US state-level voter databases were publicly available calls into question the narrative that Russian intelligence "targeted" US state election-related websites in 2016.

The problem with these sorts of accusations about "state-sponsored" hacking is they assume that because a target has some connection to a state or some political activity that it means the hackers are "nation-state". In reality, personal identification information (PII) is a commodity on the black market, along with intellectual property - and *any* hacker will target *any* such source of PII. So the mere fact that it is an election year, and that voting organizations are loaded with PII, makes them an obvious target for any and every hacker.

"Oregon's chief information security officer, Lisa Vasa, told the Washington Post in September 2017 that her team blocks 'upwards of 14 million attempts to access our network every day."'

This is the usual ridiculous claim from almost every organization. They treat every Internet packet that hits their firewall as being an "attempt to access" the network (or worse, a "breach" - which it is not.) Which is technically true, but would only be relevant if they had *no* firewall - a setup which no organization runs these days. By definition, 99.99999% of those attempts are random mass scans of a block of IP addresses by either a hacker or some malware on someone else's machine - or even a computer security researcher attempting to find out how many sites are vulnerable.

Hoarsewhisperer , Sep 15 2020 14:52 utc | 11

"It just has not been proved to a level of certainty that satisfies me," Gen. Frank McKenzie, commander of the U.S. Central Command, told NBC News. McKenzie oversees U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

Barflies should write Gen Frank McKenzie inside the back cover of their diaries, and count the days until we hear of/from him again. I've a feeling he's crossed a line and knows precisely what he's doing and why. Imo, the Swamp has just been put on notice.

Sakineh Bagoom , Sep 15 2020 14:54 utc | 12

Posted by: vk | Sep 15 2020 12:54 utc | 4
In the 1920s (or 30s), far-rightist Karl Popper coined the concept of "public opinion".

vk, I can't find anything regarding this coinage. Could you please provide a link.
Wiki is specially devoid of it and it goes back to 16 century.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_opinion The term public opinion was derived from the French opinion publique which was first used in 1588 by Michel de Montaigne in the second edition of his Essays

juliania , Sep 15 2020 15:12 utc | 13

Thank you, b. In this world of illusion that mainstream press provides it is forgivable that we cannot even convince members of our own families that are dear to us of the underlying truths behind what these masters of deception continue to print. Surely they only do so because livelihoods are threatened, and the public perceptions are reaching a critical point where belief in what they write, read by the diminishing numbers of faithful few, reaches a pinnacle of perception and spills chaotically down into a watershed of realization.

I remember when we were told what happens on the top floor of the New York Times. It opened my eyes. And perhaps here also, b is providing a chink through which we may glimpse what is happening in military circles in fields of operation where facts collide with fiction:

"We have had more indirect fire attacks around and against our bases the first half of this year than we did the first half of last year," Gen. Frank McKenzie, the commander of the U.S. Central Command, said. "Those attacks have been higher."
...
McKenzie's comments came just hours after he announced the United States would be cutting its footprint in Iraq by almost half by the end of September, with about 2,200 troops leaving the country.

vk , Sep 15 2020 15:13 utc | 14

@ Posted by: Sakineh Bagoom | Sep 15 2020 14:54 utc | 12

On Hayek's "tiering", google "IHS model" ("pyramid of social change") and his book "The Intellectuals and Socialism".

On Popper's conception of "public opinion", see "The Open Society and Its Enemies" (1945). Yes, the term itself is not Popper's invention - he never claimed to have done so. But he gave it a "twist", and we can say nowadays every Western journalist's conception of "public opinion" is essentially Popper's.

Kooshy , Sep 15 2020 15:36 utc | 18

Why do swallow their bullshit?

because on matters related to Iran, China and Russia, they are not independent, there is no real difference between the two camps in US, Biden' foreign policy which is endorsed and supported by NYT and WP is not that different than Trump's, if not more radical. There is no free press in US, as matter of fact, as long as this United Oligarchy of America exist there will be no free press.

Sakineh Bagoom , Sep 15 2020 15:50 utc | 20

OK, I admit it. I read this rag, just because Paul Pillar posts there. And yes, there is an "Iran derangement" syndrome in US, where people go to sleep and dream Iran. They wake up from wet dream of bloody Iranian babies, asking, have we sanctioned Iran today? https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2020/09/14/when-it-comes-to-ir