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.
Anatol Lieven's recent piece, How
the west lost , describes this moral defeat of the 'west' after its dubious 'victory' in
the cold war:
Accompanying this overwhelmingly dominant political and economic ideology was an American
geopolitical vision equally grandiose in ambition and equally blind to the lessons of
history. This was summed up in the memorandum on "Defence Planning Guidance 1994-1999," drawn
up in April 1992 for the Bush Senior administration by Under-Secretary of Defence Paul
Wolfowitz and Lewis "Scooter" Libby, and subsequently leaked to the media. Its central
message was:
...
While that 1992 Washington paper spoke of the "legitimate interests" of other states, it
clearly implied that it would be Washington that would define what interests were legitimate,
and how they could be pursued. And once again, though never formally adopted, this "doctrine"
became in effect the standard operating procedure of subsequent administrations. In the early
2000s, when its influence reached its most dangerous height, military and security elites
would couch it in the terms of "full spectrum dominance." As the younger President Bush
declared in his State of the Union address in January 2002, which put the US on the road to
the invasion of Iraq: "By the grace of God, America won the Cold War A world once divided
into two armed camps now recognises one sole and pre-eminent power, the United States of
America."
But that power has since failed in the wars on Iraq and Afghanistan, during the 2008
financial crisis and now again in the pandemic.
Probably counting on the desperate vanity and ego of Trump with the looming election to not
shorten the length of the leash on Pompass. Pompass must also have noticed that Trump is
willing to shove the homeland into civil war in order to claim victory, so maybe Pompass
finally has the latitude to slake his bloodthirstiness.
Since I'm wondering down the path of speculation, a bit further into the murk. If there is
one thing that characterizes the US today from the highest to the low, it is corruption. I
submit that this corruption finds its zenith in the military, and especially the procurement
train: any engagement with a near-peer (or the coalition/bloc we're talking about here,) and
the rot and corruption will collapse this empire in upon itself. I've had this suspicion for
some time, and believe if the going got rough the collapse would come rather quickly and
completely.
Following a long line of very arrogant american imperial "negotiators", mr oblivion
billingslea used standard "negotiating" techniques like
(a) accusing the other side of crimes Americans have committed first and forever, eg,
extreme lying, bad faith argumentation, military aggression, foreign government security
breaching, assassination and poisoning [as in american presidents and independent thinkers],
and of course, electoral cheating;
(b) putting the opponent in the "negotiation process" on the defensive or back foot by
stating false news allegations amplified by the media controlled by the american empire;
(c) offering nothing useful or commitable to be done by the empire, and yet
"magnanimously" demanding the moon as opponents' concessions, eg, russian, iranian and
chinese nuclear weapons limits, but not for nato's development and deployment, and; (d) after
making impossible demands, the imperials accuse the opponents of hostility and unwillingness
to "negotiate".
The russians can skillfully agree by stating that they only require the americans to
reduce their nukes to 320 pieces like china, and in less than five years.
This is why it is very important for sovereign nations to read the guidebook, called the
"idiot's guide on running the american empire", and developing deep and lasting
solutions.
As for the other american imperial military "advantages", eg, constellation of
"aggression" satellites, andrei forgot to mention that these can be shot or burned down in
minutes easily by russia, china and even iran, as these stations cannot hide or run away in
earth orbits.
Replenishment of weapons and military supplies after 3 months is rather doomed as the
cheap, mass production and manufacturing facilities do not exist. Which must be re-created
somehow but now
American lands are the targets. Much, Much Different Than WW2 !!
And of course, russia can always nuke down the USA and its vassal countries, and thus
permanently ruin their economies for a decade or more, they don't know how to run defense --
this was always the fatal weakness of all bullies - if they'll have enough time to "learn
it"... let's see... I doubt this.
Let's see americans try to start and conduct a nuclear war after too many spy, internet
and gps satellites are shot down. Russia can even do this today using conventional
explosives, and the world will be shocked how helpless the american military and economy can
be made even without using russian nukes.
There are countries still immune to the numerous american imperial diseases that are
already documented daily in zerohedge postings. The better countries still have lots of
parents telling their kids to study and work hard so they can have better lives than their
ancestors.
In oregon and california, they teach unemployable kids to burn something or somebody
sometime before dinner.
CdVision • 11 hours ago
I was about to say that what now comes out of the US & Trump's mouth in particular, is
Orwellian. But that credits it with too much gravitas. The true comparison is Alice in
Wonderland:
"Words mean whatever I want them to mean".
Reminiscence of the Future.. ( http://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2020/09/russia-steals-everything.html)
Russia "Steals Everything" !! (Not just China, oops... ???!!!!)
And Jesus Christ was an American and was born in Kalamazoo, MI. It is a well-known fact. So
Donald Trump, evidently briefed by his "utterly competent and crushingly precise aids", knows
now that too! !!! LOL
> US President Donald Trump claims that Russia developed hypersonic weapons after
allegedly stealing information from the United States.
> According to him, "Russia received this information from the Obama administration,"
Moscow "stole this information." Trump said that "Russia received this information and then
created" the rocket, reports TASS.
> "We have such advanced weapons that President Xi, Putin and everyone else will envy
us. They do not know what we have, but they know that it is something that no one has ever
heard of. "
->We are the foremost and always number one. Everything is invented only by us, the
rest can only either steal, or be gifted with our developments for good behavior. This
situation is eternal, unchanging, everyone lags behind American Tikhalogii at least 50 years
(the time frame was chosen so that even a 20-year-old would lose heart, "what's the point of
trying to catch up, it won't work anyway, in my lifetime"). It was, is, and will be, this is
the natural course of events.
All this is delivered in the format of the classic Sunday sermon of the American
provincial Protestant church, coding the parishioners for further deeds and actions. And it
worked effectively, creating in some basalt confidence "we are better because we are better",
in others - "I don't mind anything for joining this radiant success, I'm ready for anything,
I'll go for any hardships and crimes, if only There".
Only now it worked. In a situation where the frequency of pronouncing such mantras is more
and more, emotions are invested in them too, but in fact everyone understands that this is
what autohypnosis does not work.
The poor have stolen from the United States, if you look at it, literally everything. And
5G and the superweapon of the gods. Moreover, a pearl with a characteristic handwriting is
not copy / paste, but move / paste, you bastards. Therefore, the United States does not even
have any traces of developments left - the guys just sit in an empty room, shrug their hands,
"here we have a farm of mechanical killer dolls, with the faces of Mickey Mouse overexposed,
and now look - traces of bast shoes and candy wrappers from "Korkunov" only, ah-ah-ah, well,
something like that, ah. "
At the same time, there are no cases of sabotage, espionage - whole projects were simply
developed, developed, brought to a working product, and then the hob - and that's it, and
disappeared. And this became noticeable only after years. And all the persons involved are
like "wow, wow."
Psychiatric crazy fool of the head, no less.
But due to the fact that all of the above theses are driven very tightly into the template
for the perception of the world, both those who voiced these theses and the listeners are
satisfied.
Because the post-American post-hegemonic world is not terrible because in some ratings
another country will be higher there, and Detroit will never be rebuilt "as it was". It is
scary because it is not clear how to live for people who had no support in the form of global
goals, faith, philosophy of life, and all this was replaced by narcissism on the basis of
"successful success is my second self".
This means that the moment when this issue has to be resolved must be delayed to the last.
Leaving the whole topic on the plane "we were offended, we are offended, we were dishonest,
which means we have the right to any action" is not a bad move.
It's a pity that it doesn't really affect the essence of what is happening.
"... Accompanying this overwhelmingly dominant political and economic ideology was an American geopolitical vision equally grandiose in ambition and equally blind to the lessons of history. This was summed up in the memorandum on "Defence Planning Guidance 1994-1999," drawn up in April 1992 for the Bush Senior administration by Under-Secretary of Defence Paul Wolfowitz and Lewis "Scooter" Libby ..."
"... In the early 2000s, when its influence reached its most dangerous height, military and security elites would couch it in the terms of "full spectrum dominance." ..."
"... Bhadrakumar describes how the 'west', through its own behavior, created a mighty block that now opposes its dictates. He concludes ..."
"... Quintessentially, Russia and China contest a set of neoliberal practices that have evolved in the post-World War 2 international order validating selective use of human rights as a universal value to legitimise western intervention in the domestic affairs of sovereign states. On the other hand, they also accept and continuously affirm their commitment to a number of fundamental precepts of the international order -- in particular, the primacy of state sovereignty and territorial integrity, the importance of international law, and the centrality of the United Nations and the key role of the Security Council. ..."
"... The rules are follow the dictates of our western neo-colonial institutions like the World Bank, the IMF et all. ..."
"... Its a pretty simple concept backed by the attack dog of the US military. ..."
"... 'Rules based order' was always a euphemism for exceptionalism of one kind or another. The term was invented to avoid having to say 'rule of law', which invited criticism because even the most minimal amount of law (such as Geneva conventions, ICC etc) was rejected in practice and in policy by the leading members of the actually existing world order. ..."
"... Rumor says the "Wolfowitz Doctrine" also envisioned the balkanization of Russia (the document is still classified, but it leaked to a NYT journalist at the time, who published a report on it). ..."
"... It is not over in the sense that the West hasn't given up in its attempts to take over the world. But as the "exceptionalist" western countries decline, they will go even crazier and crazier and there will be full blown hysteria. ..."
"... In this sense, the rule based order will be over as there will be only disorder and animalistic, crazed western rage and bullying. The West is like a trapped animal. It will start pouncing, raging and snarling like a wild animal. This is the real nature of the West. A hungry wild animal that needs to feed. ..."
"... But behind the liberal mask, there are hateful eyes and gnashing teeth, and hunger and greed for other people's resources. ..."
"... Expressed in words, the West's face says "I'm the best and you are nothing! Give me your stuff! And this is how it will forever be!" ..."
"... As Putin has said, the US is no longer agreement capable. ..."
"... Instead of bringing Russia into the Western liberal democracies (with the threat of major nuclear war now drastically reduced) the now Anglo-Zionist Empire just looted it. ..."
"... Actually the Trump Administration has done far more against Russia than all US administrations from the last 30 years. Do not listen what they say, look at what they do. Right now the US in a full blown Cold War with Russia with ever increasing attacks ..."
"... Rules based international order .... the U.S. functions as the the Supreme Court for the U.N. , 'we have invoked snapback sanctions and extended the arms embargo on Iran indefinitely and are enforcing it'. UN, 'but your vote failed'. ..."
"... Rules based International Order is the dog whistle for global private finance controlled economies. It is sad that we are in a civilization war with China/Russia about who runs international finance going forward and yet there is no discussion of the subject but instead all sorts of proxy conflicts. ..."
"... The US is not just facing relative decline -- the fact that others are catching up in key ways. The US is also facing absolute decline -- the fact that it is suffering a degradation of capacities and is losing competitive battles in key areas. Examples of absolute decline include the Russian and Chinese military-technological revolutions based on anti-ship and hypersonic missiles and air defense systems; Chinese 5G; China's demonstrative success in suppressing COVID and its overall manufacturing power; the declining quality of life for most Americans; and the collapse of American institutional competence. ..."
"... Related to this, we can't separate these dynamics from the political economy of the states in question. China, in particular, is showing that an interventionist state, with high levels of public ownership, is essential to qualitative power, human security, and economic and social development. ..."
"... Psssst, learning Russian is easier than Chinese and we already know a few Russian words, such as novichok. ..."
"... Russia after the Cold War was a shambles and today it remains a weak economy with a limited role on the world stage, concerned mainly with retaining some of its traditional areas of influence. China is a vastly more formidable competitor. If the US (and the UK, if as usual we tag along) approach the relationship with Beijing with anything like the combination of arrogance, ignorance, greed, criminality, bigotry, hypocrisy and incompetence with which western elites managed the period after the Cold War, then we risk losing the competition and endangering the world. [my emphasis] ..."
"... It is not over in the sense that the West hasn't given up in its attempts to take over the world. ..."
"... The contest between the Empire and the upstarts is not over by a long shot. What the West HAS lost is the "inevitability" argument. But for the upstarts to actually prevail in their "multi-lateral" vision, they have to actually entice countries to join them despite threats and intimidation from the Empire. ..."
"... The Empire's power-elite KNOW that Russia, China, and allies of Russia-China don't want to be subject to their "rules-based order". The Empire is actively working to undermine, subvert, and divide the countries that oppose it. While also securing their own territories/population via intimidation and propaganda. ..."
"... On rules based disorder and the capitulation of Merkel and her BND lapdogs to the 'hate Russia' fulminations of the UKUSA morons. I see that the German Parliament has NOT TAKEN its red pills these days and is reluctant to swallow the BS. ..."
"... My late father as an army officer prosecuted Japanese war criminals for their atrocities now the Anglo-Zionists are the pre-eminent war criminals and their leaders loudly proclaim "our values" as a pathological and propagandistic form of projection. Is it possible they are unaware of their blatant hypocrisy ? ..."
"... There is no "international law" and no "international order." There is only relative power. And when those powers clash, as seems inevitable, the world is in for a major nuclear war, and probably preceded by several more regional wars. Meanwhile, the US internally is collapsing into economic disaster, social unrest, political and social oppression, infrastructure failure, and medical disasters. We'll probably be in martial law sometime between November 3 and January 21 if not beyond that period, just for starters. ..."
"... America's "Rules-Based International Order" is a Goebbelsian euphemism for a Lies-Based Imperial Order, led by the USA and its war criminal allies (aka the self-styled Free World). ..."
"... The true nature of this America-led order is exposed by the USA's war of aggression against Iraq (which violated international law and had no United Nations sanction) and its decades-long War on Terrorism, which have murdered hundreds of thousands of people and maimed, immiserated, or refugeed millions of more people. ..."
"... The Empire is very much alive and dangerous. Ask Iran, ask Syria, as the Palestinians, ask the Russians, ask the Chinese. Ask numerous African nations. Even Pangloss was not so stupidly naive. ..."
"... quite right. 'Rules based order' was always a euphemism for exceptionalism of one kind or another. ie US and its "allies" is basically asking the rest of the world to finance their (the US et al) version of a welfare state. ..."
"... China and rest of the worlds foreign central banks stopped growing their foreign exchange reserves (on net) in 2014 leaving the US in a sort of limbo. ..."
"... "Major powers maintaining cooperation, at least not engaging in Cold War-style antagonism, is the important foundation of world peace. China is committed to maintaining cooperation among major powers, as well as being flexible in the balance of interests acceptable to all parties. The problem is the Trump administration is hysterically shaping decoupling and confrontation between Beijing and Washington, and has been mobilizing more forces to its side at home and abroad. Those US policymakers are deliberately splitting the world like during the Cold War. ..."
"... The first 'Cold War' was entirely contrived. The US knew the Soviet Union was weak and had no agenda beyond maintaining security and its own reconstruction after WW2. There was no threat of a Western European invasion, or of the USSR spreading revolution globally. All that Cold War ideology is a lie. And the same lying is taking place about China today. No difference. ..."
"... It's good to see discussion here of the nefarious role of the American far-right neocon warmongers in the State Department, intelligence services and military leadership just before the turn of the new century. What I have never seen clearly explained, however, is the connection between these very dangerous forces and the equally cynical and reactionary Israeli politicians and the Mossad, as well as Saudi Arabian officials. ..."
The 'western' countries, i.e. the United States and its 'allies', love to speak of a 'rules based international order'
which they say everyone should follow. That 'rules based order' is a way more vague concept
than the actual rule of law:
The G7 is united by its shared values and commitment to a rules based international order.
That order is being challenged by authoritarianism, serious violations of human rights,
exclusion and discrimination, humanitarian and security crises, and the defiance of
international law and standards.
As members of the G7, we are convinced that our societies and the world have reaped
remarkable benefits from a global order based on rules and underscore that this system must
have at its heart the notions of inclusion, democracy and respect for human rights,
fundamental freedoms, diversity, and the rule of law.
That the 'rules based international order' is supposed to include vague concepts of
'democracy', 'human rights', 'fundamental freedoms', 'diversity' and more makes it easy to
claim that this or that violation of the 'rules based international order' has occurred. Such
violations can then be used to impose punishment in the form of sanctions or war.
That the above definition was given by a minority of a few rich nations makes it already
clear that it can not be a global concept for a multilateral world. That would require a set of
rules that everyone has agreed to. We already had and have such a system. It is called
international law. But at the end of the cold war the 'west' began to ignore the actual
international law and to replace it with its own rules which others were then supposed to
follow. That hubris has come back to bite the 'west'.
Anatol Lieven's recent piece, How
the west lost , describes this moral defeat of the 'west' after its dubious 'victory' in
the cold war:
Accompanying this overwhelmingly dominant political and economic ideology was an American
geopolitical vision equally grandiose in ambition and equally blind to the lessons of
history. This was summed up in the memorandum on "Defence Planning Guidance 1994-1999," drawn
up in April 1992 for the Bush Senior administration by Under-Secretary of Defence Paul
Wolfowitz and Lewis "Scooter" Libby, and subsequently leaked to the media. Its central
message was:
...
While that 1992 Washington paper spoke of the "legitimate interests" of other states, it
clearly implied that it would be Washington that would define what interests were legitimate,
and how they could be pursued. And once again, though never formally adopted, this "doctrine"
became in effect the standard operating procedure of subsequent administrations. In the early
2000s, when its influence reached its most dangerous height, military and security elites
would couch it in the terms of "full spectrum dominance." As the younger President Bush
declared in his State of the Union address in January 2002, which put the US on the road to
the invasion of Iraq: "By the grace of God, America won the Cold War A world once divided
into two armed camps now recognizes one sole and pre-eminent power, the United States of
America."
But that power has since failed in the wars on Iraq and Afghanistan, during the 2008
financial crisis and now again in the pandemic. It also created new competition to its role due
to its own behavior:
On the one hand, American moves to extend Nato to the Baltics and then (abortively) on to
Ukraine and Georgia, and to abolish Russian influence and destroy Russian allies in the
Middle East, inevitably produced a fierce and largely successful Russian nationalist
reaction. ...
On the other hand, the benign and neglectful way in which Washington regarded
the rise of China in the generation after the Cold War (for example, the blithe decision to
allow China to join the World Trade Organisation) was also rooted in ideological arrogance.
Western triumphalism meant that most of the US elites were convinced that as a result of
economic growth, the Chinese Communist state would either democratise or be overthrown; and
that China would eventually have to adopt the western version of economics or fail
economically. This was coupled with the belief that good relations with China could be
predicated on China accepting a so-called "rules-based" international order in which the US
set the rules while also being free to break them whenever it wished; something that nobody
with the slightest knowledge of Chinese history should have believed.
The retired Indian ambassador M.K. Bhadrakumar touches on the same points in an excellent
series about the new Chinese-Russian alliance:
Bhadrakumar describes how the 'west', through its own behavior, created a mighty block that
now opposes its dictates. He concludes:
Quintessentially, Russia and China contest a set of neoliberal practices that have evolved in
the post-World War 2 international order validating selective use of human rights as a
universal value to legitimise western intervention in the domestic affairs of sovereign
states. On the other hand, they also accept and continuously affirm their commitment to a
number of fundamental precepts of the international order -- in particular, the primacy of
state sovereignty and territorial integrity, the importance of international law, and the
centrality of the United Nations and the key role of the Security Council.
While the U.S. wants a vague 'rules based international order' China and Russia emphasize an
international order that is based on the rule of law. Two recent comments by leaders from China
and Russia underline this.
China firmly supports the United Nations' central role in global affairs and opposes any
country acting like boss of the world, President Xi Jinping said on Monday.
...
"No country has the right to dominate global affairs, control the destiny of others or keep
advantages in development all to itself," Xi said.
Noting that the UN must stand firm for justice, Xi said that mutual respect and equality
among all countries, big or small, is the foremost principle of the UN Charter.
No country should be allowed to do whatever it likes and be the hegemon or bully, Xi said.
"Unilateralism is a dead end," he said.
...
International laws should not be distorted or used as a pretext to undermine other countries'
legitimate rights and interests or world peace and stability, he added.
The Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov went even further by outright rejecting the 'western rules' that the 'rules
based international order' implies:
Ideas that Russia and China will play by sets of Western rules under any circumstances are
deeply flawed , Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with New
York-based international Russian-language RTVI channel.
"I was reading our political scientists who are well known in the West. The following idea
is becoming louder and more pronounced: it is time to stop applying Western metrics to our
actions and stop trying to be liked by the West at any cost . These are very reputable people
and a rather serious statement. It is clear to me that the West is wittingly or unwittingly
pushing us towards this analysis. It is likely to be done unwittingly," Lavrov noted.
"However, it is a big mistake to think that Russia will play by Western rules in any case,
just like thinking this in terms of China."
As an alliance China and Russia have all the raw materials, energy, engineering and
industrial capabilities, agriculture and populations needed to be completely independent from
the 'west'. They have no need nor any desire to follow dubious rules dictated by other powers.
There is no way to make them do so. As M.K. Bhadrakumar concludes
:
The US cannot overwhelm that alliance unless it defeats both China and Russia together,
simultaneously. The alliance, meanwhile, also happens to be on the right side of history.
Time works in its favour, as the decline of the US in relative comprehensive national power
and global influence keeps advancing and the world gets used to the "post-American century."
---
P.S.
On a lighter note: RT , Russia's state sponsored international TV station, has recently
hired Donald Trump
(vid). He will soon host his own reality show on RT . The working title is reportedly:
"Putin's Apprentice". The apprenticeship might give him a chance to learn how a nation that has
failed can be resurrected to its former glory.
Posted by b on September 22, 2020 at 17:59 UTC | Permalink
The Liberal International Order or Pax Americana are synonyms for The
Rules Based Order. The plan that was followed for years was the outline given by Zbigniew
Brzezinski and the Trilateral Commission in The Grand Chessboard to "contain" the ambition of
Russia, China, and Iran over their interest to expand into Central Asia and the Middle East.
Brzezinski changed
in 2016, so did Kissinger, Brzezinski wrote that it was time to make peace and to integrate
with Russia, China and Iran. But the elites had changed by then, newer people had taken
over and no longer followed Brzezinski.
The rules are follow the dictates of our western neo-colonial institutions like the World
Bank, the IMF et all. We will own you and you will do what we say and those are the rules.
Any challenge to our authority will lead to war, economic ruin or both.
Its a pretty simple concept backed by the attack dog of the US military.
'Rules based order' was always a euphemism for exceptionalism of one kind or another.
The term was invented to avoid having to say 'rule of law', which invited criticism
because even the most minimal amount of law (such as Geneva conventions, ICC etc) was
rejected in practice and in policy by the leading members of the actually existing world
order.
Rumor says the "Wolfowitz Doctrine" also envisioned the balkanization of Russia (the document
is still classified, but it leaked to a NYT journalist at the time, who published a report on
it).
It is not over in the sense that the West hasn't given up in its attempts to take over the
world. But as the "exceptionalist" western countries decline, they will go even crazier and
crazier and there will be full blown hysteria.
In this sense, the rule based order will be over as there will be only disorder and
animalistic, crazed western rage and bullying. The West is like a trapped animal. It will start pouncing, raging and snarling like a wild
animal. This is the real nature of the West. A hungry wild animal that needs to feed.
All the liberalism is just self-congratulation about how exceptionalist it is. It is born
out of narcisism and self-obsession during the "good times" of the West.
But behind the liberal mask, there are hateful eyes and gnashing teeth, and hunger and
greed for other people's resources.
The real face of it is hateful and snarling. And it will be fully exposed during the next
10 years, as the West goes crazy and it becomes a hungry wild animal that desperately needs
to feed.
Expressed in words, the West's face says "I'm the best and you are nothing! Give me your
stuff! And this is how it will forever be!"
Countries need to stay out from the wild animal and carry a big stick just in case, until
it succumbs from its internal hatreds and contradictions.
As Putin has said, the US is no longer agreement capable. As b. outlines. the US elites no
longer follow the rule of law. This is even true within the US. The US inherited the role
formerly played by the British Empire after WW2.
The national security apparatus of both the
US and the Soviet Union kept the Cold War going. Notice how soon after JFK was assassinated
Khrushchev was deposed. Gorbachev rightly stopped the Soviets superpower regime. As Dmitri Orlov points out - Empire hollowed out the Soviet Union and he sees it doing the same to the
US.
Instead of bringing Russia into the Western liberal democracies (with the threat of major
nuclear war now drastically reduced) the now Anglo-Zionist Empire just looted it. The life
expectancy of Russians fell 7 years in a decade until rescued by Putin.
It can now be seen
that the Nixon-Kissinger opening up to China was not to gain access to its large market
potential but to gain access to hundreds of millions of cheap, disciplined, and educated
workers. The elites starting in the 70s became greedier. Jet travel,electronic communication,
and computers allowed the outsourcing of manufacture.
The spread of air conditioning allowed
even the too hot south to be a location. First in the US as the factories began their march
through the non union southern states onto Mexico. Management from the north could now live
in air conditioned houses, drive air conditioned cars and work in air conditioned offices.
The 70s oil inflation led to stagnation as the unionized labor were powerful enough to get
cost of living raises. With the globalization of labor union power in the US has been
destroyed. As Eric X Li points out China's one party rule actually changes policies easier
than the Western democracies.
So China's government hasn't joined in with the West in just
creating wealth for the top 1% and debt for the real economy.
As b. pointed out, the Anglo
Zionist policies created the mutual benefit partnership of Russia and China. The Chinese belt
and road initiative appears to be intent on creating a large trading zone that could benefit
those involved. The US is just using sanctions and the military to turn sovereign functioning
countries that don't go along with it into failed states and their infrastructure turned to
rubble
Now, the US is forced into puppeteering the UN in order to maintain the illusion of the
'rules based order,' even as it slides further and further away from any meaningful
international cooperation:
Fortunately for the world, the United States took responsible action to stop this from
happening. In accordance with our rights under UNSCR 2231, we initiated the snapback process
to restore virtually all previously terminated UN sanctions, including the arms embargo. The
world will be safer as a result.
The United States expects all UN Member States to fully comply with their obligations
to implement these measures. In addition to the arms embargo, this includes restrictions
such as the ban on Iran engaging in enrichment and reprocessing-related activities, the
prohibition on ballistic missile testing and development by Iran, and sanctions on the
transfer of nuclear- and missile-related technologies to Iran, among others. If UN Member
States fail to fulfill their obligations to implement these sanctions, the United States is
prepared to use our domestic authorities to impose consequences for those failures and ensure
that Iran does not reap the benefits of UN-prohibited activity.
Actually the Trump Administration has done far more against Russia than all US
administrations from the last 30 years. Do not listen what they say, look at what they
do. Right now the US in a full blown Cold War with Russia with ever increasing attacks.
Pompeo talks more or less continually about "China's bullying behaviour". To me it is
wonderful that he can say this with a straight face. (Perhaps it is a result of his lessons
in the CIA on "how to lie better".)All the countries that have engaged with China have
benefitted from it, whether as salesmen or as recipients of aid or loans at advantageous
rates. The countries that have engaged with America have mostly (All?) lost. (The fifty+
countries invaded and wrecked since WW2 or the NATO "allies" or the countries attacked with
sanctions.) Either their economies were destroyed or billions upon billions of dollars were
paid to the US MIC. The NATO member countries have got what from their membership? Formerly,
they had "Protection" from an imaginary Soviet threat, more recently "Protection" from an
equally imaginary Russian threat! Some bargain, that!
Rules based international order .... the U.S. functions as the the Supreme Court for the
U.N. , 'we have invoked snapback sanctions and extended the arms embargo on Iran
indefinitely and are enforcing it'. UN, 'but your vote failed'.
U.S, 'we have the right to seize cargo between any two countries transported in
international waters based on U.S. federal appeals court decision even though the transaction
in no way involves the U.S. We call this Freedom of Navigation and why we need to have
aircraft carriers in the South China Sea and Arabian Gulf'
Rules based International Order is the dog whistle for global private finance controlled
economies.
It is sad that we are in a civilization war with China/Russia about who runs international
finance going forward and yet there is no discussion of the subject but instead all sorts of
proxy conflicts.
Thanks for the posting b as it gets to the core myths around the global private finance
jackboot on the neck of countries in the West.
The US is not just facing relative decline -- the fact that others are catching up in key
ways. The US is also facing absolute decline -- the fact that it is suffering a degradation
of capacities and is losing competitive battles in key areas. Examples of absolute decline
include the Russian and Chinese military-technological revolutions based on anti-ship and
hypersonic missiles and air defense systems; Chinese 5G; China's demonstrative success in
suppressing COVID and its overall manufacturing power; the declining quality of life for most
Americans; and the collapse of American institutional competence.
Related to this, we can't separate these dynamics from the political economy of the states
in question. China, in particular, is showing that an interventionist state, with high levels
of public ownership, is essential to qualitative power, human security, and economic and
social development.
Capitalism might enrich a few, but it is the primary cause of America's relative and
absolute decline.
US and allied military analysts have been talking over the last year or so of the need to
enter a single focus and total "wartime" posture throughout our societies, with all financial
and industrial output directed to the "war". This has influenced the information/ propaganda
efforts, but also the uptick in military manoeuvres around Taiwan and renewed NATO pressure
directed at Russia (including the recent provocative B52 flights). Don't think Russia/China
can be tricked into over-reacting, but some kind of loss-of-life military confrontation may
be what the rules-based side is looking for as the population at large will probably not
accept a "wartime sacrifice" regimen without such.
Whilst Russia and China are creating a truly new, unique and creative alliance and a
market of everything, in Australia the "authorities" are sicking their police dogs on poor
grannies sitting on park benches. This image of five brainless armed state goons in a show of
force over two quiet little grannies really puts things into perspective. It must be that New
World Order that Soros and puppets always talked about.
Psssst, learning Russian is easier than Chinese and we already know a few Russian words,
such as novichok.
The post scriptum stopped the clock for me. Has our host slipped into our drink there a
profound prophecy, disguised as jesting?
Many agree something big will happen (break?) soon, possibly with the elections. The other
thing is the Americans' ability to change course, drop all baggage, and run off in a new,
even the opposite direction with unfettered enthusiasm (and ferocity). No people has a
greater capacity for almost instant renewal, once it chooses to.
I also notice that the spoof takes good aim at The Donald's peculiarities, though in a
fair and human way. The proverbial Russian warmth, or a humorous invitation?
Meanwhile, I enjoy my newfound optimism in these dark times. Thanks b!
Thanks b and on Anatol Lieven in the Prospect story (fairy story?)...
Russia after the Cold War was a shambles and today it remains a weak economy with a limited
role on the world stage, concerned mainly with retaining some of its traditional areas of
influence. China is a vastly more formidable competitor. If the US (and the UK, if as usual
we tag along) approach the relationship with Beijing with anything like the combination of
arrogance, ignorance, greed, criminality, bigotry, hypocrisy and incompetence with which
western elites managed the period after the Cold War, then we risk losing the
competition and endangering the world. [my emphasis]
Lieven simply does not see it. Has it ever occurred to Lieven that colonialism just might
be rejected by both Russia and China and that there might be no competition? Does Lieven
watch too much football?
What is it that endangers the world in Lieven's petite cortex? This verbose Lieven
tosh is littered with fancy sentences trawled from here and there but always presented to us
from a narrow dimensional mind with limited analysis and seemingly zero interrogation.
again:- "then we risk losing the competition and endangering the world"...
So Lieven thinks the current behaviour of the US hegemon and its collaborator the UK is
innocuous? These were the two nations that blithely squandered the "peace dividend" from the
end of cold war as he describes and have led us to this time of perpetual war. A perpetual
war that he does not mention, does not allude to, does not treat as an important driver
behind the current global mistrust and disengagement from the USUK drive for global
dominance.
Lieven is putting lipstick on his pig and screaming about losing the competition to the
imagined wolf outside his prison.
It is not over in the sense that the West hasn't given up in its attempts to take over
the world.
I agree. The contest between the Empire and the upstarts is not over by a long shot. What the West HAS lost is the "inevitability" argument. But for the upstarts to actually
prevail in their "multi-lateral" vision, they have to actually entice countries to join them
despite threats and intimidation from the Empire.
_________________________________
Passer by @Sep22 20:15 #14
Right now the US in a full blown Cold War with Russia with ever increasing attacks.
Yes. We still see the narratives like of Trump as Putin-lover despite the debunking of
Russiagate and the clear evidence of Cold War tensions. The incessant propaganda reeks of
desperation.
<> <> <> <> <> <>
Some seem to think that the Empire is cornered.
Aha! We've got you now, you scoundrels!
LOL.
The Empire's power-elite KNOW that Russia, China, and allies of Russia-China don't want to
be subject to their "rules-based order". The Empire is actively working to undermine,
subvert, and divide the countries that oppose it. While also securing their own
territories/population via intimidation and propaganda.
On rules based disorder and the capitulation of Merkel and her BND lapdogs to the 'hate
Russia' fulminations of the UKUSA morons. I see that the German Parliament has NOT TAKEN its
red pills these days and is reluctant to swallow the BS. It would be satisfying to see the
collective wisdom of the Parliament to exceed that of the BND. But then that is a low bar.
"For our part, we more than once described a balanced and mutually acceptable framework
for future agreements in this sphere during our contacts with the American negotiators. Aware
of the difficulties on the path forward in light of how widely different our approaches are,
we proposed extending the New START as it was originally signed.
"We do not want any unilateral advantages, but we will not make any unilateral concessions
either. A deal may be possible if the United States is ready to coordinate a new document on
the basis of the balance of interests, parity and without expecting Russia to make unilateral
concessions. But this will take time. We can have time to do this if the treaty is
extended."
As predicted, the Outlaw US Empire makes an offer it knows will be refused so it can then
blame Russia for being an unreliable negotiating partner--a trick we've all seen before.
I agree. The contest between the Empire and the upstarts is not over by a long shot.
What the West HAS lost is the "inevitability" argument. But for the upstarts to actually
prevail in their "multi-lateral" vision, they have to actually entice countries to join them
despite threats and intimidation from the Empire.
Yes, the big question remaining is to predict what will happen and when. This is what the
real deal is. And I'm sure they are working on that in the Intel agencies. It can certainly be predicted that the US and the EU will be significantly weaker in 2030
that today. Will this be enough is the question.
We now have some new information about US long term health as published by CBO. Very
interesting numbers.
They predict lower population growth and lower GDP growth for the US than previously
estimated, as well as higher debt rates. US federal debt is to reach 195 % of GDP by 2050 under best case scenario.
Analysts also seem to agree that the Covid 19 crisis further weakened the US vis a vis
China, as the Chinese economy significantly outperformed almost everyone else this year, more
than expected before the crisis.
I will also mention two important recent numbers. This year:
1. China, for the first time, became the biggest trading partner for the EU, beating the
US.
2. China's retail market overtook the one of the US.
Posted by: vk | Sep 22 2020 19:05 utc | 4 -- "....Eurasia is where most of human civilization
lives, it's the "World Island" - the world island not in the military sense, but in the
economic sense. Every path to human prosperity passes through Eurasia - that's why the USA
can't "let it alone" in the first place, while the reverse is not true, that is, Eurasia can
give to the luxury of letting the Americas alone."
Excellent observation, VK.
Even if the World Island (thanks for your formulation) trades with itself, within itself,
there is sufficient mass to last a century, during which the arrogantly exceptional West
might just wake up from their Century of Humiliation.
Meanwhile, inertia alone will ensure that the West forgets that their vaunted
"civilisation" was fed, watered, enriched by the Silk Route that came from the East -- from
the Middle Kingdom (China) and from the Middle East (which is "middle", as you pointed out
above, because all wealth passes through that region).
Yes there are rules which are observed more by their breach than their observance: The Geneva
Conventions. Just ask Julian Assange.
I find it incredible that the Anglo-Zionist captive nations can sign, ratify, incorporate
into domestic law and then sign the additional protocol, making themselves high contracting
parties, which requires them to report all and any breaches to Geneva, then ignore all the
above commitments. One of these commitments includes educating their citizens on the basic
provisions of the conventions. Again they haven't bothered, that could expose their hypocrisy
to the public.
Even the bandit statelet signed but I am yet to see just one example of its application in
the seventy plus years of its barbaric and bloodthirsty occupation of Palestine.
Interestingly, the conventions prohibit the occupied from signing away one iota of their
territory to the occupier. So much for what Claude Pictet's Commentary to the Fourth Geneva
Convention calls "alleged annexations." This book is available from the ICRC.
My late father as an army officer prosecuted Japanese war criminals for their atrocities
now the Anglo-Zionists are the pre-eminent war criminals and their leaders loudly proclaim
"our values" as a pathological and propagandistic form of projection. Is it possible they are
unaware of their blatant hypocrisy ?
It seems the New World Order has some familiar and unsurprising antecedents:
Anatol Lieven comes from an educated and cultured family in Britain's upper middle class
layer. His older siblings - he is the youngest of five children - include a High Court judge
(Dame Natalie Lieven), a Cambridge University professor / historian (Dominic Lieven) and a
psychologist / linguistics researcher (Elena Lieven). They haven't done badly for a family from the old Baltic German
aristocratic elite that used to serve the Russian empire as administrators for the
Livonia governorate.
The British Lievens might see themselves as gatekeepers and interpreters of what the
ruling classes desire (or appear to desire) and communicate that down to us. Hence their
positions in intellectual and academic occupations - no engineers, technicians or academics
in the physical or biological sciences among their number.
Anatol Lieven is right though about "competition", in the sense I believe he is using it:
it is "competition" for supposed global leadership and influence as only the British and
Americans understand it. Life as British and American elites understand it is the annual
football competition writ large; there can only be one winner and the worst position to be in
is second place and every other place below it. Never mind that what Russia and China have in
mind is a vision of the world with multiple and overlapping leadership roles dispersed among
nations according to various criteria: this ideal is simply too much for the Anglosphere
elites to understand, let alone digest and accept.
Still, I wonder why Anatol Lieven is teaching in a university in Qatar of all places.
Family influence and reputation must only go so far.
if you aren't at least a little prepared for a
disruption in critical supplies, and choose instead to waste time commenting on online
forums, it won't matter how up to date you are on "rules based international order" vs.
"international law". at that point the reality will be something like this: if you aren't
holding it, you don't have it, and if you can't defend it, you won't be keeping it for long.
Got that absolutely right.
There is no "international law" and no "international order." There is only relative
power. And when those powers clash, as seems inevitable, the world is in for a major nuclear
war, and probably preceded by several more regional wars. Meanwhile, the US internally is
collapsing into economic disaster, social unrest, political and social oppression,
infrastructure failure, and medical disasters. We'll probably be in martial law sometime
between November 3 and January 21 if not beyond that period, just for starters.
This month is National Preparedness Month. I recommend watching the following videos from
well-known "preppers" who have been warning about this stuff for years.
And this one from The Urban Prepper, an IT guy who is exceptionally well organized and
logical in his videos. I recommend subscribing to his channel. He avoids most of the
excessive "doom and gloom" hype that afflicts a lot of prepper channels and is oriented more
about urban survival than "backwoods bushcraft" since most people live in cities. Prepping 101: Prepping
Architecture Diagram for Gear Organization
And if you don't watch anything else, watch this one from Canadian Prepper - he's
absolutely right in this one and it specifically applies to the barflies here: What is Really Going
On? Its WORSE Than You Think
Meanwhile, inertia alone will ensure that the West forgets that their vaunted "civilisation"
was fed, watered, enriched by the Silk Route that came from the East -- from the Middle
Kingdom (China) and from the Middle East (which is "middle", as you pointed out above,
because all wealth passes through that region).
Posted by: kiwiklown | Sep 22 2020 23:41 utc | 39
Oh, and this one from Canadian Prepper in which he muses about whether and why we actually
*want* the SHTF situation to occur. This one would resonate with a lot of the commentary here
about the social malaise and the psychological reasons for it. Maybe nothing really new for
some, but definitely relevant.
Still, I wonder why Anatol Lieven is teaching in a university in Qatar of all places.
Family influence and reputation must only go so far.
Thank you that backgrounder explains a lot. Perhaps like Englanders before him he finds
Qatar, safe and rewarding PLUS mounds of finest hashish and titillating company. From my
understanding it is a grotesque abuser of human rights and everyone has a price.
America's "Rules-Based International Order" is a Goebbelsian euphemism for a Lies-Based
Imperial Order, led by the USA and its war criminal allies (aka the self-styled Free World).
The true nature of this America-led order is exposed by the USA's war of aggression
against Iraq (which violated international law and had no United Nations sanction) and its
decades-long War on Terrorism, which have murdered hundreds of thousands of people and
maimed, immiserated, or refugeed millions of more people. These crimes against humanity have
been justified by Orwellian American lies about "Weapons of Mass Destruction," "fighting
terrorism," or the curious events of Sept. 11th.
This America "Rules-Based" order is one drenched in the blood of millions of people--even
as it sanctimoniously disguises itself behind endless propaganda about defending liberal
democracy or the rule of law.
Truly, America and its allies can take their malignant Rules-Based Disorder back to Hell,
where they all belong.
"Thus your "side note" has no "relevance" whatsoever."
You sound like some podunk UN official from a podunk country trying to impress a waitress
in a NYC bar. The Empire is very much alive and dangerous. Ask Iran, ask Syria, as the
Palestinians, ask the Russians, ask the Chinese. Ask numerous African nations. Even Pangloss
was not so stupidly naive.
Thank you - YES that is the answer and always has been PLUS there will be no pipeline from
Iran through Afghanistan to Pakistan and on to China. There will be NO overland pipeline or
rail route to sound the death knell to the maritime mafia.
Please vote for trump 2020. no president destroy America from inside like what trump did. The goal is to accelerate American empire destruction and grip in this world.
What better way to put such clown along his circus in white house. he will make a mess of everything and will definitely bring
America down
i hope he win 2020 and America explode into civil war and chaos. With America destroyed internally , they wont have time to invade
Venezuela or Iran
Remember , if Biden win 2020 , American foreign policy will revert into normalcy that means
seeking alliance with EU and 5 eyes in a more meaningful way , aka giving them preferential
treatment on trade..
all that to box in china and russia , reenable TPP , initiate the delayed venezuela overt
invasion other than covert
this is dangerous for the whole world , not that it will save US in the long run but it
will increase real shooting conflict with china and russia.. So focus on trump victory in 2020 , the more controversial the win the better , lets push america into chaos
I appreciate the time and thought that goes into a post like this; all without a popup ad
trying to sell me ANOTHER item I just bought via Amazon, in spite of the fact that I am among
the least likely to want another right now. Voice of reason crying in the wilderness and all
that.
The rule The Capitalist Ogres promote as the heart of Civilization is simply the age-old
Golden Rule. Those with the gold, make the rules.
@ptb quite right.
'Rules based order' was always a euphemism for exceptionalism of one kind or another. ie US and its "allies" is basically asking the rest of the world to finance their (the US
et al)
version of a welfare state.
as US et al can no longer fund their own unaffordable welfare promises made to their own
electorates, they have to call on the rest of the world to do so (China has been effectively
funding the US budget deficit since they entered the WTO.
and the EU (mainly Germany) was doing the same before China's entry into WTO)
China and rest of the worlds foreign central banks stopped growing their foreign exchange
reserves (on net) in 2014
leaving the US in a sort of limbo.
Well, you're sorta correct; it was all those nations including China that bought Outlaw US
Empire debt. China certainly knows better now and for almost a decade now it's purchases--and
those of the rest of the world -- of said debt have declined to the point where a huge crisis
related to the debt pyramid threatens all those aside from the 1% living within the Outlaw US
Empire. The Judo involved was very instructive.
"Trump's UN
address censured" headlines Global Times article that reviews yesterday's UNGA.
Domestic BigLie Media didn't like what it heard from Trump:
"Commenting on the US' performance, many Western media tended to view US as being
'isolated,' and its unilateral efforts 'widely derided....'
"Some US media outlets cannot stand Trump's accusations. A WSJ report said many Democrats
blamed Trump for "isolating the US and diluting American influence in the WHO or other
bodies."
It went on to say Trump's threat of withdrawal is often used as leverage to "influence
partner countries, or get allies to pay more for shared defense."
"Some US media linked Trump's address to his widely blamed effort to re-impose sanctions
on Iran, saying his address came as 'UN members push back against Washington,' AP
reported.
"Wednesday's Washington Post article reported that the Trump administration walked on a
'lonely path' at the UN where the US attacked WHO, and embarked on the 'widely derided'
effort to snap back Iran sanctions.
"A week before the UN General Assembly, US media NPR predicted that the US 'appeared to be
isolated' at this year's General Assembly, saying that Trump's 'America First' agenda left
him out of sync with America's traditional allies as it has a long record of pulling out of
international agreements, including one meant to tackle the world's climate crisis."
So, Trump's attack on China's environmental record was beyond hypocritical and ought to be
termed psychopathic prevarication. The best comment from the article well describes the
Trumptroll @53:
"'Trump's smears and attacks against China were apparently aimed at campaigning for his
reelection. Only his die-hard fans - those who do not care about truth but support him -
will buy his words ,' Ding Yifan, a researcher at the Institute of World Development of
the Development Research Center of the State Council, told the Global Times." [My
Emphasis]
And isn't that really the basic issue--the truth? 75 years of lies by the Outlaw US Empire
to cover it's continuous illegalities and subversion of its own fundamental law while killing
and displacing tens of millions of people. Guardian of the Free World my ass! More like
Guardian of the Gates of Hell.
Yes, I'm biased, but anyone seeking truth and invoking the Rule of Law would find themselves
at odds with the Outlaw US Empire. Today's Global Times Editorial makes
the following key observations:
"Major powers maintaining cooperation, at least not engaging in Cold War-style antagonism,
is the important foundation of world peace. China is committed to maintaining cooperation
among major powers, as well as being flexible in the balance of interests acceptable to all
parties. The problem is the Trump administration is hysterically shaping decoupling and
confrontation between Beijing and Washington, and has been mobilizing more forces to its side
at home and abroad. Those US policymakers are deliberately splitting the world like during
the Cold War.
"The impulse to promote a cold war is the ultimate version of unilateralism, and shows
dangerous and mistaken arrogance that the US is almighty. Everyone knows that the US is
declining in its competitiveness under the rules-based international system the US itself
initiated and created. It wants to build a new system more beneficial to itself, and allow
the US to maintain its advantage without making any effort. This is simply impossible."
My research is pointing me to conclude the First Cold War was contrived so the Outlaw US
Empire could impose privately owned finance and corporations and the political-economies
connected to them upon the world lest the collective forces that were the ones to actually
defeat Fascism gain control of their national governments and shape their political-economies
into the public/collectively owned realm where the benefits would flow to all people instead
of just the already powerful. That's also the intent of imposing a Second Cold War. Some seem
to think there's no ideological divide at play, but as I've ceaselessly explained there most
certainly is, thus the intense demonization of both Russia and China--the Strategic
Competition also is occurring in the realm of Ideas. And the only tools available for the
Outlaw US Empire to use are lies, since the truths involved would encourage any neutral
nation to join the Win-Win vision of China and Russia, not the Zero-sum bankruptcy pushed by
the Parasites controlling the Empire.
@ karlof1 | Sep 23 2020 15:56 utc | 84 and forward with the links and quotes...thanks
I do like the confirmation Pepe quote, thanks
It is sad to understand that much of the US population does not have the mental clarity to
see that Trump is no different than Biden when it comes to fealty to the God of Mammon. Way
too many Americans think that replacing Trump with Biden will make things all better.
The end of the rules based international order/global private finance cannot end soon
enough, IMO
Thanks for your reply! As I discussed with the Missus last night, IMO only the people
regaining control over the federal government can rescue themselves from the multiple
dilemmas they face--the most pressing being the Debt Bomb and control of the monetary and
fiscal systems by private entities as exemplified by the Federal Reserve and Wall Street,
both of which employ the Financial Parasites preying on the nation's body-politic. Undoing
all the past wrongs requires both Congress and the Executive be captured by The People who
can then write the laws to end the wrongs while arresting and prosecuting those responsible
for the last 20+ years of massive fraud. The biggest components would be ending the Federal
Reserve, Nationalizing all the fraudster banks, writing down the vast majority of debt, and
disbanding NATO thus ending the overseas empire. Those are the most fundamental steps
required for the USA to avoid the coming calamity brought about by the Neoliberals. I also
have finally developed my thesis on where, why and how that philosophy was developed and put
into motion.
The first 'Cold War' was entirely contrived. The US knew the Soviet Union was weak and had
no agenda beyond maintaining security and its own reconstruction after WW2. There was no
threat of a Western European invasion, or of the USSR spreading revolution globally. All that
Cold War ideology is a lie. And the same lying is taking place about China today. No
difference.
The key issues for the US were:
1. it needed western european capitalist states to buy US manufactured exports. Those
states had to remain capitalist and subordinate to the US, i.e. to avoid what Acheson called
'neutralism' in world politics.
2. the US wanted gradual decolonization of the British and French empires so that US firms
could access markets and resources in those same territories. but the US feared revolutionary
nationalism in the colonies and the potential loss of market access by the former colonial
powers, which would need resources from the post-colonial world to rebuild after WW2.
The key event which cemented the 'Cold War' in Europe was the division of Germany, which
Carolyn Eisenberg shows was entirely an American decision, in her important book, Drawing the
Line.
The driving force of all this, though, was the economic imperatives of US capitalism. The
US needed to restore and save capitalism in Western Europe and Japan, and the Cold War was
the ideological framework for doing so. The Cold War ideology also allowed the US to frame
its meddling in Korea, Guatemala, Iran, etc.
The late historian Gabriel Kolko wrote the best analyses of these issues. His work is much
better than the New Left 'revisionist' US historians.
I agree with your recap and second your appraisal of Gabriel Kolko. Eisenberg's work
somehow escaped my view but will no longer thanks to your suggestion.
But I see more to it all as the First Cold War had to occur to promote the
financialization of the USA's industrial Capitalism which began within the USA in 1913 and
was abruptly interrupted by the various market crashes, the failure of the international
payments system and subsequent massive deflation and Great Depression. A similar plan to
outsource manufactures to its colonies and commonwealth and financialize its economy was
began in the UK sometime after the end of the US Civil War. At the time in England, the
school of Classical Political-Economists and their political allies (CPE) were attempting to
rid the UK and the rest of Europe of the last vestiges of Feudalism that resided in the
Rentier and Banking Classes, the former being mostly populated by Royalty and its
retainers. Land Rent was the primary source of their income while it was the stated intent of
the CPE to change the tax burden from individuals and businesses to that of Land Rent and
other forms of Unearned Income. That movement came swiftly on the heels of the abolition of
the Slave Trade which was a vast source of Royal income. Recognizing this threat to the basis
of their wellbeing, the Royals needed to turn the tables but in such a manner where their
manipulation was secret because of the vast popularity of the CPE's agenda. Thus began the
movement to discredit the CPE and remove their ideas from discourse and later completely from
the history of political-economy. And there was another problem--German Banks and their
philosophy inspired by Bismarck to be totally supportive of German industry, which provided
the impetus for its own colonial pursuits primarily in Africa.
Within that paragraph is my thesis for the rise of Neoliberalism, much of which Dr. Hudson
documents but hasn't yet gotten to/revealed the root cause of the counter revolution against
the CPE. IMO, that reactionary movement underlies far more, particularly the growing
animosity between the UK and Germany from 1875 to 1914. As Eisenberg's research proves,
there's much more past to be revealed that helps to resolve how we arrived at the times we
now face.
Indeed, as Hudson and Max Keiser ask: Why pay taxes at all since the Fed can create all
the credit required. I've written about the pros and cons of Secession here before which are
quite similar to those existing in 1861. In Washington for example, how to deal with all the
Federal property located there. Just as Ft. Sumter didn't belong to South Carolina, the many
military bases there don't belong to Washington. Trying to seize it as the South Carolinians
attempted in 1861 merely creates the casus belli sought by Trump. Now if you could get the
vast majority of the military stationed in Washington to support your cause, your odds of
resisting would greatly improve.
IMO, trying to regain public control over the Federal government would be much easier.
Thank you brother karlof1, YES, the minotaur indeed but where is Theseus and Ariadne when
we need them? Please don't tell me that Biden and Harris are the 'chosen ones' - that would mock the
legend and prove that the gods are truly crazy :))
It seems to me that a review is required, that we need to turn back the clock to an earlier
analysis whose veracity has only been boosted by subsequent events. So here from
2011: "On November 3, 2011, Alan Minsky interviewed me on KPFK's program, 'Building a
Powerful Movement in the United States' in preparation for an Occupy L.A. teach-in." Here's a
brief excerpt to remind people what this is all about:
"Once people realize that they're being screwed, that's a pre-revolutionary situation.
It's a situation where they can get a lot of sympathy and support, precisely by not doing
what The New York Times and the other papers say they should do: come up with some neat
solutions. They don't have to propose a solution because right now there isn't one –
without changing the system with many, many changes. So many that it's like a new
Constitution. Politics as well as the economy need to be restructured. What's developing now
is how to think about the economic and political problems that are bothering people. It is
not radical to realize that the economy isn't working. That is the first stage to realizing
that a real alternative is needed. We've been under a radical right-wing attack – and
need to respond in kind. The next half-year probably will be spent trying to spell out what
the best structure would be."
It's good to see discussion here of the nefarious role of the American far-right neocon
warmongers in the State Department, intelligence services and military leadership just before
the turn of the new century. What I have never seen clearly explained, however, is the
connection between these very dangerous forces and the equally cynical and reactionary
Israeli politicians and the Mossad, as well as Saudi Arabian officials.
Like many others, I
have been slowly won over to the position that the attacks of 9-11, and especially the
totally unprecedented collapses of the three WTC towers, could only have been caused by the
precisely timed explosion of previously installed demolition materials containing nanothermite. But if one accepts that position the immediately subsequent question is "Who
planned and carried out the attacks?" Many people have claimed it was the Mossad, others that
it was the Mossad in concert with the US neocons etc., -- many of whom were Israeli/US dual
citizens -- but even now, so many years after the horrific events, I can find no coherent
account of how such conspirators, or any others for that matter, might actually have carried
out WTC building demotions. Do any of you know of sources on the matter that have made good
progress on connecting the dots and explaining what precisely happened -- the easier part --
and how exactly it was carried out, by whom, and how they have managed to get away with it
for all this time?
Lieven: If the US (and the UK, if as usual we tag along) approach the relationship with
Beijing with anything like the combination of arrogance, ignorance, greed, criminality,
bigotry, hypocrisy and incompetence with which western elites managed the period after the
Cold War, then we risk losing the competition and endangering the world.[my emphasis]
Uncle Tungsten: Lieven simply does not see it. Has it ever occurred to Lieven that
colonialism just might be rejected by both Russia and China and that there might be no
competition? Does Lieven watch too much football?
What is it that endangers the world in Lieven's petite cortex?
-------
It is clear to me that Tungsten does not understand Lieven because Lieven does not cross all
t's and dot all i's. There can be two reasons for Lieven style: (1) a British style, leaving
some conclusions to the reader, it is not elegant to belabor the obvious (2) Lieven works in
a pro-Western feudal state and that particular piece appeared in a neo-liberal outfit where
it is already a clear outlier toward (what I see as) common sense. Neo-liberals view
themselves as liberals, "tolerating a wide spectrum of opinion", but with clear limits about
the frequency and content for the outliers of their tolerance.
Back to "endangering the world", how "loosing competition to China" can result in huge
mayhem? I guess that Tungsten is a little dense here. The sunset of Anglo-Saxon domination
can seem like the end of the world for the "members" of that domination. But a longer
historical perspective can offer a much darker vision of the future. First, there is a clash
of two blocks, one with superior industrial production, domination of markets of assorted
goods -- both as importer and exporter, etc, the other with still superior military
technology and combative spirit.
Recall (or check) the situation in east Asia ca. 1240 AD. One of the major power was Song
China, after a calamitous defeat roughly 300 years later, diminished Song China succeeded in
developing all kinds of practical and beautiful goods and vibrant commerce while having quite
inept military. The second major power was the Mongols. You can look up the rest.
USA stresses the military types of pressures, and seeing its position slipping too far,
they may resort to a series of gigantic "provocations" -- from confiscation of property by
fiat, like they did to Venezuela, to piracy on open seas, no cargoes can move without their
approval and tribute, from there things can escalate toward nuclear war.
More generally, western decline leads to decrease of wealth affecting the lower classes
first but gradually reaching higher, enmity toward competitors, then hatred, such processes
can have dire consequences.
Importantly, these are speculations, so stopping short of spelling them out is reasonable.
However, give some credit to Lieven for "the combination of arrogance, ignorance, greed,
criminality, bigotry, hypocrisy and incompetence with which western elites managed the period
after the Cold War".
On the rule-based world order. Scattered thoughts.
The article by Lieven was good in one aspect: it at least mentioned the crazy economic
template aka imho 'religion' that lead to a part of this mess. For the rest, hmm. The 'rules based international order' was always pretty much a phoney scaffold, used for
presentation to hide, cover up, legitimised many goings on (after WW2 I mean.)
Like a power-point extolling xyz product, with invented or 'massaged' charts and all.,
with tick boxes for what it positive or followed. (Fairness, Democracy, etc. etc. as
'Natural' 'Organic' etc. Total BS.)
In these kinds of discussions I am always reminded of the 'rights of the child' which in
CH are taught in grade 3-5, with a boiled down text, logo type pix, etc. It is very tough on
teachers, and they often only pretend to push the content. There are many immigrant children
in CH and the natives know that the 'rights' are not respected and not just in 'jungles'
(anarchist / animalistic hot spots) as they say. The kids go nuts - as they still more or
less believe that they 'have a voice' as it called -- the parents follow the kids, lotsa
troubles. OK, these are aspirations - but 'democracy' (purposely used as a calling card
following advice from a well-know ad agency..) is so as well. And presenting aspirations that
can't possibly be achieved in any way, when not a smiley joke about meeting God or flying to
Mars, and is socially important, is not well received.
Anyway, since the invasion of Iraq (totally illegal according to any standards) leading to
the biggest demos in the world ever, a loud indignant cry, which invasion the UN condoned,
ppl (in my experience, in CH, F, It) no longer have a shred of belief in 'international
rules'. Which of course makes them more 'nationalist' in the sense of acting in the
community, close at hand, as the Intl order is a shit-scene.
It is difficult to teach old chickenhawk a new tricks. Looks like she is a real "national
security parasite" and will stay is this role till the bitter end.
"America's world management, NATO, the European Union and the construction of establishments and
alliances the US constructed after World War II have taken a hit." took hit because of the crisis of neoliberalism
not so much because of Russia resistance to the USA neoliberal domination and unwillingness to became a vassal state a la EU
states, Japan and GB.
Her hostile remark confirms grave mistake of allowing immigrants to occupy high position in the US foreign policy hierarchy.
They bring with themselves "ancient hatred"
Only a blind (or a highly indoctrinated/brainwashed) person is unable to see where all these neocon policies are leading...
Notable quotes:
"... America's world management, NATO, the European Union and the construction of establishments and alliances the US constructed after World War II have taken a hit ..."
"... "They lost the entire US political class ..."
Fiona Hill, the National Security Council's senior director for European and Russian affairs
till 2019, says divisions are rising inside the Kremlin over the knowledge of persevering with
a "dirty tricks" marketing campaign that's had combined outcomes and will now face diminishing
returns.
On the one hand, Russia's 2016 affect operations succeeded past the Kremlin's wildest goals.
The US-dominated, unipolar world that Putin has lengthy railed in opposition to is now not.
America's world management, NATO, the European Union and the construction of establishments and
alliances the US constructed after World War II have taken a hit. "On that ledger, wow, yes,
basically over-fulfilled the plan," mentioned Hill.
At the identical time, getting caught in the act of making an attempt to sabotage US
democracy has proved pricey. "They lost the entire US political class and politicized ties so that the whole future of
US-Russia relations now depends on who wins in November," she mentioned.
"... Each of these two camps wields rhetoric that masks its true practice. Democrats and Republicans pose as heralds of the "free world" in the face of "dictatorships", as defenders of racial, gender and sexual orientation discrimination, and as champions of the fight against "global warming". The Jacksonians, for their part, take turns denouncing the corruption, perversity and ultimately hypocrisy of their predecessors while calling to fight for their nation and not for the empire. ..."
"... The two camps have in common only the same cult of force; whether it is at the service of the empire (Democrats and Republicans) or the nation (Jacksonians). ..."
The U.S. 2020 presidential campaign pits two radically different visions of the United States: empire or nation?
On the one hand, Washington's claim to dominate the world by "containment" – a strategy articulated by George Kennan in 1946 and
followed by all presidents until 2016 – and on the other hand, the rejection of imperialism and the desire to facilitate the fortunes
of Americans in general – a strategy articulated by President Andrew Jackson (1829-37) and taken up only by President Donald Trump
(2017-20).
Each of these two camps wields rhetoric that masks its true practice. Democrats and Republicans pose as heralds of the "free
world" in the face of "dictatorships", as defenders of racial, gender and sexual orientation discrimination, and as champions of
the fight against "global warming". The Jacksonians, for their part, take turns denouncing the corruption, perversity and ultimately
hypocrisy of their predecessors while calling to fight for their nation and not for the empire.
The two camps have in common only the same cult of force; whether it is at the service of the empire (Democrats and Republicans)
or the nation (Jacksonians).
The fact that the Jacksonians unexpectedly became a majority in the country and took control of the Republican Party adds to the
confusion, but should not confuse Trumpism with what the Republican ideology has been since World War II.
In reality, Democrats and Republicans tend to be well-to-do people or professionals in new technologies, while Jacksonians – like
the "yellow vests" in France – are rather poor and professionally tied to the land from which they cannot escape.
... ... ...
The Jacksonian agenda
As soon as he took office, Donald Trump questioned the Rumsfeld/Cebrowsky strategy of annihilating the state structures of all the
countries of the "Broader Middle East" without exception and announced his wish to bring home the troops lost in the "war without
end". This goal remains at the top of his priorities in 2020 ("Stop Endless Wars and Bring Our Troops Home").
As a result, he excluded the Director of the CIA and the Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff Committee from regular meetings of the National
Security Council. In so doing, he deprived the supporters of imperialism of their main tool of conquest.
There followed a battle for the presidency of this council with the indictment of General Michael T. Flynn, then his replacement
by General H. R. McMaster, the exceptionalist John R. Bolton, and finally Robert C. O'Brien.
In May 2017, Donald Trump called on U.S. allies to immediately cease their support for jihadists charged with implementing the Rumsfeld/Cebrowski
strategy. This was the Riyadh speech to the Sunni heads of state and then to NATO heads of state and government. President Trump
had declared NATO obsolete before changing his mind. However, he obtained not the abandonment of Russia's policy of containment,
but the halving of the credits used for this purpose and the allocation of the funds thus preserved to the fight against jihadism.
In doing so, it partially stopped making NATO an instrument of imperialism and turned it into a defensive alliance. It has therefore
demanded that its members contribute to its budget. Support for jihadism, however, was pursued by the supporters of imperialism with
private means, notably the KKR Fund.
Hence his watchwords: "Wipe Out Global Terrorists Who Threaten to Harm Americans" and "Get Allies to Pay their Fair Share.
Like the Democrats and Republicans, the Jacksonian Donald Trump is committed to restoring the capabilities of his armies ("Maintain
and Expand America's Unrivaled Military Strength"). Unlike his predecessors, he did not seek to transform the Pentagon's delusional
management by privatizing one department at a time, but rather developed a plan to recruit researchers to compete technologically
once again with the Russian and Chinese armies.
Only Donald Trump's desire to regain primacy in missile matters is supported by Democrats and Republicans, although they do not agree
on how to achieve it ("Build a Great Cybersecurity Defense System and Missile Defense System") : the tenant of the White House wants
the USA to equip itself alone with these weapons that it can eventually deploy on the territory of its allies, while its opponents
want to involve the allies in order to maintain their hold on them. From the point of view of the Democrats and Republicans, the
problem is obviously not withdrawing from the Cold War disarmament treaties to build a new arsenal, but the loss of means of diplomatic
pressure on Russia.
A professional politician, Joe Biden hopes to restore the imperial status of the former First World Power.
The program of Democrats and non-party Republicans
Joe Biden proposes to focus on three objectives: (1) reinvigorate democracy (2) train the middle class to cope with globalization
(3) regain global leadership.
Reinvigorate democracy
: in his words, this means basing public
action on the "informed consent" of Americans. In doing so, he used Walter Lipmann's 1922 terminology, according to which democracy
presupposes "manufacturing consent". This theory was discussed at length by Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky in 1988. It obviously
has nothing to do with the definition formulated by President Abraham Lincoln: "Democracy is government of the people, by the people,
for the people".
Joe Biden believes he is achieving his goal by restoring the morality of public action through the practice of "political correctness".
For example, he condemns "the horrible practice [of President Trump] of separating families and placing the children of immigrants
in private prisons," without saying that President Trump was merely applying a democratic law to show its futility. Or he announces
that he wants to reaffirm the condemnation of torture that President Trump justified, without saying that the latter, like President
Obama, has already banned the practice while maintaining life imprisonment without trial in Guantánamo.
He announced his intention to convene a Summit for Democracy to fight against corruption, to defend the "Free World" against authoritarian
regimes, and to advance human rights. In view of his definition of democracy, it is a question of uniting allied states by denouncing
scapegoats for what is wrong (the "corrupt") and promoting human rights in the Anglo-Saxon sense and especially not in the French
sense. That is to say, to stop police violence and not to help citizens to participate in decision-making. This summit will launch
an appeal to the private sector so that new technologies cannot be used by authoritarian states to monitor their citizens (but the
USA and its NSA can always use them in the interest of the "Free World").
Finally, Joe Biden concludes this chapter by highlighting his role in the Transatlantic Commission for Electoral Integrity alongside
his friends, former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who overthrew the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, and Michael Chertoff,
former US Secretary of Homeland Security, who put all US citizens under surveillance. Not forgetting John Negroponte who organized
the Contras in Nicaragua and Daesh in Iraq.
Educating the middle class to cope with globalization
. Joe Biden
believes that the politics that have been pursued since the dissolution of the USSR have led to the rapid disappearance of the middle
class, and that training the remaining middle class in the use of new technologies will prevent the relocation of their jobs.
Renewing U.S. leadership
. In the name of democracy, this means
stopping the rise of "populists, nationalists and demagogues. This formulation helps us understand that democracy, according to Joe
Biden, is not only the fabrication of consent, but also the eradication of the popular will. If demagogues pervert democratic institutions,
populists serve the popular will and nationalists serve the community.
The
Oval Office of the White House is looking for a tenant.
Joe Biden then specifies that he will stop wars "forever"; a formulation that seems to support the same goal as the Jacksonians,
but differs in terminology. It is in fact a question of validating the current adaptation of the system to the limits imposed by
President Trump: why make US soldiers die abroad when one can pursue the Rumsfeld/Cebrowski strategy with jihadists at a lower cost?
All the more so since when he was only an opposition senator, Joe Biden gave his name to the plan to partition Iraq that the Pentagon
was trying to impose.
A verse follows on the enlargement of NATO to include Latin American, African and Pacific allies. Far from being obsolete, the Alliance
will once again become the heart of U.S. imperialism.
Finally, Joe Biden pleads for the renewal of the 5+1 agreement with Iran and disarmament treaties with Russia. The agreement with
President Hassan Rohani aims to classically divide Muslim countries into Sunni and Shia, while the disarmament treaties aim to confirm
that the Biden administration would not envisage a global confrontation, but the continued containment of its competitor.
The program of the Democratic Party candidate and non-party Republicans concludes with the assurance of joining the Paris Accord
and taking leadership in the fight against global warming. Joe Biden specifies that he will not give gifts to China, which is relocating
its most polluting industries along the Silk Road. On the other hand, he omits to say that his friend, Barack Obama, before entering
politics, was the drafter of the statutes of the Chicago Carbon Emissions Trading Exchange. The fight against global warming is not
so much an ecological issue as a matter for bankers.
Conclusion
It must be said that everything is opposed to a clarification. Four years of upheavals by President Trump have only succeeded in
replacing the "endless wars" with a low-intensity private war. There are certainly far fewer deaths, but it is still war.
The elites who enjoy imperialism are not ready to give up their privileges.
So it is to be feared that the U.S. will be forced to go through an internal conflict, a civil war, and break up like the Soviet
Union once did.
"" President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Tuesday to
stop funding to federal government contractors who hold critical race theory training
sessions."
YES!! "Silence is complicity" as leftarded sheep often bleat, and silence in the face of
this ultra-racist bullsh!t has gone on far too long. Never should've been allowed to begin
with.
" And now, America had elected a black man to the highest office in the land."
Obama is not the first black president. He is black on the outside, but a white liberal on
the inside. The same is true of Kamala Harris. The first black president would be someone
like Tim Scott or Al Sharpton. Someone who grew up in African American culture.
Trailer for COUP 53, a new documentary on the joint CIA-MI6 operation to overthrow the
democratically elected government of Iran.
The coup that toppled a democratically elected government in Iran in August 1953 and
replaced it with a tyrannical monarchy that lasted 25 years was an intelligence operations
whose effects are still felt to this day.
A new documentary recounts the crime with special attention to the often-overlooked role (at
least in the United States) of the British.
(If you live in the United States, you can stream COUP 53 here. If you live in the United Kingdom, you can
stream here. As with all
quality journalism, it will cost you something.)
Britain's Secret Intelligence Service – MI6 – took part in the 1953 kidnapping
of the chief of police of Tehran, Iran, according to a recently recovered interview of an
ex-MI6 operative that is featured in a new documentary film, COUP 53. The full interview
transcript has been posted for the first time by the National Security Archive.
The MI6 operative was a named Norman Darbyshire, described as:
elusive figure who was a key contributor to Britain's clandestine approach toward Iran in
the early 1950s and whose final words on the coup, provided for the Granada Television series
End of Empire , were never aired.
In the interview, Darbyshire said that the Americans took too much credit for ousting Prime
Ministers Mohammed Mossadegh, and replacing him with a general. Mossadegh was described as a
communist sympathizer because he was calling for the British petroleum company to pay the same
royalty fee that American oil companies paid to the Saudis.
What helps make this item noteworthy is the near-total lack of publicly available official
records on Britain's role during the oil nationalization crisis starting in 1951. Closing in
on 70 years after the fact, authorities continue to withhold archival records about the coup.
(The Americans in 2017 published what will probably be the last significant official release
of their records, although more are known to still be classified.)
A very good article. A better title would be "How neoliberalism collapsed" Any religious doctrine sonner or later collased
under the weight of corruption of its prisets and unrealistic assumptions about the society. Neoliberalism in no expection as in
heart it is secular religion based on deification of markets.
He does not discuss the role of Harvard Mafiosi in destruction of Russian (and other xUSSR republics) economy in 1990th, mass
looting, empowerment of people (with pensioners experiencing WWII level of starvation) and creation of mafia capitalism on post
Soviet state. But the point he made about the process are right. Yeltsin mafia, like Yeltsin himself, were the product of USA and
GB machinations
Notable quotes:
"... If the US (and the UK, if as usual we tag along) approach the relationship with Beijing with anything like the combination of arrogance, ignorance, greed, criminality, bigotry, hypocrisy and incompetence with which western elites managed the period after the Cold War, then we risk losing the competition and endangering the world. ..."
"... One of the most malign effects of western victory in 1989-91 was to drown out or marginalise criticism of what was already a deeply flawed western social and economic model. In the competition with the USSR, it was above all the visible superiority of the western model that eventually destroyed Soviet communism from within. ..."
"... These beliefs interacted to produce a dominant atmosphere of "there is no alternative," which made it impossible and often in effect forbidden to conduct a proper public debate on the merits of the big western presumptions, policies or plans of the era ..."
"... This was a sentiment I encountered again and again (if not often so frankly expressed) in western establishment institutions in that era: in economic journals if it was suggested that rapid privatisation in the former USSR would lead to massive corruption, social resentment and political reaction; in security circles, if anyone dared to question the logic of Nato expansion ..."
"... Accompanying this overwhelmingly dominant political and economic ideology was an American geopolitical vision equally grandiose in ambition and equally blind to the lessons of history. This was summed up in the memorandum on "Defence Planning Guidance 1994-1999," drawn up in April 1992 for the Bush Senior administration by Under-Secretary of Defence Paul Wolfowitz and Lewis "Scooter" Libby, and subsequently leaked to the media ..."
"... By claiming for the US the right of unilateral intervention anywhere in the world and denying other major powers a greater role in their regions, this strategy essentially extended the Monroe Doctrine (which effectively defined the "western hemisphere" as the US sphere of influence) to the entire planet: an ambition greater than that of any previous power. The British Empire at its height knew that it could never intervene unilaterally on the continent of Europe or in Central America. The most megalomaniac of European rulers understood that other great powers with influence in their own areas of the world would always exist. ..."
"... "A stable and healthy polity and economy must be based on some minimal moral values" ..."
"... Many liberals gave the impression of complete indifference to the resulting immiseration of the Russian population in these years. At a meeting of the Carnegie Endowment in Washington that I attended later, former Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar boasted to an applauding US audience of how he had destroyed the Russian military industrial complex. The fact that this also destroyed the livelihoods of tens of millions of Russians and Ukrainians was not mentioned. ..."
"... This attitude was fed by contempt on the part of the educated classes of Moscow and St Petersburg for ordinary Russians, who were dubbed Homo Sovieticus and treated as an inferior species whose loathsome culture was preventing the liberal elites from taking their rightful place among the "civilised" nations of the west. This frame of mind was reminiscent of the traditional attitude of white elites in Latin America towards the Indio and Mestizo majorities in their countries. ..."
"... I vividly remember one Russian liberal journalist state his desire to fire machine guns into crowds of elderly Russians who joined Communist demonstrations to protest about the collapse of their pensions. The response of the western journalists present was that this was perhaps a little bit excessive, but to be excused since the basic sentiment was correct. ..."
"... If the post-Cold War world order was a form of US imperialism, it now looks like an empire in which rot in the over-extended periphery has spread to the core. The economic and social patterns of 1990s Russia and Ukraine have come back to haunt the west, though so far thank God in milder form. The massive looting of Russian state property and the systematic evasion of taxes by Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs was only possible with the help of western banks, which transferred the proceeds to the west and the Caribbean. This crime was euphemised in the western discourse (naturally including the Economist ) as "capital flight." ..."
"... The indifference of Russian elites to the suffering of the Russian population has found a milder echo in the neglect of former industrial regions across Britain, Western Europe and the US that did so much to produce the votes for Brexit, for Trump and for populist nationalist parties in Europe. The catastrophic plunge in Russian male life expectancy in the 1990s has found its echo in the unprecedented decline in white working-class male life expectancy in the US. ..."
"... Perhaps the greatest lesson of the period after the last Cold War is that in the end, a stable and healthy polity and economy must be based on some minimal moral values. ..."
"... Those analysing the connection between Russia and Trump's administration have looked in the wrong place. The explanation of Trump's success is not that Putin somehow mesmerised American voters in 2016. It is that populations abandoned by their elites are liable to extreme political responses; and that societies whose economic elites have turned ethics into a joke should not be surprised if their political leaders too become scoundrels. ..."
A s the US prepares to plunge into a new cold war with China in which its chances do not
look good, it's an appropriate time to examine how we went so badly wrong after "victory" in
the last Cold War. Looking back 30 years from the grim perspective of 2020, it is a challenge
even for those who were adults at the time to remember just how triumphant the west appeared in
the wake of the collapse of Soviet communism and the break-up of the USSR itself.
Today, of the rich fruits promised by that great victory, only wretched fragments remain.
The much-vaunted "peace dividend," savings from military spending, was squandered. The
opportunity to use the resources freed up to spread prosperity and deal with urgent social
problems was wasted, and -- even worse -- the US military budget is today higher than ever.
Attempts to mitigate the apocalyptic threat of climate change have fallen far short of what the
scientific consensus deems to be urgently necessary. The chance to solve the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict and stabilise the Middle East was thrown away even before 9/11 and
the disastrous US response. The lauded "new world order" of international harmony and
co-operation -- heralded by the elder George Bush after the first Gulf War -- is a tragic joke.
Britain's European dream has been destroyed, and geopolitical stability on the European
continent has been lost due chiefly to new and mostly unnecessary tension with Moscow. The one
previously solid-seeming achievement, the democratisation of Eastern Europe, is looking
questionable, as Poland and Hungary (see Samira Shackle, p20) sink into semi-authoritarian
nationalism.
Russia after the Cold War was a shambles and today it remains a weak economy with a limited
role on the world stage, concerned mainly with retaining some of its traditional areas of
influence. China is a vastly more formidable competitor. If the US (and the UK, if as usual we
tag along) approach the relationship with Beijing with anything like the combination of
arrogance, ignorance, greed, criminality, bigotry, hypocrisy and incompetence with which
western elites managed the period after the Cold War, then we risk losing the competition and
endangering the world.
One of the most malign effects of western victory in 1989-91 was to drown out or marginalise
criticism of what was already a deeply flawed western social and economic model. In the
competition with the USSR, it was above all the visible superiority of the western model that
eventually destroyed Soviet communism from within. Today, the superiority of the western model
to the Chinese model is not nearly so evident to most of the world's population; and it is on
successful western domestic reform that victory in the competition with China will depend.
Hubris
Western triumph and western failure were deeply intertwined. The very completeness of the
western victory both obscured its nature and legitimised all the western policies of the day,
including ones that had nothing to do with the victory over the USSR, and some that proved
utterly disastrous.
As Alexander Zevin has written of the house journal of Anglo-American elites, the
revolutions in Eastern Europe "turbocharged the neoliberal dynamic at the Economist ,
and seemed to stamp it with an almost providential seal." In retrospect, the magazine's 1990s
covers have a tragicomic appearance, reflecting a degree of faith in the rightness and
righteousness of neoliberal capitalism more appropriate to a religious cult.
These beliefs interacted to produce a dominant atmosphere of "there is no alternative,"
which made it impossible and often in effect forbidden to conduct a proper public debate on the
merits of the big western presumptions, policies or plans of the era. As a German official told
me when I expressed some doubt about the wisdom of rapid EU enlargement, "In my ministry we are
not even allowed to think about that."
This was a sentiment I encountered again and again (if not often so frankly expressed) in
western establishment institutions in that era: in economic journals if it was suggested that
rapid privatisation in the former USSR would lead to massive corruption, social resentment and
political reaction; in security circles, if anyone dared to question the logic of Nato
expansion; and almost anywhere if it was pointed out that the looting of former Soviet
republics was being assiduously encouraged and profited from by western banks, and regarded
with benign indifference by western governments.
The atmosphere of the time is (nowadays notoriously) summed up in Francis Fukuyama's The
End of History , which essentially predicted that western liberal capitalist democracy
would now be the only valid and successful economic and political model for all time. In fact,
what victory in the Cold War ended was not history but the study of history by western
elites.
"The US claiming the right of unilateral intervention anywhere in the world was an
ambition greater than that of any previous power"
A curious feature of 1990s capitalist utopian thought was that it misunderstood the
essential nature of capitalism, as revealed by its real (as opposed to faith-based) history.
One is tempted to say that Fukuyama should have paid more attention to Karl Marx and a famous
passage in The Communist Manifesto :
"The bourgeoisie [ie capitalism] cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the
instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole
relations of society All fixed, fast-frozen relations with their train of ancient and venerable
prejudices and opinions, are swept away; all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can
ossify the bourgeoisie has through its exploitation of the world market drawn from under the
feet of industry the national ground on which it stood. All old established national industries
have been destroyed or are daily being destroyed "
Then again, Marx himself made exactly the same mistake in his portrayal of a permanent
socialist utopia after the overthrow of capitalism. The point is that utopias, being perfect,
are unchanging, whereas continuous and radical change, driven by technological development, is
at the heart of capitalism -- and, according to Marx, of the whole course of human history. Of
course, those who believed in a permanently successful US "Goldilocks economy" -- not too hot,
and not too cold -- also managed to forget 300 years of periodic capitalist economic
crises.
Though much mocked at the time, Fukuyama's vision came to dominate western thinking. This
was summed up in the universally employed but absurd phrases "Getting to Denmark" (as if Russia
and China were ever going to resemble Denmark) and "The path to democracy and the free
market" (my italics), which became the mantra of the new and lucrative academic-bureaucratic
field of "transitionology." Absurd, because the merest glance at modern history reveals
multiple different "paths" to -- and away from -- democracy and capitalism, not to mention
myriad routes that have veered towards one at the same time as swerving away from the
other.
Accompanying this overwhelmingly dominant political and economic ideology was an American
geopolitical vision equally grandiose in ambition and equally blind to the lessons of history.
This was summed up in the memorandum on "Defence Planning Guidance 1994-1999," drawn up in
April 1992 for the Bush Senior administration by Under-Secretary of Defence Paul Wolfowitz and
Lewis "Scooter" Libby, and subsequently leaked to the media. Its central message was:
"The US must show the leadership necessary to establish and protect a new order that holds
the promise of convincing potential competitors that they need not aspire to a greater role or
pursue a more aggressive posture to protect their legitimate interests We must maintain the
mechanism for deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global
role "
By claiming for the US the right of unilateral intervention anywhere in the world and
denying other major powers a greater role in their regions, this strategy essentially extended
the Monroe Doctrine (which effectively defined the "western hemisphere" as the US sphere of
influence) to the entire planet: an ambition greater than that of any previous power. The
British Empire at its height knew that it could never intervene unilaterally on the continent
of Europe or in Central America. The most megalomaniac of European rulers understood that other
great powers with influence in their own areas of the world would always exist.
While that 1992 Washington paper spoke of the "legitimate interests" of other states, it
clearly implied that it would be Washington that would define what interests were legitimate,
and how they could be pursued. And once again, though never formally adopted, this "doctrine"
became in effect the standard operating procedure of subsequent administrations. In the early
2000s, when its influence reached its most dangerous height, military and security elites would
couch it in the terms of "full spectrum dominance." As the younger President Bush declared in
his State of the Union address in January 2002, which put the US on the road to the invasion of
Iraq: "By the grace of God, America won the Cold War A world once divided into two armed camps
now recognises one sole and pre-eminent power, the United States of America."
Nemesis
Triumphalism led US policymakers, and their transatlantic followers, to forget one cardinal
truth about geopolitical and military power: that in the end it is not global and absolute, but
local and relative. It is the amount of force or influence a state wants to bring to bear in a
particular place and on a -particular issue, relative to the power that a rival state is
willing and able to bring to bear. The truth of this has been shown repeatedly over the past
generation. For all America's overwhelming superiority on paper, it has turned out that many
countries have greater strength than the US in particular places: Russia in Georgia and
Ukraine, Russia and Iran in Syria, China in the South China Sea, and even Pakistan in southern
Afghanistan.
American over-confidence, accepted by many Europeans and many Britons especially, left the
US in a severely weakened condition to conduct what should have been clear as far back as the
1990s to be the great competition of the future -- that between Washington and Beijing.
On the one hand, American moves to extend Nato to the Baltics and then (abortively) on to
Ukraine and Georgia, and to abolish Russian influence and destroy Russian allies in the Middle
East, inevitably produced a fierce and largely successful Russian nationalist reaction. Within
Russia, the US threat to its national interests helped to consolidate and legitimise Putin's
control. Internationally, it ensured that Russia would swallow its deep-seated fears of China
and become a valuable partner of Beijing.
On the other hand, the benign and neglectful way in which Washington regarded the rise of
China in the generation after the Cold War (for example, the blithe decision to allow China to
join the World Trade Organisation) was also rooted in ideological arrogance. Western
triumphalism meant that most of the US elites were convinced that as a result of economic
growth, the Chinese Communist state would either democratise or be overthrown; and that China
would eventually have to adopt the western version of economics or fail economically. This was
coupled with the belief that good relations with China could be predicated on China accepting a
so-called "rules-based" international order in which the US set the rules while also being free
to break them whenever it wished; something that nobody with the slightest knowledge of Chinese
history should
have believed.
Throughout, the US establishment discourse (Democrat as much as Republican) has sought to
legitimise American global hegemony by invoking the promotion of liberal democracy. At the same
time, the supposedly intrinsic connection between economic change, democracy and peace was
rationalised by cheerleaders such as the New York Times 's indefatigable Thomas
Friedman, who advanced the (always absurd, and now flatly and repeatedly falsified) "Golden
Arches theory of Conflict
Prevention." This vulgarised version of Democratic Peace Theory pointed out that two countries
with McDonald's franchises had never been to war. The humble and greasy American burger was
turned into a world-historical symbol of the buoyant modern middle classes with too much to
lose to countenance war.
Various equally hollow theories postulated cast-iron connections between free markets and
guaranteed property rights on the one hand, and universal political rights and freedoms on the
other, despite the fact that even within the west, much of political history can be
characterised as the fraught and complex brokering of accommodations between these two sets of
things.
And indeed, since the 1990s democracy has not advanced in the world as a whole, and belief
in the US promotion of democracy has been discredited by US patronage of the authoritarian and
semi-authoritarian regimes in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, India and elsewhere. Of the predominantly
Middle Eastern and South Asian students whom I teach at Georgetown University in Qatar, not one
-- even among the liberals -- believes that the US is sincerely committed to spreading
democracy; and, given their own regions' recent history, there is absolutely no reason why they
should believe this.
The one great triumph of democratisation coupled with free market reform was -- or appeared
to be -- in the former communist states of Central and Eastern Europe, and this success was
endlessly cited as the model for political and economic reform across
the globe.
But the portrayal of East European reform in the west failed to recognise the central role
of local nationalism. Once again, to talk of this at the time was to find oneself in effect
excluded from polite society, because to do so called into question the self-evident
superiority and universal appeal of liberal reform. The overwhelming belief of western
establishments was that nationalism was a superstition that was fast losing its hold on people
who, given the choice, could everywhere be relied on to act like rational consumers, rather
than citizens rooted in one particular land.
The more excitable technocrats imagined that nation state itself (except the US of course)
was destined to wither away. This was also the picture reflected back to western observers and
analysts by liberal reformers across the region, who whether or not they were genuinely
convinced of this, knew what their western sponsors wanted to hear. Western economic and
cultural hegemony produced a sort of mirror game, a copulation of illusions in which local
informants provided false images to the west, which then reflected them back to the east, and
so on.
Always the nation
Yet one did not have to travel far outside the centres of Eastern European cities to find
large parts of populations outraged by the moral and cultural changes ordained by the EU, the
collapse of social services, and the (western-indulged) seizure of public property by former
communist elites. So why did Eastern Europeans swallow the whole western liberal package of the
time? They did so precisely because of their nationalism, which persuaded them that if they did
not pay the cultural and economic price of entry into the EU and Nato, they would sooner or
later fall back under the dreaded hegemony of Moscow. For them, unwanted reform was the price
that the nation had to pay for US protection. Not surprisingly, once membership of these
institutions was secured, a powerful populist and nationalist backlash set in.
Western blindness to the power of nationalism has had several bad consequences for western
policy, and the cohesion of "the west." In Eastern Europe, it would in time lead to the
politically almost insane decision of the EU to try to order the local peoples, with their
deeply-rooted ethnic nationalism and bitter memories of outside dictation, to accept large
numbers of Muslim refugees. The backlash then became conjoined with the populist reactions in
Western Europe, which led to Brexit and the sharp decline of centrist parties across the
EU.
More widely, this blindness to the power of nationalism led the US grossly to underestimate
the power of nationalist sentiment in Russia, China and Iran, and contributed to the US attempt
to use "democratisation" as a means to overthrow their regimes. All that this has succeeded in
doing is to help the regimes concerned turn nationalist sentiment against local liberals, by
accusing them of being US stooges.
"A stable and healthy polity and economy must be based on
some minimal moral values"
Russian liberals in the 1990s were mostly not really US agents as such, but the collapse of
Communism led some to a blind adulation of everything western and to identify unconditionally
with US policies. In terms of public image, this made them look like western lackeys; in terms
of policy, it led to the adoption of the economic "shock therapy" policies advocated by the
west. Combined with monstrous corruption and the horribly disruptive collapse of the Soviet
single market, this had a shattering effect on Russian industry and the living standards of
ordinary Russians.
Many liberals gave the impression of complete indifference to the resulting immiseration of
the Russian population in these years. At a meeting of the Carnegie Endowment in Washington
that I attended later, former Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar boasted to an applauding US audience
of how he had destroyed the Russian military industrial complex. The fact that this also
destroyed the livelihoods of tens of millions of Russians and Ukrainians was not mentioned.
This attitude was fed by contempt on the part of the educated classes of Moscow and St
Petersburg for ordinary Russians, who were dubbed Homo Sovieticus and treated as an
inferior species whose loathsome culture was preventing the liberal elites from taking their
rightful place among the "civilised" nations of the west. This frame of mind was reminiscent of
the traditional attitude of white elites in Latin America towards the Indio and Mestizo
majorities in their countries.
I vividly remember one Russian liberal journalist state his desire to fire machine guns into
crowds of elderly Russians who joined Communist demonstrations to protest about the collapse of
their pensions. The response of the western journalists present was that this was perhaps a
little bit excessive, but to be excused since the basic sentiment was correct.
The Russian liberals of the 1990s were crazy to reveal this contempt to the people whose
votes they needed to win. So too was Hillary Clinton, with her disdain for the "basket of
deplorables" in the 2016 election, much of the Remain camp in the years leading up to Brexit,
and indeed the European elites in the way they rammed through the Maastricht Treaty and the
euro in the 1990s.
If the post-Cold War world order was a form of US imperialism, it now looks like an empire
in which rot in the over-extended periphery has spread to the core. The economic and social
patterns of 1990s Russia and Ukraine have come back to haunt the west, though so far thank God
in milder form. The massive looting of Russian state property and the systematic evasion of
taxes by Russian and Ukrainian oligarchs was only possible with the help of western banks,
which transferred the proceeds to the west and the Caribbean. This crime was euphemised in the
western discourse (naturally including the Economist ) as "capital flight."
Peter Mandelson qualified his famous remark that the Blair government was "intensely relaxed
about people becoming filthy rich" with the words "as long as they pay their taxes." The whole
point, however, about the filthy Russian, Ukrainian, Nigerian, Pakistani and other money that
flowed to and through London was not just that so much of it was stolen, but that it was
escaping taxation, thereby harming the populations at home twice over. The infamous euphemism
"light-touch regulation" was in effect a charter
for this.
In a bitter form of poetic justice, however, "light-touch regulation" paved the way for the
2008 economic crisis in the west itself, and western economic elites too (especially in the US)
would also seize this opportunity to move their money into tax havens. This has done serious
damage to state revenues, and to the fundamental faith of ordinary people in the west that the
rich are truly subject to the same laws as them.
The indifference of Russian elites to the suffering of the Russian population has found a
milder echo in the neglect of former industrial regions across Britain, Western Europe and the
US that did so much to produce the votes for Brexit, for Trump and for populist nationalist
parties in Europe. The catastrophic plunge in Russian male life expectancy in the 1990s has
found its echo in the unprecedented decline in white working-class male life expectancy in the
US.
Perhaps the greatest lesson of the period after the last Cold War is that in the end, a
stable and healthy polity and economy must be based on some minimal moral values. To say this
to western economists, businessmen and financial journalists in the 1990s was to receive the
kindly contempt usually accorded to religious cranks. The only value recognised was shareholder
value, a currency in which the crimes of the Russian oligarchs could be excused because their
stolen companies had "added value." Any concern about duty to the Russian people as a whole, or
the fact that tolerance of these crimes would make it grotesque to demand honesty of policemen
or civil servants, were dismissed as irrelevant sentimentality.
Bringing it all back home
We in the west are living with the consequences of a generation of such attitudes. Western
financial elites have mostly not engaged in outright illegality; but then again, they usually
haven't needed to, since governments have made it easy for them to abide by the letter of the
law while tearing its spirit to pieces. We are belatedly recognising that, as Franklin Foer
wrote in the Atlantic last year: "New York, Los Angeles and Miami have joined London as
the world's most desired destinations for laundered money. This boom has enriched the American
elites who have enabled it -- and it has degraded the nation's political and social mores in
the process. While everyone else was heralding an emergent globalist world that would take on
the best values of America, [Richard] Palmer [a former CIA station chief in Moscow] had
glimpsed the dire risk of the opposite: that the values of the kleptocrats would become
America's own. This grim vision is now nearing fruition."
Those analysing the connection between Russia and Trump's administration have looked in the
wrong place. The explanation of Trump's success is not that Putin somehow mesmerised American
voters in 2016. It is that populations abandoned by their elites are liable to extreme
political responses; and that societies whose economic elites have turned ethics into a joke
should not be surprised if their political leaders too become scoundrels.
"If at any time the United States believes Iran has failed to meet its commitments, no
other state can block our ability to snap back those multilateral sanctions," Pompeo
declared in a statement posted on his official Twitter account on Sunday evening.
The top US diplomat was referring to the avalanche of sanctions Washington has been hellbent
on slapping on Tehran after the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) overwhelmingly rejected
the US resolution to extend a 13-year arms embargo against the Islamic Republic past October
earlier this week.
The humiliating defeat , which saw only one member
of the 15-nation body (the Dominican Republic) siding with the US, while China and Russia
opposed the resolution, and all other nations, including France and the UK, abstained, did not
discourage Washington, which doubled down on its threat to hit Iran with biting sanctions.
... ... ...
"Of course other states can block America's ability to impose multilateral sanctions. The
US can impose sanctions by itself, but can't force others to do it," Nicholas Grossman,
teaching assistant professor at the Department of Political Science, University of Illinois,
tweeted.
"That's what 'multilateral' means. Is our SecState really this dumb?" Grossman asked.
Daniel Larison, senior editor at the American Conservative, suggested that Pompeo might
be having a hard time grasping the meaning of the word 'multilateral'.
Some argued that Pompeo could not be unaware of the contradictory nature of his statement.
Dan Murphy, former Middle East and South Asia correspondent for the Christian Science
Monitor, called it "one of the most diplomatically illiterate sentences of all time."
"I guess the end game here is [to] alienate the rest of the world even further to feed his
persecution complex?" Murphy wrote.
John Twomey, 16 August, 2020
Explanation. What Pompeo understands and what many others can't grasp is that the US
decides if their sanctions are "multilateral" because the USA speaks for all other countries
whether they like it or not.
My Opinion, 17 August, 2020
Reminiscing of his shady past as a new CIA recruit he said. "We lied, we cheated and we stole". Apparently, Mikey didn't
do all too well in his literature classes, either and that's why the most suitable candidate from zionists perspective.
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. ..."
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.
"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."
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.
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.
Trump represent new "national neoliberalism" platform and the large part of the US neoliberal elite (Clinton gang and large part
of republicans) support the return to "classic neoliberalism" at all costs.
Highly recommended!
The essence of color revolution is the combination of engineered contested election and mass organized protest and civil disobedience
via creation in neoliberal fifth column out of "professionals", especially students as well as mobilizing and put on payroll some useful
disgruntled groups which can be used as a foot soldiers, such as football hooligans. Large and systematic injection of dollars into
protest movement. All with the air cover via domination in a part or all nation's MSM.
He served as US ambassador in Chich Republic from 2011 to 2014. Based on his experience wrote that book
Democracy's Defenders published by The Brookings Institution, a neoliberal think tank, about the role of US embassy in neoliberal
revolution in Czechoslovakia (aka Velvet Revolution of 1989) which led to the dissolution of the country into two. BTW demonstrations
against police brutality were an essential part of the Velvet Revolution
Notable quotes:
"... Same tactics - color revolutions they (Soros, Nuland/Kagan, Eisen, McCain when alive) used to overthrow Orthodox countries in Eastern Europe. Belarus the latest. Ukraine (Orange, Maidan) 2014. Georgia (Rose rev). Serbia, Montenegro. Use young people who have bad sense of history and are more sympathetic to the "West." ..."
This is, without ANY question, one of Tucker's most important segments that he has ever done. IT IS EXTREMELY-RARE THAT
"""they""" ARE EXPOSED, BY-NAME, SO OPENLY AND DIRECTLY, BUT, IT HAPPENED, TONIGHT.
Please bring back Dr. Darren Beattie back. More info. on the color revolutions, Mr. Eisen, crew, and their relationship
to mail in voting fraud and their impact on the 2020 election is needed. If Mr. Eisens methods are to be used in the 2020 election
mass awareness is needed.
This is not about Trump. The endgame of the deep state is to enslave people through social division. The election is a wrestling
match for entertainment.
Sheesh, he looks scared. I hope he's being well protected now. Darren is a very brave man who is trying to tell the citizens
of the US that there is malice aforethought towards the President and this election. It is now not a choice between Republicans
or Democrats, it is a fight between good and evil. I'm sure Trump and his team are aware of the playbook and will do everything
they can to sort this, with God's help. It may get hairy, but trust the plan.
I have a feeling dems will "rig for red" to frame republicans for voter fraud, overlooking the overwhelming amount of voter
fraud in favor of Biden Harris. Causing outrage and calls to remove the President from office and saying Biden actually won.
When he really did not. Be prepared. Stay strong.
Same tactics - color revolutions they (Soros, Nuland/Kagan, Eisen, McCain when alive) used to overthrow Orthodox countries
in Eastern Europe. Belarus the latest. Ukraine (Orange, Maidan) 2014. Georgia (Rose rev). Serbia, Montenegro. Use young people
who have bad sense of history and are more sympathetic to the "West."
american people still don't know and can't understand what's happening and what their government is doing, even right now
it's happening in Belarus, it happened in Ukraine, Venezuela, Hong Kong and etc. and now it's happening in your own country,
wake up people and don't forget who's behind all this - a NGO founded by CIA called NED (National endowment for democracy),
Soros and his NGOs and the deep state.
"... As soon as Novichok was mentioned, I knew it was geopolitics and not internal Russian politics. ..."
"... NOVICHOK is a highly toxic and contagious substance. The reason why "it didn't kill the Skripals" is because it was never used on the Skripals just as it has not been used on Navalny. In both cases there would have been dozens of collateral victims. From the moment Navalny started to reel with pain during the domestic commercial flight to 4 days later when amid treatment in Berlin it is reasonable to estimate that 300 to 400 people had been in his proximity. Not one of them has shown or known to have contaged symptons. Let us list the narrative. ..."
"... I think my estimate of a total 300 to 400 people within the first 3 to 4 days having been within close proximity to Navalny is quite reasonable. If he was really was infected with an horrific chemical warfare agent, why would he even be allowed into Germany ? ..."
"... In political terms he is a cult leader of an SPB/Moscow elitist metropolitan cult that does not give a damn about most of Russia. ..."
"... Who benefits? For certain not the Joe Publics of UK, Russia and Germany but maybe the likes of Exxon, chevron, bp etc might. ..."
"... I suspected Navalny may be connected to our 'trusted friend' Browder. Now I know for sure. ..."
"... At some point, as background noise, there was some news read out on the radio. After the segment about the poisoning of Alexei Navalny, NordStream 2 and possible EU sanctions the taxi driver shook his head and said thoughtfully: "Yeah, mommy is stuck " ..."
"... "What mommy?" asked the taxi driver. "That same one, Angela Merkel. You know why Navalny was surrendered to Germany? Let me explain." And then, for a quarter of an hour, the taxi driver presented a coherent theory of what happened, worthy of study at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which answered all the questions that had been bothering me. ..."
"... Operatives at the German Ministry of International Affairs, who sympathized with Schröder's SPD, got in touch with Yulia Navalny (his wife) and offered to hospitalize him in a clinic in Germany. Yulia agreed, and appealed to Putin. ..."
"... The next day Berlin announced that analysis results showed poisoning with a cholinesterase inhibitor. This was its last warning shot. Then there was another phone call, to warn that the next time "Novichok" will be found. Moscow refused, and promised Minsk a billion dollars on that very day. ..."
"... There followed an attempt by Fritz Merz, Angela Merkel's deputy in the DCU, to lean on Merkel to shut down NordStream 2, but he swiftly got his ears boxed by the business lobby of German companies that invested in this pipeline and, whining and whimpering, crawled back into his hole. ..."
"... Then Lukashenko, being a tough nut to crack, presented an intentionally amateurish intercept of secret diplomatic communications between Poland and Germany in which they discussed their plans for poisoning Navalny. Now they are sitting in Warsaw and Berlin and have no idea how to respond to this movie -- to deny or to pretend that they didn't notice it. What a dilemma! ..."
"... If Merkel announces that it is the crime of the century in which a great Russian opposition figure has been fiendishly poisoned with "Novichok," then she would be obligated to sever all relations with the bloody regime and present evidence. But there won't be any evidence to present. And nobody will allow her to freeze the completion of the pipeline. Otherwise German companies, which invested in NordStream 2 will take the Reichstag even ahead of the irate German citizens. In either case, DCU/CSU will face a defeat. ..."
"... But what about Russia's friend Gehrhard Schröder? Being the chairman of the board of the NordStream 2 company and head of the SPD, he looks into the future with confidence and optimism. In any case, CDU/CSU will be deflated and SPD will reinforce its position in the Bundestag and either independently or in coalition with other parties will install its own leader as Bundeskanzler. NordStream 2, which has been in political limbo for a few years, will be completed and enter into service at full rated capacity very quickly. ..."
A 33-year-old young woman who recently flew in from London. On August 15 she celebrated her birthday and then went with Navalny
on the working trip. When the plane urgently landed in Omsk for Navalny's hospitalization, the woman also remained on the ground
in the 'Ibis Siberia Omsk' hotel, waiting for Alexei to recover. She left from Russia to Britain on August 22.
Maria Konstantinovna Pevchikh (Мария Константиновна Певчих) born in 1987, russian. In 2010 she graduated from the sociological
faculty of Moscow Lomonosov State University.
Lives in London. Fond of sports, trains under the program of "Navy Seals", an elite US military unit, owns bookstores in the
UK and Australia.
Have close ties with Mikhail Khodorkovsky and Yevgeny Chichvarkin. Joined Navalny's activity in 2009. At that time, she was
22-year-old and worked as an assistant to one of the British parliamentarians.
It is alleged that the family and relatives do not know this woman.
The investigation previously published a chronology of events here https://ria.ru/20200821/khronologiya-1576110899.html
They discovered that in Tomsk the blogger's company has booked seven rooms for four people, Navalny himself spent the night in
a different room that was recorded in his name.
"WTF are you talking about? The USA is perfectly willing to fight Russia to the last European NATO member.."
Peter. An Ex-CIA man, of whom I've long forgotten his name used to say the same thing about Saudi Arabia, that the Saudis were
willing to fight Iran down to the last American soldier.
Myth, the US state blames the pusillanimity of the public for its tactics of ultraviolence. The Russians would be drowning
in their own blood were it not for Russian military power and the Chinese alliance.
"Recall that Alexei Navalny has two suspended sentences and is involved in several criminal cases at once.
"In December last year, he was sentenced in the case of embezzlement of money from the Yves Rocher company to a three and a
half years suspended sentence. His brother Oleg was sentenced to a real three and a half years in prison.
In 2013, Navalny, who in 2009 worked as an adviser to the governor of the Kirov region, was found guilty of embezzling property
of the state-owned company Kirovles and sentenced to five years in a general regime colony. He was taken into custody in the courtroom
and placed in a pre-trial detention center, but the very next day the Kirov regional court changed the measure of restraint to
a recognizance not to leave. As a result, the sentence was changed to a suspended one.
In addition, the Investigative Committee is investigating the case of the theft of 100 million rubles from the SPS party against
Alexei Navalny since the end of December 2012.
Activists of Navalny's team – deputy of the Zyuzino metropolitan area Konstantin Yankauskas, as well as entrepreneurs Nikolai
Lyaskin and Vladimir Ashurkov – are suspected of fraud related to violation of the procedure for financing the campaign in the
election of the mayor of Moscow.
Navalny has repeatedly found himself in the role of a defendant in claims for the protection of honor and dignity – for throwing
slanderous publications into the Internet. So, recently, the Lublin Court of Moscow satisfied such a claim by the chairman of
the State Duma Committee on Economic Policy, Innovative Development and Entrepreneurship Igor Rudensky."
I have the same feeling as you. Russophobia simply indicates the bastards are working together against us the steeple. Chinaphobia
maybe indicates the Chinese leadership and US leadership jointly want to cull the older generation with bio warfare.
Since none of UK , US. Russia nor China are democracies, their only task is to manage the narrative they tell the people. If
I was to go out and buy a product made in China, half the cost would be for transport or profit to the dealer. That is a shared
enterprise. One party for example manufactures a diesel generator, while the Western parties sit on their bums and take profit.
You are really missing the point. NOVICHOK which you should know was developed (though not originally invented) in a lab in
Soviet Uzbekistan, which following post Soviet independence, was dismantled by the CIA who took the samples back home to the USA.
So it is the Americans not the Russians who have the original well-spring.
NOVICHOK is a highly toxic and contagious substance. The reason why "it didn't kill the Skripals" is because it was never
used on the Skripals just as it has not been used on Navalny. In both cases there would have been dozens of collateral victims.
From the moment Navalny started to reel with pain during the domestic commercial flight to 4 days later when amid treatment in
Berlin it is reasonable to estimate that 300 to 400 people had been in his proximity. Not one of them has shown or known to have
contaged symptons. Let us list the narrative.
Original domestic commercial flight, passengers, crew & colleagues travelling with him
Ambulance to Russian hospital in Omsk ambulance crew
Doctors, nurses, officials, press and Navalny family at hospital in Omsk
German doctors arrived the next day, working along side Russian doctors whom they praised and credited with saving Navalny's
life.
Russian doctors agree to release Navalny for medivac transport against their own medical advice, respecting Navalny family
wishes.
Ambulance crew once again takes Navalny in the reverse direction back to the airport where the private jet was waiting.
Introducing the patient with the "military grade nerve agent" oozing out of his skin to a new flight crew.
Plane lands in Berlin and a German ambulance crew now handles the human chemical warfare torpedo. Note the German ambulance
crew members had short sleeves. If the German Gov believed there was a possibility of a Novichok type substance at play why
was the official greeting party not all dressed up like those Mi5 Salisbury central casting extras in Hazmat suits?
The convoy arrives at the hospital in Berlin handing Navalny over to the German team no doubt comprised of endless staff
members.
I think my estimate of a total 300 to 400 people within the first 3 to 4 days having been within close proximity to Navalny
is quite reasonable. If he was really was infected with an horrific chemical warfare agent, why would he even be allowed into
Germany ?
As for Navalny and the Russian administration and the Russian public, they both view him as useful but not likeable. The Putin
administration has made good use of reports by Navalny's anti-corruption group to expose both people in government and in business.
The Russian public watches the Youtube videos of Navalny's reports to the tune of millions of hits & clicks. However as a person
Alexei Navalny is not like and for good reason. This is reflected in his 2% poll rated that due to all the current focus has moved
up to 4% for Navalny as a potential "politician" (he is actually already a failed one) 4% is his high water mark.
The likes of The Guardian and The Independent have portrayed Navalny over the years as some kind of Russian Nelson Mandela
when in fact Navalny is a better educated more sophisticated Tommy Robinson. Only Navalny is even more racist than so-called "Tommy
Robinson" as I don't even recall him ever saying "All Muslims are cockroaches" as Navalny was once quoted to have said.
In political terms he is a cult leader of an SPB/Moscow elitist metropolitan cult that does not give a damn about most
of Russia. He and his political cohorts such as Ms Sobol offer not one single policy for the people of the Russian Heartland.
Who are far better cared for and better represented by Valdimir Putin, whom the Heartland people lovingly address as Vladimirovich,
President Putin's middle name. Navalny is even more Neo-Liberal and far less small "l" liberal in general values and mindset than
President Putin.
The description is very accurate, and the definition of "elite metropolitan cult" hit the bull's eye. Young people think that
being an oppositionist is being active, fashionable, trendy (also at protests you can post photos on Instagram!) Unfortunately,
if they are asked specific questions, they cannot answer. They are there for self-expression.
--
People follow ideas, Navalny's idea is not clear, where is the plan, where is the perspective? Looking at Navalny's activity,
I feel they are trying to sell me something.
E.g. his website promotes the Smart Voting system https://navalny.com/p/6418/
the title is "Do you want it like in Belarus? Here is a list of candidates, find yours"
the first paragraph point is "to support the rebellious people in word, action and money is very right, but you may do even
more right thing "
the second "it is impossible to use your vote wisely without our smart voting system", a call to action "register"
the third "a few brave Spartans (sic!) broke through Putin's evil cordons and you can support them here is how:
1. Check out the list of candidates. Transfer money to someone you like
Well, actually I sell something myself and I wright similar marketing texts. Compare:
"Are you in search of Boho, Ethnic or Tribal fashion? You're in the right place Our unique *** is the way to express your style!
Does your daughter think of cutting off her gorgeous long hair? Get a pair of our *** for her to show your love and care Here
is how: visit our shop *** Choose the one you like and let us work on the perfect *** crafted especially for you "
When people create an online store of political candidates, it is not credible. Our electoral system means collecting signatures,
real signatures of living people, not collecting money.
Thank you for your courage to speak the truth Mr. Murray. I am trying to do it sometimes too here in the Netherlands, but I
am an engineer, not a politician or journalist, so my means and persuasive talents are limited. However – to stay on the topic
of poison – it feels good to see that the anti-Russian propaganda has not poisoned all minds in West Europe yet.
It's only today that I've realised who is Prigozhin. He is the owner of Concord group, they were those russian with whom Trump
conspired to win elections!
Prigozhin sent 1 million roubles to Charite for Navalny.
He demands 88 millions, I wrote about it previously. It is a demand due to court's decision. I don't think it was издевательство,
it looks more like Prigozhin is afraid of being accused of poisoning 🙂
Russophobes these days, which is an enormous section of the population, will believe anything dastardly about that country
and its leadership. The narrative here, that doesn't stand up to the slightest scrutiny as Murray shows, is that the Russians
are bumbling villains that couldn't kill a wet paper bag.
Another narrative is that they didn't kill Navalny on purpose. It's just "a warning", etc.. A villain is a villain.
One BS story is as good as another. Of course, there should be a delay between one fiction and the next one. However, the old
saying still applies: throw enough sh*t and something is bound to stick.
At the interpersonal level, it's sometimes simpler to simply exaggerate the exaggeration: e.g., Putin is a villain and look
at what he did to dirty my underwear; there's a Putin under your bed; yeah, and what about the bad weather we've been having?
Putin, of course.
And it's not like any of this is new, e.g., US President Reagan: "Russia has been outlawed forever. Bombing begins in 5 minutes."
It so happened that yesterday I was coming home in a taxi. The taxi driver, who looked like Bill Murray, turned out to be very
talkative: during the trip, as often happens, we touched on all subjects, from the weather to blondes behind the wheel.
At some point, as background noise, there was some news read out on the radio. After the segment about the poisoning of
Alexei Navalny, NordStream 2 and possible EU sanctions the taxi driver shook his head and said thoughtfully: "Yeah, mommy is stuck
"
"What mommy?" I inquired.
"What mommy?" asked the taxi driver. "That same one, Angela Merkel. You know why Navalny was surrendered to Germany? Let
me explain." And then, for a quarter of an hour, the taxi driver presented a coherent theory of what happened, worthy of study
at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which answered all the questions that had been bothering me.
This is how it all came down.
At the beginning of August everybody was preparing for the elections in Belarus -- Belarus itself, as well as Russia and countries
in the EU. It was an exciting game in which everybody placed bets on their own candidate. But I must immediately warn you that
what we were observing was just the visible part of the iceberg, while the underwater currents were known only to a few.
Moscow and Minsk were demonstratively smashing dishes, shouting at each other and pulling each other by the hair, creating
the illusion of a complete break in relations. This was as intended!
Europe, content and relaxed, was rubbing its hands and already seeing how it will very soon kick out "Europe's last dictator"
and install a Belorussian Juan Guaido clone in Minsk, grabbing this delectable piece for itself.
The elections were held. Everybody froze. Not bothering to wait for the election results to come in, on orders from the Polish
provocateur [Telegraph channel] Nexta the Belorussian white-red-white [Nazi occupation flag] opposition marched into battle.
At first everything was going to plan. Excited white-red-white crowds flooded the streets and started threatening the police,
officials and journalists, starting skirmishes and strikes. Slovak and Spanish ambassadors in Belarus spoke out in support of
the protesters and "came over to the side of the people." This was also as intended. It looked like just a bit more of this and
["Europe's last dictator"] Lukashenko would fall.
But then Moscow entered into the game. It recognized the outcome of the elections [which Lukashenko won] and started to support
him organizationally, informationally and financially. Europe had to ramp up pressure. But how?
Nexta was crapping bricks and exhorting the white-red-white activists to get more active, but they just couldn't get any traction
in their attempts to seize power. They turned out to be too weak compared to their own people.
And then, luckily, Navalny was poisoned. In any case, that's what some people imagined.
Operatives at the German Ministry of International Affairs, who sympathized with Schröder's SPD, got in touch with Yulia
Navalny (his wife) and offered to hospitalize him in a clinic in Germany. Yulia agreed, and appealed to Putin.
Then the German minister of foreign affairs walked into Bundeskanzlerin's office and laid his joker on the table: "We
can take away Navalny for treatment. If Moscow tries to prevent this, we will cause a loud scandal. We'll get his body and then
decide how to play this." Merkel found this proposal attractive and, not thinking too long, agreed. Moscow did not object to Navalny's
transfer.
After Navalny was brought to Germany and delivered to the Charité clinic in a cortège consisting of 12 cars, mommy Angela called
Moscow and demanded: Russia must stop supporting Lukashenko, otherwise we will announce that Navalny had been poisoned with "Novichok."
Moscow refused and increased support of Lukashenko, declaring that it has created a reserve of special forces to be sent into
Belarus and take control -- just in case anyone makes a sudden move.
The next day Berlin announced that analysis results showed poisoning with a cholinesterase inhibitor. This was its last
warning shot. Then there was another phone call, to warn that the next time "Novichok" will be found. Moscow refused, and promised
Minsk a billion dollars on that very day.
At that point, Berlin's patience ran out. Navalny was immediately transferred to a military hospital, where it was immediately
"discovered" that he had been poisoned with "Novichok." It was not possible to find "Novichok" while he was at Charité because
journalists and officials could demand to see the test results, while at a military hospital such requests would be denied: the
information is secret. But not even "Novichok" could force Moscow to stop supporting Minsk. Russia's prime minister Mikhail Mishustin
was dispatched to Minsk with a briefcase bulging with papers to sign.
There followed an attempt by Fritz Merz, Angela Merkel's deputy in the DCU, to lean on Merkel to shut down NordStream 2,
but he swiftly got his ears boxed by the business lobby of German companies that invested in this pipeline and, whining and whimpering,
crawled back into his hole.
Then Lukashenko, being a tough nut to crack, presented an intentionally amateurish intercept of secret diplomatic communications
between Poland and Germany in which they discussed their plans for poisoning Navalny. Now they are sitting in Warsaw and Berlin
and have no idea how to respond to this movie -- to deny or to pretend that they didn't notice it. What a dilemma!
The interim result is thus as follows: Navalny is alive and well, sitting quietly in a German military hospital and inquiring
periodically when he will be allowed to go home. But he won't be allowed to go home any time soon.
Now, a year ahead of elections, parliamentary electoral campaign is starting in Germany. Merkel's DCU/CSU coalition doesn't
have a lot of popular support as it is. Some people are even now ready to take the Reichstag with their bare hands and put their
own flag on top of it. And then we have this toxic story with "Novichok"!
If Merkel announces that it is the crime of the century in which a great Russian opposition figure has been fiendishly
poisoned with "Novichok," then she would be obligated to sever all relations with the bloody regime and present evidence. But
there won't be any evidence to present. And nobody will allow her to freeze the completion of the pipeline. Otherwise German companies,
which invested in NordStream 2 will take the Reichstag even ahead of the irate German citizens. In either case, DCU/CSU will face
a defeat.
But if she slams the transmission into reverse, apologizes and returns Navalny to Russia, claiming that what happened was an
unfortunate series of errors, and punishes everybody who had put her in this situation to the full extent of German law, this
won't save the situation either. German voter's won't forgive Merkel over the loss of Germany's international authority, loss
of influence in Europe and total incompetence in handling foreign affairs, and will still punish her at the polls.
Therefore, her only choice is to bide her time, sitting with one buttock on each of two chairs -- blaming Russia for deploying
"Novichok" and simultaneously supporting the completion of NordStream 2. But we are about to see a flood of eyewitness reports,
photographs and documents from the various hospitals where the VIP patient has been treated, knocking out one of the two chairs.
And so the possibility that Merkel's retirement will occur before her term is up should not be dismissed. In that case, she will
have been unable to beat Helmut's Kohl's 16-year record as Bundeskanzler.
But what about Russia's friend Gehrhard Schröder? Being the chairman of the board of the NordStream 2 company and head
of the SPD, he looks into the future with confidence and optimism. In any case, CDU/CSU will be deflated and SPD will reinforce
its position in the Bundestag and either independently or in coalition with other parties will install its own leader as Bundeskanzler.
NordStream 2, which has been in political limbo for a few years, will be completed and enter into service at full rated capacity
very quickly.
When we rolled up to my house, the taxi driver asked: "Do you play chess?"
"Sometimes," I nodded.
In chess, there is a variation called "poisoned pawn." Your opponent, trying to gain material advantage, takes this pawn, ends
up trapped and inevitably loses.
As I was getting out of the taxi, somewhat perplexed, I asked the taxi driver where he got all this information. He smiled
a sad Bill Murray smile and answered: "From my brother. He lives in Germany and also works as a taxi driver." It was at this moment
that I realized that taxi drivers know everything.
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.
Danny Sjursen is a retired US Army officer and contributing editor atAntiwar.comHis 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 forpre-order. Sjursen was recently selected as a 2019-20 Lannan FoundationCultural Freedom Fellow. Follow him on Twitter@SkepticalVet. Visit his
professionalwebsitefor contact info, to schedule speeches or media appearances, and access to his past
work.
"... He thinks the Palestinians will accept permanent helot status? Maybe so... But is that something we should relish? ..."
"... And what of Syria? What of Syria? Evidently Trump considered murdering President Assad two years ago. Is he going to abandon regime change now? is he going to abandon the policy of Pompeo and Jeffries? ..."
"... My guess is that the acceptability for Helot status of Palestinians will depend on how much worse it is compared to the status of Palestinian equivalents elsewhere. Syria and Lebanon certainly look far less attractive. ..."
"... Also, from my admittedly limited experience, Palestinians aren't exactly homogenous, Gaza =! West Bank. ..."
"... If the Israelis are smart (and I think they are), they will continue to exploit Palestinian disunity by not having one helot status but several, with privileges to repress and boss around the lesser helots (perhaps even some less desirable Israelis) awarded to the higher helots. ..."
"... The neocons have been firmly ensconced in ME policy since Reagan. At least Trump made a little bit of lemonade. Nothing earth shattering IMO but moved the ball forward 10 yds and away from own goals under the so-called experts & strategists of the past decades. ..."
"... Support for Israel and its maximalist dreams has always been bipartisan. ..."
"... The colonel has a much more realistic take on this: the intention is to co-opt the Arab states into forcing the Palestinians to accept permanent helot status. Not quite slaves but closes to it. ..."
"... There would be many ways to describe that, but I suspect "peace plan" would rank amongst the less accurate ones. ..."
"... I also remember when the Trump admin killed the Gen. Suleimani late last year the same people also touted it a national security success. This is shameful pattern. ..."
"... Just because Jared Kushner, Berkowitz (Kushner's mini-me), David Friedman and the Zionist anti-American paid shills of Christians United For Israel et.al put Israel's interest first does not make it a success for American interests abroad. Trump does not know two things about the ME. He just obeys orders from this outside 'advisors' when it comes to ME policy. ..."
"... When I read that " If you look at relatively successful integration/assimilations in history, jointly overcoming something that was threatening to both typically ranked pretty highly as a cause." I think that The Islamic Republic of Iran is what is being offered or used as that cause. ..."
"... But if the present and future Israelis believe this means that the total advantage is totally theirs to press, then present and future Palestinians will continue searching for ways to make their unhappiness felt. But that outcome would not be Trump's fault. That outcome would be the majority-likudnic Israelis' choice. ..."
"... the problem with "outside in" strategy is that implies that if conditions are bad enough for the Palestinians, they will agree to any deal Trump can force down their throats. Instead, Palestinians have been offered terrible deals since 2000 (ie., a state that is never going to be a real state with permanent Israeli control over its borders, air space, and water tables ..."
"... The smarter plan is to acknowledge that the Zionists killed the Two-State Solution, and Palestinians might as well push this into an anti-Apartheid struggle. ..."
It is clear that the heat has gone away in the fabled "Arab Street" over the issue of
Israel. If that were not so, the rulers would not have dared to do this. That being so ... It
will be very interesting to see how many people from these two countries go to Israel to
visit holy sites like the al-Aqsa Mosque. There have not been many religious tourists from
Egypt and Jordan. This is what the Israelis call pilgrims. Trump thinks that he can bring
Saudi Arabia into such a deal? Good! Let's see it. He thinks that Iran can be brought into
such a deal? Wonderful! Let's see it.
He thinks the Palestinians will accept permanent helot status? Maybe so... But is that
something we should relish?
And what of Syria? What of Syria? Evidently Trump considered murdering President Assad
two years ago. Is he going to abandon regime change now? is he going to abandon the policy of
Pompeo and Jeffries?
I suggest that security should be very tight on airline flights from Bahrein and the
UAE.
I suspect this has less to do with peace and more to do with lining up a coalition against
Iran. He's signing peace deals at the white house the same day he not only threatens Iran for
a make believe assassination plot against our South African Ambassador, but admits he wanted
to assassinate Assad.
He's making a big mistake though if he thinks Iranians will behave and respond similarly
to the Arabs, and they are certainly not North Koreans.
He's being frog marched into a war with Iran while his ego is being stroked under the
guise of a Nobel peace prize.
What say about Alastair Crooke's "Maintaining Pretence Over Reality: 'Simply Put, the
Iranians Outfoxed the U.S. Defence Systems'" at Strategic Culture Foundation?
My guess is that the acceptability for Helot status of Palestinians will depend on how
much worse it is compared to the status of Palestinian equivalents elsewhere. Syria and
Lebanon certainly look far less attractive. The other issue is the degree with which Arab
elites can "reroute" Anti Israeli into Anti Iranian sentiments on the Arab street.
Also, from my admittedly limited experience, Palestinians aren't exactly homogenous, Gaza
=! West Bank.
If the Israelis are smart (and I think they are), they will continue to exploit
Palestinian disunity by not having one helot status but several, with privileges to repress
and boss around the lesser helots (perhaps even some less desirable Israelis) awarded to the
higher helots.
I think this will be fairly hard though. Various Historical, religion and cultural issues
specific to the situation make it quite hard for Arabs to actually assimilate into Israeli
society. There is also a lack of a unifying foe to unite against. If you look at relatively
successful integration/assimilations in history, jointly overcoming something that was
threatening to both typically ranked pretty highly as a cause.
The neocons have been firmly ensconced in ME policy since Reagan. At least Trump made a
little bit of lemonade. Nothing earth shattering IMO but moved the ball forward 10 yds and
away from own goals under the so-called experts & strategists of the past decades.
The TDS afflicted media couldn't bear that some lemonade was made. Wolf Blitzer
interviewing Jared Kushner was all about pandemic nothing about the implications or process
to having couple gulf sheikhs recognize Israel. The fact is that these gulf sheikhs only paid
lip service to the plight of the Palestinians in any case. This formalizes what was reality.
The "Arab Street" have always been a manifestation of whatever were powerful manipulations.
The manipulators have been coopted in the current lemonade making. In any case Bibi must be
very pleased. He didn't have to give up anything in his difficult domestic political
predicament.
The arabs simply do not care anymore, from Morocco to Oman. Their spirit totally broken by
the "Arab spring", youth disillusioned and jobless. The only dream left for most is to ape
the western lifestyle. The others are fighting in wars.
I can see one of two futures, a Clean Break: Securing the Realm-style one in which all of the arabs live life as helots under the
thumb of a Greater Israel. This would bring relative economic prosperity to most of the
helots.
I think I see the flaw in this article: ..."If that turns out to be the case and this
maneuver succeeds in ultimately bringing about a two state solution for Israel and the
Palestinians,"...
Surely you don't believe that these maneuvers are intended to bring about a Palestinian
state?
The colonel has a much more realistic take on this: the intention is to co-opt the Arab
states into forcing the Palestinians to accept permanent helot status. Not quite slaves but
closes to it.
There would be many ways to describe that, but I suspect "peace plan" would rank amongst
the less accurate ones.
One running theme that I have been seeing from the former so-called neocon critics and ME
wars opponents (Michael Scheuer comes to mind) is their uncontrollable exhilaration for any
terrible so-called F.P. 'success' that the Trump admin achieves in the ME.
I also remember
when the Trump admin killed the Gen. Suleimani late last year the same people also touted it
a national security success. This is shameful pattern.
Just because Jared Kushner, Berkowitz
(Kushner's mini-me), David Friedman and the Zionist anti-American paid shills of Christians
United For Israel et.al put Israel's interest first does not make it a success for American
interests abroad. Trump does not know two things about the ME. He just obeys orders from this
outside 'advisors' when it comes to ME policy.
It it exactly what it is. Israel normalized relations with the most notorious
dictatorships and wants to implement Pegasus spying program and wide-scale surveillance
(among other nefarious things) in UAE and Bahrain. How is that a success for America? America
should stay out of these Israeli-first trouble making schemes and stay neutral or out of
there.
Let me tell you what a F.P. success is, OK? It would have been a huge success if America
was able to lure Iran into its orbit to fend of the Chinese communists out of the region and
out of our lives and have a stronger alliance with regards to its upcoming Cold War with
China.
It would have been successful for America to balance China out with Iran, India,
Turkey and Afghanistan, and not let China to invest billions in Haifa port (close to U.S.
military forces there) a major hub of its Belt and Road initiative and a huge blow to U.S.
new Cold war effort against China.
Think about it.
Allow me to raise a few points: first of all , every single one of these brutal backward
Arab dictatorships has had low key but crucial relations with Israel since the Cold War and
they just made it open, Big deal! Second, this joyfulness for a hostile anti-american country
is quite sad for two reasons:
1. that Larry touts it as a success for America, which is
anything but a success for America. It is a success for Bibi and Trump's evangelical/zionist
sugar daddies to cough up some Benjamins for Trump's campaign and his GOP/Likudniks. I guess
nowadays our judgement is so clouded and inverted that MAGA and MIGA are considered
inseparable.
2. The delusion that dems are bitterly angry and anti-Israel (because they are
anti-Trump) and therefore it automatically becomes an issue of partisan support for Trump and
whatever he does. This idea is so absurd that I won't get into it. Dems were the first to
congratulate Israel.
I would like Larry to tell me what he thinks of H.R. 1697 Israel Anti-Boycot Act which
punishes American citizens for practicing their god-given 2nd Amendment rights. or the 3.8
billion of aid, or the the gifting of Golan heights to Bibi? Are these big foreign policy
success too?
What the Arab-Israeli normalization means:
*The U.S. wants out of the ME to focus on China, a wet dream that Israel favors especially
post Cold War. It does not want secular, (semi) democratic sovereign states around it, and if
anyone pays attention close enough they do whatever they can to prevent any kind of political
reform and change of government to occur among Arab nations. Israelis are staunch supporters
of Saudi, Bahraini, UAE, Jordanian, and Egyptian dictatorships in the MENA region.
Israel
will now be better positioned to roll-back any kind of grassroots reform in the ME with the
help of their now openly pro-Israeli Arab rulers by directing policies to these backward
rulers to divest from human development and political reform and instead invest more in
security, tech, surveillance.
This trend also explains Israeli constant opposition to the
Iran Deal, which would have had further ramifications for political reform and accelerated
weakening of Hardliners in Tehran and a better position for America to pivot to China with
the help of a moderated Iran. Israel does not want a powerful democratic nation near its
borders, and especially not in Iran. Just take a look at Israel's neighbors and tell me how
many of them are democratic and friendly with Israel and how does Israel behave when there
are secular Arab democratic states around it?
There is a developing coalition of powerful states as a reaction to the Arab-Israeli
normalization that observers call "the rejectionists". They are, Turkey, Qatar, Pakistan
(impending), Malaysia (impending), Iran, and EU (impending).
It is true that Iran has now a target on its back and if it were smart, it would try its
best to develop some kind of alliance with the secular democratic humanists in EU to try to
remove itself from isolation, save what is left of the Iran Deal, and try to isolate and
condemn Israelis, Arab dictators and their cohorts internationally and through diplomacy back
portraying them as illiberal and anti-democratic or similar things. Although I am not too
hopeful that Iran is be able to do this for a number of obvious reasons.
This Arab-Israeli normalization is a MIGA (Make Israel Great Again) vision of very
tightly controlled development for the MENA region and extremely' special' attention has been
given to the cyber tech development (call it surveillance) to control the 'Arab Street' from
social revolt and the prevention of next rounds of Arab Springs, which again goes back to
Israel's long-standing regional doctrine of propping pro-U.S. and now pro-Israeli Arab
dictatorships in the region.
In the end, it's all just tribal superstition. Logically a spiritual absolute would be the
essence of sentience, from which we rise, not an ideal of wisdom and judgement, from which we
fell.
The fact we are aware, than the myriad details of which we are aware.
One of the reasons we can't have a live and let live world is because everyone thinks their
own vision should be universal, rather than unique. So the fundamentalists rule.
The reason nature is so diverse and dense is because it isn't a monoculture.
Irrespective of our technology, we are still fairly primitive, in the grand scheme of
things.
When I read that " If you look at relatively successful integration/assimilations in
history, jointly overcoming something that was threatening to both typically ranked pretty
highly as a cause." I think that The Islamic Republic of Iran is what is being offered or
used as that cause.
If this all ends up in the longest run leading to today's and tomorrow's Israelis
accepting the lesser Israel that Rabin ended up deciding would be necessary for a
lesser-but-still-real Palestine to emerge as a real country resigned with both resigned
enough to that outcome that they would tolerate eachother's separate independence over the
long term, then this will go somewhere good.
But if the present and future Israelis believe this means that the total advantage is
totally theirs to press, then present and future Palestinians will continue searching for
ways to make their unhappiness felt. But that outcome would not be Trump's fault. That
outcome would be the majority-likudnic Israelis' choice.
To have a two state solution Israel will have to leave enough of Palestine without Jewish
settlement for there to be room for another state. Their actions show that they have no
intention of doing that.
Larry: the problem with "outside in" strategy is that implies that if conditions are bad
enough for the Palestinians, they will agree to any deal Trump can force down their throats.
Instead, Palestinians have been offered terrible deals since 2000 (ie., a state that is never
going to be a real state with permanent Israeli control over its borders, air space, and
water tables)
The smarter plan is to acknowledge that the Zionists killed the Two-State Solution, and Palestinians might as well push
this into an anti-Apartheid struggle. The gerontocracy that rules the PA will soon pass away. The younger generation of
Palestinians are much more sophisticated.
As a trial lawyer, I see this type of behavior all the time. If you offer someone
essentially nothing, they lose nothing by rejecting it. The Arab dictators will not be around forever. And before Camp David, the Palestinians
have suffered far worse than they are suffering now.
In short: "We Jews know that Arabs (Palestinians) will never, ever voluntarily give up
hope of resisting Jewish demands, and Jews will never stop with Jewish demands: that all of
Palestine become Jewish.
Since 'voluntary' will not work, only force -- an Iron Wall -- will suffice.
Jabotinsky defines "Iron Wall" as the enforcement capacity of an outside power:
"we cannot promise anything to the Arabs of the Land of Israel or the Arab countries. Their
voluntary agreement is out of the question. Hence those who hold that an agreement with the
natives is an essential condition for Zionism can now say "no" and depart from Zionism.
Zionist colonization, even the most restricted, must either be terminated or carried out in
defiance of the will of the native population. This colonization can, therefore, continue
and develop only under the protection of a force independent of the local population
– an iron wall which the native population cannot break through. This is, in toto,
our policy towards the Arabs. To formulate it any other way would only be hypocrisy.
Not only must this be so, it is so whether we admit it or not. What does the Balfour
Declaration and the Mandate mean for us? It is the fact that a disinterested power
committed itself to create such security conditions that the local population would be
deterred from interfering with our efforts."
Be aware that Benjamin Netanyahu's father, Benzion, was Jabotinsky's administrative
assistant, then replacement, in New York; that Bibi is very much heir to the ideological
fervor of Jabotinsky & of Benzion; and that Benzion and Benjamin laid out the blueprint
for the GWOT at the Jerusalem Conference July 4, 1979 https://www.amazon.com/International-Terrorism-Challenge-Benjamin-Netanyahu/dp/0878558942
Trump plays only a walk-on role in this carefully scripted 150 year old zionist drama.
"there isn't a lot of difference between KSA and these fiefdoms of uae and bahrain.." A
total crock. you obviously have never been to either of these places.
By Caitlin Johnstone , an independent journalist based in Melbourne, Australia. Her
website is here and you can follow
her on Twitter @caitoz
...Amid all the pedantic squabbling over when it is and is not legal under US law for a
journalist to expose evidence of US war crimes, we must never lose sight of the fact that (A)
it should always be legal to expose war crimes, (B) it should always be illegal for governments
to hide evidence of their war crimes, (C) war crimes should always be punished, (D) people who
start criminal wars should always be punished, (E) governments should not be permitted to have
a level of secrecy that allows them to start criminal wars, and (F) power and secrecy should
always have an inverse relationship to one another.
The Assange case needs to be fought tooth and claw, but we must keep in mind that it is so
very, very many clicks back from where we need to be as a civilization. In an ideal situation,
governments should be too afraid of the public to keep secrets from them; instead, here we are
begging the most powerful government in the world to please not imprison a journalist because
he arguably did not break the rules that that government made for itself.
Do you see how far that point is from where we need to be?
It's important to remember this. It's important to remember that the amount of evil deeds
power structures will commit is directly proportional to the amount of information they are
permitted to hide from the public. We will not have a healthy world until power and secrecy
have an inverse relationship to each other: privacy for rank-and-file individuals, and
transparency for governments and their officials.
"But what about military secrets?" one might object. Yes, what about military
secrets? What about the fact that virtually all military violence perpetrated by the world's
largest power structures is initiated based on lies ? What about the utterly indisputable fact that the
more secrecy we allow the war machine, the more wars it deceives the public into allowing it to
initiate?
In a healthy world, the most powerful government on Earth wouldn't be trying to squint at
its own laws in such a way that permits the prosecution of a journalist for telling the
truth.
In a healthy world, the most powerful government on Earth wouldn't prosecute anyone for
telling the truth at all.
In a healthy world, governments would prosecute their own war crimes, instead of those who
expose them.
In a healthy world, governments wouldn't commit war crimes at all.
In a healthy world, governments wouldn't start wars at all.
In a healthy world, governments would see truth as something to be desired and actively
sought, not something to be repressed and punished.
In a healthy world, governments wouldn't keep secrets from the public, and wouldn't have any
cause to want to.
In a healthy world, if governments existed at all, they would exist solely as tools for the
people to serve themselves, with full transparency and accountability to those people.
We are obviously a very, very far cry from the kind of healthy world we would all like to
one day find ourselves in. But we should always keep in mind what a healthy world will look
like, and hold it as our true north for the direction that we are pushing in.
Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!
By Caitlin Johnstone , an independent journalist based in Melbourne, Australia. Her
website is here and you can follow
her on Twitter @caitoz
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author
and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
Reality007 3 hours ago 18 Sep, 2020 10:07 AM
Unfortunately, no criminals that have committed or covered up war crimes, decades ago to
present, will ever be indicted. They are all above the law while all innocents that revealed
the truths must pay highly. We can only pray and hope for the best for Julian Assange.
Fred Dozer Reality007 1 hour ago 18 Sep, 2020 12:16 PM
I see nothing wrong with robbing banks in criminal controlled countries. These governments,
murder, cheat, lie, & steal.
T. Agee Kaye 2 hours ago 18 Sep, 2020 11:10 AM
The right of a people to know what their government is doing, and the potential consequences
of those actions on the people, nation, and society, is inalienable. The exposure of war
crimes and any corruption is not illegal and cannot be made illegal. The trial of Assange is
not about the legality of Assange's actions. It is a display of the influence that criminal
interests have over the government and judiciary. It is an attempt to create legitimacy by
creating precedent. Murder has plenty of precedent. It will never be legitimate.
Jewel Gyn 3 hours ago 18 Sep, 2020 10:21 AM
Agreed but having said that, we are not living in a perfect world. Bully with big fists exist
and the lesser countries just stood by frustrated and sucking their thumbs, silent lest they
be targeted for voicing out. And you can see clearly why US is walking away from any form of
organised voice eg UN.
Odinsson 2 hours ago 18 Sep, 2020 10:51 AM
What we need in the case of Julian Assange is factual reporting. While the motivation to
prosecute Assange is most likely political, there would be no ability to prosecute him were
it not for his active support of PFC Manning's hacking of a DOD information system. It is not
unlawful to publish classified information which was provided to you, so long as you are not
involved in the criminal acts leading to the exfiltration of the data. Had Assange not aided
PFC Manning by looking up hash codes in spreadsheets of known password to hash code
translations then the grand jury would not have indicted him. FWIW, it is my opinion that the
statute of limitations expired long ago and this should be grounds for dismissal of all
charges against him.
jholf 1 hour ago 18 Sep, 2020 12:04 PM
These world leaders, claim to be Christians, ... their God 'commands', "Thou shalt not kill."
Yet, for more than 6 decades, that is exactly what each of these Christian Commanders in
Chief, have done for no reason, other than to fill the pockets of the elite. A man is known
by his deeds, Assange gave us truth, while these world leaders gave us war and destructi
Before he was a journalist and a novelist, before he was a globe-trotting war correspondent and a historian with an eye for ordinary
people that led extraordinary lives, Scott Anderson was a child of the Cold War. His father worked for the State Department, which
took the Anderson family to South Korea, Taiwan, and Indonesia. All three countries were located on the new fault lines of the geopolitical
struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union, anti-communism and communism, the "Yanks" and the "Reds." [ Before he was
a journalist and a novelist, before he was a globe-trotting war correspondent and a historian with an eye for ordinary people that
led extraordinary lives, Scott Anderson was a child of the Cold War. His father worked for the State Department, which took the Anderson
family to South Korea, Taiwan, and Indonesia. All three countries were located on the new fault lines of the geopolitical struggle
between the United States and the Soviet Union, anti-communism and communism, the "Yanks" and the "Reds." [ [ [
Find the Book ]
At the time, the Reagan administration was backing the right-wing Salvadoran government in its war against leftist rebels,
yet another front in the anti-communism campaign. The incident planted a simple question in Anderson's mind: How had it come to this?
As a kid, Anderson watched his father grow disillusioned with his country's crusade against communism and the folly of the Vietnam
War.
But Anderson himself didn't fully grasp the contradictions, hubris, and stupidity of the American empire's obsession with anti-communism
until the spring of 1984, when he watched a young woman's body dumped and retrieved with grim efficiency by a group of soldiers on
a side street in San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador. At the time, the Reagan administration was backing the right-wing Salvadoran
government in its war against leftist rebels, yet another front in the anti-communism campaign. The incident planted a simple question
in Anderson's mind: How had it come to this?
In his absorbing new book The Quiet Americans: Four CIA Spies at the Dawn of the Cold War -- A Tragedy in Three Acts
, Anderson answers that question by zeroing in on a critical juncture in time, the dawn of the Cold War from 1944 to 1956, and
on four spooks who not just witnessed but shaped history during that period of time. It would be too on the nose to say Anderson's
book reads like Graham Greene's classic The Quiet American , but Anderson masterfully weaves together the lives of Frank Wisner,
a genteel Southerner who climbs the ranks of the CIA only to fall into despair and take his own life after the U.S.'s betrayal of
revolutionaries in eastern Europe; Ed Lansdale, a CIA legend who has been called
"the American James Bond" and the "T.E. Lawrence of Asia"; Peter Sichel, a German Jewish refugee who traded currency on the black
market to fund covert U.S. operations across Europe; and Michael Burke, a black-ops specialist who directed commando operations behind
the Iron Curtain. Each man would meet a different fate, but taken together they capture in vivid detail the early days of the CIA
and the origins of the Cold War.
But The Quiet Americans book is more than a real-life le Carré tale. By focusing on the post-World War II period and the
critical early days of the Cold War, Anderson's story raises questions about the rise of American empire and how the trajectory of
the 20th and 21st century could have looked so much differently. "If FDR had lived even another year, probably what happened in Eastern
Europe would have looked quite a bit different," Anderson tells Rolling Stone , referring to the upheaval on the European
continent after World War II. "I think that Stalin would have responded to FDR. Again, this is a great what if?"
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
Rolling Stone: I've read so many end-of-the-Cold-War stories and end-of-World-War-Two stories. But with this time period from
1944 to 1956, I found myself absorbing the history as much as the characters and their stories. How did you come to zero in on this
period in not just American history but world history?
Scott Anderson: As I say at the beginning of the book, I'm very much a product of the Cold War. It was something I spent a lot of
time thinking about growing up. And then seeing the residue of it in war reporting in the '80s and '90s. When did it all start to
go south? When did all this get locked into place where there was this stalemate that went on forever and that I think is currently
damaging to an American standing around the world?
I was reading some books about FDR while World War II was going and this idea that this was going to be the end of the age of
empires, the dismantling of the British and the French empires, and that America was going to be this this kind of beacon of freedom
and the spreader of democracy around the world. And then by the early '50s, with the CIA knocking over the regimes in Guatemala and
in Iran, there was an incredible turnaround in this 12-year period.
Did you have any of these globe-trotting larger than life characters in mind when you picked this time period?
I always want to write history that focuses on people who are at the front lines or the players in the field rather than the generals
or diplomats. When you're talking about the Cold War, the people on the front lines were spies, which kind of works out. I'd rather
write about spies than accountants. I'd heard of Wisner and I'd heard of Ed Lansdale. If you read much at all about Vietnam stuff,
Lansdale is pretty prominent. But the other two [Sichel and Burke] I'd never heard of. I looked at, I don't know, 20, 25 different
CIA agents through this period. And invariably there were a lot of guys who did cool stuff for a while, but then went to the State
Department or were sitting in the embassy somewhere. Or I couldn't find any paper trail for them. And I really needed that.
And so out of all these people I looked at, I ended up with exactly these four. With Peter Sichel, he's kind of like finding the
proverbial chest of letters in the attic sort of thing. He's still alive, still incredibly sharp, the last surviving member of this
generation of the early CIA guys. And had been very prominent. In fact, I probably did eight or nine interviews with him. So he was
a real find. It was kind of a treasure hunt.
What I found so fascinating about Frank Wisner is his evolution over the course of the book, from a true believer and early CIA
booster to, in the case of Eisenhower and the "new look" policy, a cautionary voice or a skeptic. The guy asked, "Is this right policy?
What are we getting ourselves into?"
I don't think you could put Wisner in a novel. He starts out as this gung ho guy, the Mighty Wurlitzer he creates, and he just wants
to start fires everywhere. He's this deeply emotional guy and he really takes this stuff personally. And I think he just sees coming
over his desk the endless list of disasters and agents disappearing and being executed, he really did change.
The incredible irony with the Hungarian Revolution is here, finally, is the thing that he's been fighting for the last 10 years.
And just the irony that he's in Europe when it happens, he goes down to the border. He sees all the refugees pouring across the border.
And has a complete emotional collapse that he never really recovers from.
Along with Lansdale, he is probably the best known because he was so prominent in the early CIA. And most people think of him
as just like I said earlier, this is rabid right wing anti-communist, but the Eisenhower people scared him. And by then he had seen
all these operations just fail. And I think he started thinking we have to approach this in a different way. And, of course, he wasn't
listened to.
You bring an interesting background and experience to in this case a work of history, being a journalist, foreign correspondent,
war correspondent who has written extensively from the places that you also write about decades, generations earlier in this book
and obviously in your book Lawrence in Arabia . How do those things interplay?
I suspect that even more than the war reporting the fact I grew up overseas and I didn't spend any time in the States until I was
a teenager, in a funny way, gave me not an outsider's perspective but a semi-outsider's perspective on this country.
In thinking of war, I can think back to the very first war I went to, which was in 1983 in Beirut, and it was just before the
Marine barracks there got blown up. I was there about a month before that. The American troops on the ground were getting shot at
already. A few had been killed. And I remember standing out in front of the American embassy in Beirut that had been destroyed a
few months earlier with a massive truck bomb. There was a 19 year old soldier -- about my age -- sitting on top of a tank in front
of the American embassy. We just got talking and he said, "Can I ask you a question? Why are we here?"
He had no clue why they were there or what in fact their mission was. Not to take anything away from him but I doubt he could
have found Beirut on a map. He was just some kid out of Kansas or something. And I've seen that again and again with American troops
around the world that they really don't understand why they're where they are or what they're supposed to be doing. Again, it goes
back to this notion that we're coming in to liberate people. And I think these poor bastards in the field are constantly surprised
why the locals are putting IEDs on them or shooting at them. That's not true with the British and the French and former imperialists.
They seem to have a much better sense of well, we're here, if the French go in to Indonesia to knock some heads because of an insurgency
or a guerrilla war going on, they kind of know they're doing it for their own self-interest or their country's self-interest and
they have this kind of imperial mandate to do it. And I think British likewise. But Americans, they just don't think that way. The
rest of the world thinks of them that way. But they don't.
You write about the Red Scare and the very profound effect it had on U.S. foreign policy and on the institutions and people in
The Quiet Americans . We all know who Roy Cohn is, Joe McCarthy, the black lists in Hollywood. But how did the Red Scare seep
into America's actions abroad?
Out of the four people I write about, two of them were direct victims of the Red Scare. Frank Wisner and Peter Sichel were both at
different times investigated for their possible leftist connections. And in Frank Wisner's case, because of a relationship he'd had
with this Romanian woman during the war and who then maybe had gone on to pass information to the Soviets afterwards. J. Edgar Hoover
hated Frank Wisner. At one point, right when Eisenhower was coming to the presidency, it looked like Wisner was probably going to
be chosen to be the next CIA director like clockwork right after the election, Hoover reopened investigation into Wisner, something
that had been going on now for seven years. Until Wisner died in '65, it was always hanging over his head.
McCarthy gets all the
credit because they named the era after him, but he was by and large J. Edgar Hoover's front man.
So what you saw was the Red Scare play out on an international level or the level of foreign policy in two really significant
ways. One was obvious: When you are in the height of the Red Scare, there's no downside to if you in the CIA to launch an operation
that was going to fail or that or that would overthrow a democratic regime. You can only run into trouble if it looks like you're
obstructing the American advance against the communists.
The great irony of the CIA's covert operations around the world in the '40s and '50s was that the most successful aspects of it
were the soft power ones -- Radio Free Europe, Voice of America. This kind of battle for hearts and minds started in Europe as this
kind of intellectual counter movement against the communists overseas. There was a program where we'd sent hundreds of thousands
of books overseas and had these open libraries. They were sponsoring Langston Hughes and putting on Porgy and Bess in Berlin.
It actually had a huge cultural effect. And all that disappeared during the Red Scare.
When I finished the book, I feel like there are many ways to describe it, but on one sort of more abstract level, I almost came
away feeling like it was sort of counterintuitive in the history of American empire or at least a sort of American interventionism
and meddling overseas. And that there was a moment, a sort of a crossroads, where the U.S. didn't go down this path that it did.
Did you set out to do that?
I felt it kind of came about pretty organically. To my mind, there are two great turning points or potential turning points that
where things could have gone the other way. One being FDR dying like three weeks before the end of the war. I do think that if FDR
had lived even another year, probably what happened in Eastern Europe would have looked quite a bit different. I think that Stalin
would have responded to FDR. Again, this is a great what if? I think he would have been more equipped to deal with what was happening
in Eastern Europe. Where I think Truman was just like a deer in headlights. So for about two years, he still seemed to labor under
this idea that Oh, maybe we can deal with the Soviets. Maybe our wartime alliance can still be repaired until finally in 1947, he
comes out with the Truman Doctrine, he starts the CIA, but at that point it's too late. All of Eastern Europe is essentially sewn
up at that point.
I think the other great turning point is around the time of Stalin's death and the Hungarian Revolution. There are probably three
or four times, culminating in the Hungarian Revolution, when the Kremlin was sending out peace feelers to the West. They were the
ones who started talking about peaceful coexistence. And every time, the Eisenhower administration, led by John Foster Dulles, spurned
them. And so I think that's the second great turning point to me, and you really see it in the Hungarian Revolution where, on one
day, Khrushchev decides, We have to let Hungary go. We can't fight back. We're going to liberalize all of Eastern Europe .
Basically, he was talking about what Gorbachev did 33 years later. And then in one day, he flips around and thinks to himself, "Well,
if the Americans were going to do anything about Hungary, they would have done it by now." Then from that time, you see Khrushchev
changing and he becomes more and more hard line. And so the Cold War goes on for another 33 years.
Another key turning point in the future course of Middle Eastern history is the overthrow of Mosadegh in Iran, which you write
about. I always come back to the what if with Iran. If we had not done that, what would Iran look like today?
The astonishing thing to me is I've spent a lot of time in the Middle East is, you know, you look at old pictures of Iran or Egypt
or, you know, anywhere in the Middle East, Iraq from the 1950s and they're very westernized. America had huge influence in the 1950s
in that region, as it did in a lot of other regions around the world.
All of that was squandered by the overthrow of Mosadegh, and the fact that for a number of years after the coup there the CIA
bragged about their role. You know, this is a great triumph. And it was really probably not until like the mid-'70s when they said
Oh, you know what? Maybe we shouldn't be bragging about this so much. And then, of course, the shah is overthrown, you have a Islamic
fundamentalist regime come in, and now, throughout that part of the world, though this is complicated by Israel, of course, you've
seen this incredible swing back to this Islamic fundamentalism everywhere. Even in American satellites like Egypt, you would never
have seen a woman in a burqa in Cairo 15, 20 years ago. You see it all the time now.
These things tend to have a second life and it's a bad life from the standpoint of American power and prestige. History is weird,
how a certain event comes along and how, only in hindsight, you can see what a crucial turning point it probably was.
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. ..."
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
.
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.
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
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.
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.
"... 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 ..."
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.
[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:
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
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.
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.
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".
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.
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.
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.
"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.
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
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.
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.
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.
As well, this fake news propaganda barrage continues in the context of determined censorship
of alternative media and social media - a campaign which has been largely promoted by the
liberal intelligentsia in the US, in the name of reducing "fake news."
Having to live within an ever-widening swamp of utter BS is wearying and mind-numbing - also
to the point, one may assume.
Yes, I agree, IMO/observation, the US Government, the political parties and their supportive
media are rapidly ideologically polarizing their constituencies to two hard entrenched
ideological camps (which as you say has become hard shelled impenetrable). Except on one
common ideological point, which almost all the population has been and is being brain washed
as young as first grade, this common used term, which shield you from needing to investigate
or form any other opinion is: US has always been, is and will be a "force for good" by its
constitution, no matter what she has done or will do. This sentence when fully believed and
carved in one' mind from childhood is very difficult to erase and crack. These two
ideologically opposing camps about 70% of the population will not want to hear any fact or
not, other than what they are told and believed all their life.
"Unlike utopian engineering, piecemeal social engineering must be "small scale," Popper
said, meaning that social reform should focus on changing one institution at a time. Also,
whereas utopian engineering aims for lofty and abstract goals (for example, perfect justice,
true equality, a higher kind of happiness), piecemeal social engineering seeks to address
concrete social problems (for example, poverty, violence, unemployment, environmental
degradation, income inequality). It does so through the creation of new social institutions
or the redesign of existing ones. These new or reconfigured institutions are then tested
through implementation and altered accordingly and continually in light of their effects.
Institutions thus may undergo gradual improvement overtime and social ills gradually reduced.
Popper compared piecemeal social engineering to physical engineering. Just as physical
engineers refine machines through a series of small adjustments to existing models, social
engineers gradually improve social institutions through "piecemeal tinkering." In this way,
"[t]he piecemeal method permits repeated experiments and continuous readjustments" (Open
Society Vol 1., 163).
Only such social experiments, Popper said, can yield reliable feedback for social
planners. In contrast, as discussed above, social reform that is wide ranging, highly complex
and involves multiple institutions will produce social experiments in which it is too
difficult to untangle causes..."
So Top-Down with a vengeance, but softly, softly, hunting for 'good results', for what and
how these are defined is left out entirely, and who exactly runs the process...? (Btw China
sorta follows this approach with 'social experiments' gathering data that is analysed etc. to
improve governance.)
Don't forget that the only time the Amerikastani Empire's warmongering imperialist media
called Trump "presidential" was when he launched missiles at Syria on false pretences in
support of al Qaeda.
The statement by praetor McKenzie probably won't do much to remove the "Russian bounties"
tale from the received Beltway belief structure, where it lodged immediately upon
publication, any more than earlier refutations, or its inherent implausibility, did. I see
the bounties regularly referred to by Dems and Dem-adjacent media as established fact.
In the same light, it's worthwhile to read the Politico article on the alleged Iranian
designs on the purse princess and try to spot other fictions included as supposedly factual
background, some qualified as being American assertions, but others presented as undisputed
fact, such as:
Trump's version of the almost-happened retaliation after Iran downed a U.S. drone
that the attack that killed a U.S. "contractor" in Iraq that started last winter's
U.S./Iran tit-for-tat was "by an Iranian-allied militia"
Soleimani was responsible for the death of numerous U.S. troops
Soleimani plotted to hire a Mexican drug cartel to kill the Saudi ambassador in
Washington (remember that one? a blast from the past)
This new one about the plot to get the ambassador in Pretoria may be too trivial to get
sustained attention, but it will show up as background in some future Politico article or the
like, joining the rest in the Beltway's version of reality, which at this point is made
almost entirely of these falsehoods encrusting on each other, decade after decade, creating
the phony geopolitical mindscape these people live in.
Mere factual refutation – even from otherwise establishment-approved sources –
won't remove these barnacles. For instance, in February the NY Times itself published a
debunking of the initial account that it was an Iran-backed Shia militia, as opposed to
Salafist I.S.-affiliated forces, that killed that U.S. contractor last December. But the good
(if delayed) reporting is forgotten; the lie persists. The same fate awaits McKenzie's
dismissal of the Russian bounties nonsense.
The thoughtful reader would at this point stop and ponder. "Fake News About Iran, Russia,
China Is U.S. Journalism's Daily Bread". I agree with this statement. But not just U.S. Journalism. Minimally U.K. Journalism is
on-board, if not tutoring the Yanks in the art of Journalism. And then there is Europe
herself, she too has armies of Journalists and many Journals. They too mostly fake around in
general.
Now then, that leave Journalism in "Iran, Russia, China". It is fine trait to root for
underdogs but Journalism in these states is also subject to a highly controlled and managed
environment. It is disingenuous to ignore these facts.
Given this congregation of "fakers", worldwide, it is very reasonable to question the very
"fight" that these "fakers" keep telling us is on between the "adversaries".
Good to see so many being able to name the operation of the official narrative. It serves
also another purpose, witnessed by one of the most consequential actions of all, the wanton
abandonment of international law and accountability - the GWOT and the launching of same in
Afghanistan and Iraq. That other purpose is to create cover for those, elected in our name,
to avoid responsibility.
"Who knew?" asked the soulless Rumsfeld. And the refrain returned from the hollowed out
halls of the Greatest Democracy On Earth (tm) - "We were misled!", "Look it says so right
there in the official narrative, REMEMBER?" But the misleaders are never rounded up and never
face any consequences, cause truth be told all that voted for the AUMF belong in the pokey.
And the congressional class of '02-'03 would do the same thing all over again, 'cause the
narrative's got their back.
Despite the future grimness predicted by 1984 , the ability and effectiveness of Media
Structures to openly lie and thus herd the public to embrace the preferred Narrative hasn't
turned out quite the way Orwell thought it might. Former authoritarian blocs learned the hard
way that it's better to tell their citizens the truth and actively engage them in governance,
while the Anglo-Imperial powers have gone in the opposite direction, thus the question why?
IMO, the longstanding Narrative related to the mythical Dream has greatly eroded in the face
of Reality, while at the same time the Rentier Class and the Duopoly it controls needs
to try and obfuscate what it's doing. And thus we've seen the rise of BigLie Media to be used
for the purpose of Divide and Rule. There're numerous works detailing how and why; two of the
more important are Manufacturing of Consent and J is for Junk Economics . Part
of the overall process of dumbing-down populations is the deliberate destruction of the
educational process, particularly in the areas of philosophy and political-economy/history,
which are essentially connected as one when considering the History of Ideas or a sub-area
like the Philosophy of Science.
Such a dumbing-down of a nation's populous can be measured, the USSR and its Warsaw Bloc
being the most evident, but also The Inquisition and its affect on the advancement of science
within the regions it ruled, and the inward turning of China during the Ming Dynasty which
allowed for its subjugation by Western forces beginning in the 16th Century. Most recently,
this is evident in China's passing the Outlaw US Empire in terms of geoeconomics and thus
overall geopolitical power. An explanation for India's inability to match China's development
can be found in its refusal to do away with its semi-feudal caste system and not educate its
masses so they can become a similar collective dynamo as in China. At the beginning of his
brief tenure, JFK noted the Knowledge Gap that existed between a USSR that was nearing its
intellectual heights (although that wasn't known then) and the USA whose educational system
effectively excluded @60% of students from having the opportunity to advance. There would
never have been a Dot.Com economy without JFK's initiative to improve educational outcomes.
There seems to be a notion within the Outlaw US Empire's elite that an well educated populace
presents a danger to their rule and they can get by using AI and Robotics to further their
future plans. Here I'd refer such thinkers to the lessons provided by the failure of Asimov's
Galactic Empire in his Foundation series of books--particular their reliance on AI, robotics,
dumbing-down the populace to the point where no one recalls how atomics functioned. The sort
of balance sheet being constructed by the Fed cannot repair or replace crumbling
infrastructure or train the engineers needed to perform the work.
So, what continual BigLie Media lies tell us is the continued downward spiral of the
West's intellectual abilities will continue while an East that values the Truth and Discovery
moves on to eclipse it, mainly because the West has stopped trying, thinking it's found a
better way based on the continual amassing of Debt, which is seen as wealth on their balance
sheets. Ultimately, the West thinks the one person holding all the assets as the winner of
its Zero-sum Monopoly Game is a better outcome than having millions of people sharing the
winnings of a Win-Win system that promotes the wellbeing of all. I can tell you now which
philosophy will triumph, but you all ought to be capable of reasoning that outcome.
After a sound and an in-depth analysis, b sometimes confounds me with his credulity. Take
this sentence for example: "Why do U.S. journalist presume that the agencies and anonymous
officials who work under him are more truthful in their uttering than the man himself is hard
to understand. Why do swallow their bullshit?" Of course there is no daylight between the US,
and indeed the whole Western governments, and its Press. 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.
You only have to look at who owns the media and who their close friends are,
to understand why the media says what it says or lies what it lies !
It's an industry promoting the elites self-interest, creating fictioous enemy countries to
feed the arms industry and create US domestic mass paranoia.
The Israeli lobby groups are at the wheel of the whole dam clown car.
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.
No doubt the two propaganda streams will merge until we will be told that the CIA now
believes that Iran will attempt plausible deniability by funnelling the money through Putin,
who will offer it to the Taliban by way of a bounty on the Ambassador's head.
The CIA's wet dream: the Taliban does it, Putin arranged it, but it was all Iran's fault,
leading to:
A) infinite occupation of the poppy fie.... sorry, Afghanistan
B) even more sanctions on Russia
C) war with Iran
'"Public opinion", according to Bernays, is an amorphous group of judgments which are not
well elaborated even in the head of a single average individual. He extracts a quotation from
Wilfred Trotter, which states that this average man has many strong convictions whose origin
he can't explain (Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War, p. 36). People's minds have
"logic-proof compartments" which must be approached by means beyond the rational. (pp.
61–68).'
Yes, I forgot to mention this very important book. If I'm not mistaken (and I may be),
Popper got the term from Bernays.
Popper, von Hayek... these guys are the fathers of neoliberalism. I'm not mentioning
backyard intellectuals here. They shaped the West as we know it today and, if you're a
Westerner and wants to understand the civilization you live in, you have to know what they
formulated.
Just to clear that off: I don't agree with Popper's (or Bernays, for that matter)
conception on "public opinion". The Marxist conception of ideology is much more complete and
precise scientifically.
Speaking of education (although of science/tach, rather than critical thinking)...
Add in the migration of top-level educated individuals. In the US, an underdeveloped
primary/secondary school system creates room at the university/grad level to absorb talent
from the rest of the world. For many years, this was a source of competitive advantage --
imported human capital is better than home grown, because if you import, you take it away
from someone else. Clever!
It was not that big a deal for the US if social mobility of native born lower and middle
classes was stifled somewhat. (and I would say it still would not be a big deal if the
resources of the country were not so grossly mismanaged/wasted/stolen).
But in the current century, or certainly the decade now ending, China alone can fill every
US grad school science/tech program and still have people to spare for itself. Other parts of
the world are right up there as well.
And then you have computers. Sometime between 2000 and 2010, computers became pretty much
cheap enough that you could give one to a every kid, even in families of limited means.
Provided the primary/secondary education system is there to support it, a country could
develop as much tech talent as they had population. The first generation of kids whose
childhood took place under this condition is now coming out of university - I would think
vastly greater in numbers than any amount the US (or Euro) higher educational system can
absorb. Should be a pretty serious shifting of gears in how human capital is distributed
worldwide.
But none of this is about critical thinking. Few systems of organizing society actually
promote that ... it tends to happen in spite of the organizing principles, rather than
because of them. Nor are the most educated (regardless of country of origin) any less
susceptible to the propaganda - if anything they are more so, due to the design of the
message, because it is more important that they receive it. You want a book recommendation
that talks about that, check out 'Disciplined Minds' by Jeff Schmidt (though perhaps with an
overly pessimistic outlook -- people can recognize the reality he describes and deal with
it... it is only the more naive/idealistic types who fall extra hard for the mythology and
then find themselves in a conflict they can't handle). There are lots of other avenues to
take too... about the psychology of self-discovery, discovery of self-vs-social-organism
etc....
Exactly that and yet we are constantly fed a diet from the bottom of the barrel. NYT?
WAPO? They are rags. Gutter press peddling drivel. Surely there are more erudite and critical
publications in this world than these USA drivel sheets. I am aware of good journalism in
Switzerland and elsewhere but currently separted from a device adequate to translate and
quote.
Thank you Conspiracy-theorist it I way past time we escaped the neverending story of BS +
HATE.
A propos fake news, John Helmer reports on the Navalny saga and was lately on the
Gorilla radio podcast with Chris Cook to discuss the newest events. It's a one-hour-talk
but very enjoyable listening to Helmer. You can also follow his reports on his blog
Dances With Bears .
Try this on for size. This is a conclusion I arrived at several decades ago, wrote about
several times, but not recently.
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.
The princes and barons of industry and finance were very open about their complaints. The
advance of regulation on their ability to pollute and to exploit must stop or they would take
their bundles of riches and go elsewhere. It is what Saint Ronny was ALL about. And so all
that got fat and filthy rich during the real American Century took their wealth where
regulation and labor fairness and justice didn't exist to continue their exorbitant profit
taking.
And then they imported those cheap products here to wreak what was left of our industrial
base and to impress on all of us that they remain the boss, the real power. Drive down wages,
destroy pensions and safety nets and put US proles back into wage slavery. Remember the 80's
and 90's when Wal-Mart basically told established and storied US manufacturers "either you
produce the goods we want for what our Asian suppliers can make them for, or you're
finished." And that is exactly what happened. Wal-Mart was just the vanguard, it is now
ubiquitous. Another aspect of this assault was forcing us proles into the stock market
through our pensions and retirement funds so as to make us all sympathetic to de-regulation -
so as not to hurt OUR bottom line. Many labor unions became just a sick symbiosis with the
industries they "served."
Incomplete and observational, I am not erudite or lettered, but I think it is an accurate
narrative.
There is a curious schizophrenia where the U.S. press will treat presidential claims about
foreign affairs as a sacred truth but treat claims denying adultery, such as in the Lewinski
affair, as dismissible.
Living in the USA (Steve Miller classic) has always seemed to me about dealing with falsehood
and deception. US highschool seemed like he time for me when the formidable pressure to
conform became completely nonsensical, perhaps because it was so utterly cruel, but also
because it seemed untruthful. You basically were required to accept modes if behavior and
thought that seemed alien to human behavior, but were presented as the sine quo non of how to
be. How to succeed, how to live. It seems to me that if you were attempting to retain
truthfulness, this conformity was rife with logical fallacies of every sort which if you
tried to deal with them, or confront them, you were ostracized or at worst outcast.
In the many years since, it seems like everything else, once a person adopts untruthful
behavior, it is next to impossible to change course, so you deal with all kinds of people who
have doubled down on their personal deceptions. Marriages based on financial success come to
mind, and are like any deception, the cause of incredible dis ease and misey.
There is a philosophical concept I came upon called parrhesia that Foucault gives a
fantastic series of lectures on which can be found by searching the web, that investigates
the perils implicit in telling truth to falsehood, and the many disasters and tragedies that
have befallen human kind in the attempts to do so.
I've come to think that humans by nature are basically incapable of avoiding whatever it
is that is "truth." Because over and over life seems to present situations that are the
unswervingly the same to everyone. Youth and aging, for example, and the end result never
varies, like illness, death, and dying. And everyone has their own similar story navigating
the human predicaments and facing an inalterable "truth," which might be in this example,
death.
My wonder as I observe life as I age, is what is the damage done to those not only who try
their honest best to remain truthful, but what is the damage done to those who cannot escape
an adopted untruth and refuse to let go of it. I suppose in this moment of history, you need
only look at pandemic, wildfires, and conflicts to see how far human beings have digressed
from an Eden. But there must be a purpose to it all? Like, trying to cling to any kind of
integrity.
You think international fake news is just a Trump thing? Just off the top of my head we have
thins like Tonkin Bay, Kuwait babies being massacred by Iraqi troops, my personal favorite
Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, and a multiple of mean Assads killing their people with
poison. That is just a bipartisan few. We have one political party, who serves the deep
state. The deep state serves the interests of Wall Street and more importantly the Rothschild
world banking system. Give the spooks a lot of credit they let us have two "choices" while
controlling both. Think of it as a neo fascism kinda thing that ironically finances the anti
fascists. The press is just a means to an end. Assume everything is an agenda, and read the
independents for some actual thought. I may not agree with you all the time, but I do love
you MoA. Thank you for all your work.
'spooked oligarchy...reforms..culminated in ..70s'
Yep. When committed Dem's go off on Trump, it's deeply felt but kindof a ritual rant.
Bring Ralph Nader into the conversation, just mention him in passing, and the response
becomes live! Betrayal, danger of being shown up again!
Old and Grumpy @67 has a good point. Anyone suggesting that fake news is in any way related
to Trump being President are big parts of the problem for why fake news persists in the first
place. Suggesting that it is because of Trump, and thus implying that the fake news will go
away when Trump does, is either profoundly ignorant, or profoundly deceitful, though probably
both. Trump ranting about fake news exposed the problem and forced it into the public
discourse. Those rants did not create the problem.
"You basically were required to accept modes if behavior and thought that seemed alien to
human behavior ... ... forced to double down"
I had short but deeply influential conversation right out of college with a recruiter/HR
manager from Raytheon, of all places. He talked about exactly what you said. He spoke, in a
hypothetical third person, about a mid-career guy with a mortgage and family who finds
themselves questioning the defense industry. How that isn't the best place to be in,
mentally. I changed my career plans that day, forever thankful for the encounter.
However, regarding people being able to avoid unpleasant realities, he was of the opinion
that for most people, it is possible to do so. Even beneficial. (Except of course for the
recipients of his company's products. I didn't say that but I think he figured out that I was
thinking it). The issue, from the point of view of running an effective organization, is what
happens if the doubters and believers start to mix? Part of his assigned task was to simply
keep out people curious enough to ask too many questions. That's one of the "benefits" of
really polarizing politics too.
"My wonder as I observe life as I age, is what is the damage done to those not
only who try their honest best to remain truthful, but what is the damage done to those who
cannot escape an adopted untruth and refuse to let go of it."
That's what modern pharmaceuticals are for, and why one in six Americans (officially) are
prescribed them. If we include the numbers of Americans who self-medicate with alcohol and/or
grey/black market pharmaceuticals, then the proportion would be a bit (quite a bit) larger.
People who succeed at being truthful (mostly to themselves) are not confronted with cognitive
dissonance mind-quakes; however, such individuals are confronted with experiencing the retch
reflex when consuming mass media.
Is being truthful vs embracing the lies then half-dozen of one and six of the other? I
find satisfactory peace of mind from being truthful and simply avoiding the primary vector of
deception; the mass media. Noble individuals like our host and some of the posters here will
slog through that vile cesspool of lies and fish out the little nuggets of truth that leak
out. It is selfish of me to leave such dirty work to others, but at least I am not
hermetically isolated on a mountain somewhere.
An interesting thought. I have long had the feeling that a large part of the obviously
orchestrated drive to almost define both of the two US parties with really incredibly
unimportant issues like bathroom preferences were designed to split the voters as equally as
possible, so that to swing elections one had only to control the votes of a very small number
of tie breakers. I still think this is likely true, but I do think you make an important
point that a lot can be learned about what is truly important to the PTB by reflecting on the
topics that aren't being argued over.
Compare the "two" US political parties, and you will note that while they seem to be getting
ever more extreme and irreconcilable and quasi-religious in their differences, these
differences are always on the periphery. Both parties are being indoctrinated with certain
common beliefs they will take for granted because they are never talked about -- because
these points are not allowed to be in contention. So while even something like climate change
can be a big divider (no worries, there's money to be made on both sides of that issue, and
means of control); but you will never hear debate about
1. America is the greatest ever!
2.
America is always and unquestionably a force for good, and even it's proven bad things
(kidnapping, rendition, and torture programs) are done "for the greater good."
3. Unbridled
capitalism is the only way, and the privatization and unwinding of any vestiges of social
programs, like education, social security, and even utilities and infrastructure, is always a
good thing deserving of priority.
4. Individualism is the best, if not only, way. To be a
hero you must strike alone against the bad guys/the system/the government; someone who
rallies others, causes forces to be gathered and united, unionized, whatever are discouraged
or ignored.
5. "Leadership" in the affairs of others around the world is American right,
responsibility, and destiny. Having the largest, almost entirely offensively oriented
military on earth is essential; and having it, we must use it to get our money's worth.
6.
Omnipresent "intelligence" services equal safety and are absolutely required for life to be
normal. I'm sure there are other examples of "universally agreed" doctrines in the US, but
these are some that leap out.
These crazy MSM lies Anecdote. Last Sat (Geneva, Switz.) I spoke to 20 ppl whom I know
somewhat, all know I like to discuss news etc. I said, weird news this week, making no
mention of Navalny. 18/20 believed Putin poisoned Navalny and brought it up spontaneously!
There is something so appealing and narratively 'seductive' about spies and 'opponents'
(Skripal ) and mysterious poisons used by evil doers etc. that fiction just flows smoothly
into fact or whatever is 'real.'
I had to mention Assange myself to most, but there the reaction was very mixed, most
thought Assange was being persecuted, or it was 'not right', and took this story seriously in
one way or another - 4 ppl claimed not to know the latest news. Here, NGOs, Leftists and
Others have made demands for him to be offered asylum in Switz, so he has been front
page.
Besides that (I'm always interested in from-the-ground view-points, experiences, so post
some myself) what is going on is monopoly consolidation:
Mega MSM in cahoots with the MIC, Big Pharma, Big Agri, Finance, and so on. Corporations
joining up their positions bit by bit while also competing in some ways, bribing and owning
the Pols. who are front-men and women tasked with providing a lot of drama, manufactured
agitation, etc., which in turn is fodder for the MSM, etc.
Overall, the most important sector to watch is the GAFAM, 1, the reign of the middle men
is close at hand (control information, both the channels and the content, and commerce up to
a point.) All this leaves out energy considerations, another vital topic left aside.
Thanks for your reply! I've touched on the topic of human capital and its development
occasionally here, positing it's the #1 asset of all nations. Those nations who neglect to
develop their own human capital are bound to become deficient when it comes to basic
comparative advantages with other nations, particularly as political-economy shifts from
being materialistic to knowledge-based; thus Pepe Escobar agreeing wholeheartedly with my
comment about India. (He added this article to his FB timeline and I posted my comment
there.)
From 1999-2003, I was involved in developing distance learning platforms for the rapidly
advancing ability to learn outside of a school's four walls. The other educators I worked
with and myself had great hopes for the virtual classroom and what it might do to aide both
teachers and students. At the time we thought this development would provide a great
opportunity for the third member of the educational team--parents--to play a greater role in
the process since active parental involvement was proven to generate better student outcomes.
But for that to be properly implemented, equitable funding for all school districts became an
even greater issue than it was already. This issue highlighted the huge problems related to
financing education at a moment when BushCo Privatizers began to seriously threaten what was
already in place. And that problem has only worsened, the vast disparities being very evident
thanks to COVID-forced distance learning. The primary reason good teachers can't be retained
is the entire system's a massive Clusterfuck. And computers aren't substitutes for even poor
teachers. And parents are even more aloof from becoming involved in the process than ever
before.
The dumbing-down I mention is now entering its third generation. The educational structure
needs to be completely refitted nationally, but I wouldn't give that task to any of the
fuckwits employed by the past three administrations--Yes, I'm arguing education needs to be a
completely federal program instead of the 53 different school systems in states and
territories; and yes, I'm aware of the pitfalls and potential corruption that poses, which is
a microcosm of all the problems at the federal level of government. This problem is yet
another very basic reason why the Duopoly and its backers need to be ousted from government
and kept as far away as possible as the structure is torn down and rebuilt--The USA will
never be great again until that is done.
I suggest that the reason that the media focus on the ridiculous is to convince the public
that there is nothing important happening - except where the MSM wants the participation of
the public as in with anti-Russia, anti_China, anti-Socialism, etc. Good to get the public
participation directed at harmless targets.
They've got to fill the papers with something. The public must be kept warm, comfortable,
semi-comatose, watching cat videos...
Last thing anybody wants is the involvement of the public, they will only screw
everything-up or try anyway.
Thanks for your reply! Your explanation sadly is correct, but it was put into motion prior
to Reagan becoming POTUS. The tools used to undo the New Deal were put into place before FDR
became POTUS. And FDR's unwillingness to prosecute those who attempted to overthrow his
government provided that faction to infiltrate government and eventually attempt to undo the
good that was done prior to WW2. When looked at closely, American society was generally quite
Liberal in the positive aspects of that term and during the Depression was becoming ever more
Collectivist with the war advancing that even further. At the war's end, it was paramount for
the forces taking control of the nation to push the public to the right and away from its
collectivist proclivities. Where we find ourselves today thus is not an accident of history
but an engineered outcome. You may recall voices on the Right accusing Liberals and their
organizations of engaging in Social Engineering. Those accusations were projections since it
was actually forces on the Right that were maneuvering society to the Right while assiduously
applying the principle of Divide and Rule to create a condition where they would be immune
from political challenge, which is where we are now.
A few understand this ugly truth and how we arrived here. What's missing is scholarship
that links the changes that began in the 1870s with today's situation. Yes, there're good
examinations of various pieces of the overall puzzle. But it appears that only Hudson and
those in his small circle have figured it out; yet, they haven't produced a complete history
that encapsulates it all. And for us to have a realistic chance to undo what's been done, we
need to know how it all transpired.
Antonym @ 60
"There are big differences between Trump and Biden regarding their foreign policies:
Trump is hard on Xi-China and soft on Putin Russia, while Biden is the reverse."
I don't share your view. The current administration's foreign policy is very much aligned
with that of past administrations and the diplomatic circus surrounding the Skripal affair
alone is evidence that nobody is soft on Russia.
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.
If a Trump hater hears the criticism that the president is too soft on Russia, he will
readily grab the bash-Russia stick hoping to score a few hits on Trump. The same person's
reaction to a criticism on Biden will be either indifference or angry denial. In either case,
he will not be opposed to the bash-Russia nor the bash-China movement.
The dem hater's reaction is similar. Indifference to the soft-on-Russia claim (ie. no
opposition to the bash-Russia movement) and active support for the China-bashing.
The article and subsequent discussion brings to mind Dawkins discussion of Memes and
Memetics. Not those pesky internet memes. The propaganda war is fierce, and almost without
exception the people here are poking and prodding perhaps without being able to put the
finger on the "EZ button". This is war, baby, so one thinks the following link may be useful:
Wherein: " Ideally the virus of the mind being targeted will be overwritten with a higher
fidelity, fecundity, and longevity memeplex in order to assure long term sustainability. When
this is not practical, it is still possible to displace a dangerous memeplex, by creating a
more contagious benign meme utilizing certain packaging, replication, and propagation
tricks."
The lie is irrelevant, whether true or false, it must be believable, and it must
successfully replicate.
You are right, the early FDR days were, in hindsight, one of the most important in setting
the course of the US for the next century, and unfortunately Big Business won, taking us on a
long, ugly road to the right. I agree this would be a most fascinating history book if some
of those respected, genuinely knowledgeable people you often cite could collaborate on an
opus.
Yes, most people do not know that the wide ranging labor laws implemented at that time
were actually not meant to empower organized labor, but to limit it. Perhaps FDR thought it
was the best he could do for the working class, but I tend to think it was more a case of him
thinking that by outlawing general strikes, wildcat strikes, strikes in support of other
unions, and setting up an NLRB with a lot of political control by business, the powers who
had so recently let it be known they were ready to actively try to overthrow the government
might be mollified. I think he feared the US was at the cusp of a revolution, and perhaps it
was. Whether or not if would have been better had that been allowed to proceed is the big
question.
Anti-China activists funded by NED & Co make up all sorts of horrid stories online, which
are then picked up by MSM and political NGOs to spoon feed world audiences/viewers. Viola,
you have "fact-based" anti-China news!
This is literally what these overseas Uyghur activists do all day. Putting a random
caption on a video they ripped down from a medical worker's tiktok in China. And people
believe it. They'd even believe if the follow up rebuttal is that this is a forced labour
doctor.
Glad to see his name mentioned here. 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
Thanks for your reply! JK Galbraith in his American Capitalism: The Concept of
Countervailing Power lamented what you recap in your 2nd paragraph and that there was
thus no power capable of offsetting Big Business although one was sorely needed. As I wrote,
some very sharp minds have written about small segments of the overall movement toward
totalitarianism since the 1870s, Galbraith's 1952 book being one that's still worth
reading.
Karl Marx said that " Philosophers have hitherto only
interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it ." I doubt very much that
you will know which changes you need to make if you don't have a very good idea about your
starting point. In his book Factfulness and in his many excellent online presentations, the
late Swedish Professor of International Health Hans Rosling identifies a lot of the ways things
have gotten better , especially for the world's poorest.
Suppose, for example, that you encounter the name " Milton Friedman ,"
perhaps in connection with lamented "neoliberalism" and maybe in connection with human rights
abuses perpetrated by the brutal Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. Friedman has been denounced
as the "father of global misery," and his reputation has taken another beating in the wake of
the fiftieth anniversary of his 1970 New York Times Magazine essay " The Social Responsibility of Business is to
Increase its Profits ," which I suspect most people haven't read past its title. But what
happened during "The Age of Milton Friedman," as the economist Andrei Shleifer asked in
a 2009
article ? Shleifer points out that "Between 1980 and 2005, as the world embraced free
market policies, living standards rose sharply, while life expectancy, educational attainment,
and democracy improved and absolute poverty declined."
Things have never been so good, and they are getting better , especially for the world's
poor.
In 2008, there was a bit of controversy over the establishment of the Milton Friedman
Institute at the University of Chicago, which operates today as the Becker Friedman Institute (it is also named for Friedman's
fellow Chicago economist Gary Becker ). In a
blistering
reply to a protest letter signed by a
group of faculty members at the University of Chicago, the economist John Cochrane wrote, "If
you start with the premise that the last 40 or so years, including the fall of communism, and
the opening of China and India are 'negative for much of the world's population,' you just
don't have any business being a social scientist. You don't stand a chance of contributing
something serious to the problems that we actually do face." Nor, might I add, do you stand
much of a chance of concocting a revolutionary program that will actually help the people
you're trying to lead.
2. What makes me so sure I won't replace the existing regime with
something far worse?
I might hesitate to push the aforementioned button because while the world we actually
inhabit is far from perfect, it's not at all clear that deleting the state overnight wouldn't
mean civilization's wholesale and maybe even perpetual collapse. At the very least, I would
want to think long and hard about it. The explicit mention of Frantz Fanon and Che Guevara in
the course description suggest that students will be approaching revolutionary ideas from the
left. They should look at the results of populist revolutions in 20th century Latin America,
Africa, and Asia. The blood of many millions starved and slaughtered in efforts to "forge a
better society" cries out against socialism and communism, and
macroeconomic populism in Latin America has been disastrous . As people have pointed out
when told that "democratic socialists" aren't trying to turn their countries into Venezuela,
Venezuelans weren't trying to turn their country into Venezuela when they embraced Hugo Chavez.
I wonder why we should expect WLU's aspiring revolutionaries to succeed where so many others
have failed.
3. Is my revolutionary program just a bunch of platitudes with which no
decent person would disagree?
In 2019, Kristian Niemietz of London's Institute of Economic Affairs published a useful
volume titled Socialism: The Failed Idea That Never Dies , which you can
download for $0 from IEA . He notes a tendency for socialists and neo-socialists to pitch
their programs almost exclusively in terms of their hoped-for results rather than in terms of
the operation of concrete social processes they hope to set in motion (on this I paraphrase
my intellectual hero Thomas Sowell ).
Apply a test proposed a long time ago by the economist William Easterly: can you imagine
anyone seriously objecting to what you're saying? If not, then you probably aren't saying
anything substantive. Can you imagine someone saying "I hate the idea of the world's poor
having better food, clothing, shelter, and medical care" or "It would be a very bad thing if
more people were literate?" If not, then it's likely that your revolutionary program is a
tissue of platitudes and empty promises. That's not to say it won't work politically–God
knows, nothing sells better on election day than platitudes and empty promises–but you
shouldn't think you're saying anything profound if all you're saying is something obvious like
"It would be nice if more people had access to clean, drinkable water."
... ... ...
7. How has it worked the other times it has been tried?
Years before the Russian Revolution, Eugene Richter predicted with eerie prescience what
would happen in a socialist society in his short book Pictures of the Socialistic Future (
which you can
download for $0 here ). Bryan Caplan, who wrote the foreword for that edition of Pictures
and who put together the online " Museum of Communism ," points out
the distressing regularity with which communists go from "bleeding heart" to "mailed fist." It
doesn't take long for communist regimes to go from establishing a workers' paradise to shooting
people who try to leave. Consider whether or not the brutality and mass murder of communist
regimes is a feature of the system rather than a bug. Hugo Chavez and Che
Guevara both expressed bleeding hearts with their words but used a mailed fist in practice
(I've written before that "irony" is denouncing Milton Friedman for the crimes of Augusto
Pinochet while wearing a Che Guevara t-shirt. Pinochet was a murderous thug. Guevara was, too).
Caplan points to
pages 105 and 106 of Four Men: Living the Revolution: An Oral History of Contemporary Cuba
. On page 105, Lazaro Benedi Rodriguez's heart is bleeding for the illiterate. On page 106,
he's "advis(ing) Fidel to have an incinerator dug about 40 or 50 meters deep, and every time
one of these obstinate cases came up, to drop the culprit in the incinerator, douse him with
gasoline, and set him on fire."
... ... ...
9. What will I do with people who aren't willing to go along with my
revolution?
Walter Williams once said that he doesn't mind if communists want to be communists. He minds
that they want him to be a communist, too. Would you allow people to try capitalist experiments
in your socialist paradise? Or socialist experiments in your capitalist paradise (Families,
incidentally, are socialist enterprises that run by the principle "from each according to his
ability, to each according to his needs.")? Am I willing to allow dissenters to advocate my
overthrow, or do I need to crush dissent and control the minds of the masses in order for my
revolution to work? Am I willing to allow people to leave, or will I need to build a wall to
keep people in?
10. Am I letting myself off the hook for questions 1-9 and giving myself
too much credit for passion and sincerity?
The philosopher David Schmidtz has said that if your best argument is that your heart is in
the right place, then your heart is most definitely not in the right place. Consider this quote
from Edmund Burke and ask whether or not it leads you to revise your revolutionary plans:
"A conscientious man would be cautious how he dealt in blood. He would feel some
apprehension at being called to a tremendous account for engaging in so deep a play, without
any sort of knowledge of the game. It is no excuse for presumptuous ignorance, that it is
directed by insolent passion. The poorest being that crawls on earth, contending to save
itself from injustice and oppression is an object respectable in the eyes of God and man. But
I cannot conceive any existence under heaven (which, in the depths of its wisdom, tolerates
all sorts of things) that is more truly odious and disgusting, than an impotent helpless
creature, without civil wisdom or military skill, without a consciousness of any other
qualification for power but his servility to it, bloated with pride and arrogance, calling
for battles which he is not to fight, contending for a violent dominion which he can never
exercise, and satisfied to be himself mean and miserable, in order to render others
contemptible and wretched." (Emphasis added).
"... On the strength of Adrian Vermeule's review last month (" Liturgy of Liberalism ," January 2017), I picked up Ryszard Legutko's The Demon in Democracy: Totalitarian Temptations in Free Societies . Legutko sees many parallels between the communism that dominated the Poland of his youth and the political-social outlook now treated as obligatory by Eurocrats and dominant in America, which he calls "[neo]liberal democracy." ..."
"... One parallel struck me as especially important: "Communism and [neo]liberal democracy are related by a similarly paradoxical approach to politics: both promised to reduce the role of politics in human life, yet induced politicization on a scale unknown in previous history." We're aware of the totalitarian dimension of communism. But liberalism? Isn't it supposed to be neutral with respect to substantive outlooks, endorsing only the constitutional and legal frameworks for free and fair political debate? Actually, no. Liberals always assert that liberalism is the view of politics, society, and morality "most adequate of and for modern times." ..."
"... [Neo]Liberalism, Legutko points out, is committed to dualism, not pluralism. He gives the example of Isaiah Berlin, who made a great deal out of the importance of the pluralism of the liberal spirit. Yet "Berlin himself, a superbly educated man, knew very well and admitted quite frankly that the most important and most valuable fruits of Western philosophy were monistic in nature." This means that liberalism, as Berlin defines it, must classify nearly the entire history of Western thought (and that of other cultures as well) as "nonliberal." Thus, "the effect of this supposed liberal pluralism" is not a welcoming, open society in which a wide range of substantive thought flourishes, but "a gigantic purge of Western philosophy, bringing an inevitable degradation of the human mind." ..."
"... The purge mentality has a political dimension. Since 1989, European politics has shifted away from a left vs. right framework toward "mainstream" vs. "extremist." This is a telling feature of [neo]liberal democracy as an ideology. "The tricky side of 'mainstream' politics is that it does not tolerate any political 'tributaries' and denies that they should have any legitimate existence. Those outside the mainstream are believed to be either mavericks and as such not deserving to be treated seriously, or fascists who should be politically eliminated." ..."
"... Lumpenproletariat ..."
"... Legutko speaks of "lumpenintellectuals." These are the professors and journalists who buttress the status quo by rehearsing ideological catechisms and exposing heretics. We certainly have a lumpenintelligentsia ..."
"... I regularly read two lumpenintellectuals in order to understand the orthodoxies of our political mainstream: Tom Friedman over at the New York Times and Bret Stephens at the Wall Street Journal . The former is a cheerleader for today's globalist orthodoxies, complete with ritual expressions of misgivings. The latter eagerly plays the role of Leninist enforcer of those orthodoxies ..."
♦ Boys and girls are different. There, I've said it, a heresy of our time. We're not
supposed to suggest that a woman shouldn't fight in combat, or that an athletic girl doesn't
have a right to play on the boys' football team -- or that a young woman doesn't run a greater
risk than a young man when binge drinking. We are not supposed to reject the conceit that the
sexes are interchangeable, and therefore a man can become a "woman" and use the ladies'
bathroom.
Male and female God created us. I commend this heresy to readers. Remind people that boys in
girls' bathrooms put girls at risk, and that Obergefell is a grotesque distortion of
the Constitution. True -- and don't miss the opportunity to say, in public, that men and women
are different. This is the deepest reason why gender ideology is perverse. As Peter Hitchens
observes in this issue (" The Fantasy of
Addiction "), there's a great liberation that comes when, against the spirit of the age,
one blurts out what one knows to be true.
♦ Great Britain
recently announced regulatory approval for scientists to introduce third-party DNA into the
reproductive process. The technological innovation that allows for interventions into the most
fundamental dimensions of reproduction and human identity is sure to accelerate. Which is a
good reason for incoming President Trump to revive the President's Council on Bioethics. (It
existed under President Obama, but was told to do and say nothing.) We need sober reflection on
the coming revolution in reproductive technology. Trump should appoint Princeton professor
Robert P. George to head the Bioethics Commission. He has the expertise in legal and moral
philosophy, and he knows what's at stake. (See " Gnostic Liberalism ,"
December 2016.)
♦ On the strength of Adrian Vermeule's review last month (" Liturgy of
Liberalism ," January 2017), I picked up Ryszard Legutko's
The Demon in Democracy: Totalitarian Temptations in Free Societies . Legutko sees many
parallels between the communism that dominated the Poland of his youth and the political-social
outlook now treated as obligatory by Eurocrats and dominant in America, which he calls
"[neo]liberal democracy."
One parallel struck me as especially important: "Communism and [neo]liberal democracy
are related by a similarly paradoxical approach to politics: both promised to reduce the role
of politics in human life, yet induced politicization on a scale unknown in previous history."
We're aware of the totalitarian dimension of communism. But liberalism? Isn't it supposed to be
neutral with respect to substantive outlooks, endorsing only the constitutional and legal
frameworks for free and fair political debate? Actually, no. Liberals always assert that
liberalism is the view of politics, society, and morality "most adequate of and for modern
times."
This gives [neo]liberalism a partisan spirit all the more powerful because it is denied.
Although such words as "dialogue" and "pluralism" appear among its favorite motifs, as do
"tolerance" and other similarly hospitable notions, this overtly generous rhetorical
orchestration covers up something entirely different. In its essence, liberalism is
unabashedly aggressive because it is determined to hunt down all nonliberal agents and ideas,
which it treats as a threat to itself and to humanity.
[Neo]Liberalism, Legutko points out, is committed to dualism, not pluralism. He gives the example
of Isaiah Berlin, who made a great deal out of the importance of the pluralism of the liberal
spirit. Yet "Berlin himself, a superbly educated man, knew very well and admitted quite frankly
that the most important and most valuable fruits of Western philosophy were monistic in
nature." This means that liberalism, as Berlin defines it, must classify nearly the entire
history of Western thought (and that of other cultures as well) as "nonliberal." Thus, "the
effect of this supposed liberal pluralism" is not a welcoming, open society in which a wide
range of substantive thought flourishes, but "a gigantic purge of Western philosophy, bringing
an inevitable degradation of the human mind."
♦ The purge mentality has a political dimension. Since 1989, European politics has
shifted away from a left vs. right framework toward "mainstream" vs. "extremist." This is a
telling feature of [neo]liberal democracy as an ideology. "The tricky side of 'mainstream' politics
is that it does not tolerate any political 'tributaries' and denies that they should have any
legitimate existence. Those outside the mainstream are believed to be either mavericks and as
such not deserving to be treated seriously, or fascists who should be politically
eliminated."
♦ Karl Marx coined the term Lumpenproletariat . Lumpen means "rag"
in German, and its colloquial meanings include someone who is down-and-out. According to Marx,
this underclass has counter-revolutionary tendencies. These people can be riled up by
demagogues and deployed in street gangs to stymie the efforts of the true proletariat to topple
the dominant class.
Legutko speaks of "lumpenintellectuals." These are the professors and journalists who
buttress the status quo by rehearsing ideological catechisms and exposing heretics. We
certainly have a lumpenintelligentsia , left and right: tenured professors,
columnists, think tank apparatchiks, and human resources directors.
♦ I regularly read two lumpenintellectuals in order to understand the orthodoxies of
our political mainstream: Tom Friedman over at the New York
Times and Bret
Stephens at the Wall Street Journal . The former is a cheerleader for today's
globalist orthodoxies, complete with ritual expressions of misgivings. The latter eagerly plays
the role of Leninist enforcer of those orthodoxies.
♦ Bill Kristol recently stepped down
as day-to-day editor at the Weekly Standard . .... As he put it with characteristic humor, "Here at The Weekly Standard , we've
always been for regime change."...
The day after the elections , Russians
got together to rally against election fraud. Even though the United Russia party, according to
preliminary results, is to lose some 77 seats compared to the previous Duma, most of the
protesters considered the election to be neither fair, nor free (see our previous reports on
the web crackdown
and massive
violation reports).
After the polls closed on Dec. 4, Solidarnost movement invited protesters to
Chistye Prudy metro station in Moscow, while the Communists, also unhappy with the election
results, organized their rally at Pushkinskaya square. Solidarnost movement represenatives,
most of whom have no political arena except street actions and the blogosphere, managed to
bring thousands of people together (while crowd estimates vary significantly, the most balanced
assessment seems to be from 8,000 to 10,000 people).
Chistye Prudy
People began gathering for the Solidarnost event at around 19:00 MSK. Georgiy Alburov
posted a picture of the
line to the site of the rally:
Line to the Chistye Prudy rally. Photo by Georgiy Alburov
Thousands out in cold/rain baying for free elections, Putin to be sent to prison. Never
seen anything on this scale. Definite change of mood
The overall coverage was chaotic as the mobile Internet stopped working in the area and
people couldn't upload videos and pictures. LiveJournal kept the chronology of the events
here [ru].
Only later in the evening people were able to upload videos [ru] from the rally and particularly
the speech [ru] by
Alexey Navalny, who was among the most popular politicians of the event. His speech probably
best describes the essence of the current events:
And then: "They can call us microbloggers or net hamsters. I am a net hamster! And I'll bite
[these bastards' heads off.] We'll all do it together! Because we do exist! [ ] We will not
forget, we will not forgive"
The reference to 'net hamsters' (a pejorative term for politically-engaged Internet
commenters) and their political will to change the country has destroyed the myth of the
slacktivist nature of political engagement online. Navalny has specifically emphasized
'forgetting/forgiving' to show that netizens do not necessarily have a short attention span
often ascribed to them.
On to Lubyanka
After several speeches made by the opposition politicians, the crowd moved on towards
Lubyanka Square, where the head office of the Federal Security Service is located. The
video [ru] uploaded by
user bigvane depicts Muscovites moving to Lubyanka and chanting "Free elections":
Most of the activists, however, were soon stopped on their way. Ilya Barabanov tweeted a
picture of the blocked road:
Blocked road. Photo by Ilya Barabanov
Twenty minutes after the aforementioned photo was made, Alexey Navalny was detained by the
police. Ilya Barabanov was detained three minutes after Navalny. (See this great photo report
made by ridus.ru correspondents here [ru].)
But even the detention didn't break the rebellious and quite positive spirit of the
protesters. Navalny, while sitting in a police bus together with other activists, shared an
instagram photo of the cheerful detained protesters:
'I'm sitting in a police bus with all the guys. They all say hi.' Photo by Alexey
Navalny
Another video , also shot
inside a police bus, showed protesters discussing the salaries of police officers, laughing a
lot.
The Hamster Revolution
The most interesting part of the post-election rebellion is not its peaceful manner (also an
important feature compared to violent nationalist riots), but its new demographics. Tvrain.ru
field reporter said that the crowd consisted mainly of the "intelligentsia, hipsters, and young
people." "It is a fashionable rally," said the reporter. Later, these observations were added:
the age of the protesters was between 16 and 33 and for many of those who were detained this
was the first street action experience. As Vera Kichanova tweeted :
Lyosha Nikitin writes that he is the only one of the 16 people in the police bus who had been
detained before. Others were taking part in a rally for the first time!
***
Meanwhile, levada.ru, the site of Levada Center polling and sociological
research organization, has been DDoSed [ru] and the contents
of epic-hero.ru were removed [ru] by the hosting provider.
It is September 2020. Americans are focused on an election between an Orange Fascist
criminal and an old-school right-wing Democrat war criminal. Where Donald Trump projects
chaos and disorder, Biden projects stability, order, and a return to normalcy. If Trump is
the virus, then surely Biden is the cure"
so this *** clown spends 5000 words on the criminal operation in Libya under
Obama/Biden/Clinton which leave the country in utter chaos and this is his money shot? Orange
man bad fascist, old school democrat War Criminal normal.
what a load of tripe
Ace006 , 5 hours ago
A+. He provides much needed clarity and perspective on the Libyan tragedy and then crashes
into the usual delusional, leftist landfill of fascism, murder of black youth, BLM (all
hail), and Biden as, so help me, some kind of a cure for anything.
The scorching desert sun streams through narrow slats in the tiny window. A mouse scurries
across the cracked concrete floor, the scuttling of its tiny feet drowned out by the sound of
distant voices speaking in Arabic. Their chatter is in a western Libyan dialect distinctive
from the eastern dialect favored in Benghazi. Somewhere off in the distance, beyond the
shimmering desert horizon, is Tripoli, the jewel of Africa now reduced to perpetual war.
But here, in this cell in a dank old warehouse in Bani Walid, there are no smugglers, no
rapists, no thieves or murderers. There are simply Africans captured by traffickers as they
made their way from Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad, Eritrea, or other disparate parts of the continent
seeking a life free of war and poverty, the rotten fruit of Anglo-American and European
colonialism. The cattle brands on their faces tell a story more tragic than anything produced
by Hollywood.
These are slaves: human beings bought and sold for their labor. Some are bound for
construction sites while others for the fields. All face the certainty of forced servitude, a
waking nightmare that has become their daily reality.
This is Libya, the real Libya. The Libya that has been constructed from the ashes of the
US-NATO war that deposed Muammar Gaddafi and the government of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya. The
Libya now fractured into warring factions, each backed by a variety of international actors
whose interest in the country is anything but humanitarian.
But this Libya was built not by Donald Trump and his gang of degenerate fascist ghouls. No,
it was the great humanitarian Barack Obama, along with Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Susan Rice,
Samantha Power and their harmonious peace circle of liberal interventionists who wrought this
devastation. With bright-eyed speeches about freedom and self-determination, the First Black
President, along with his NATO comrades in France and Britain, unleashed the dogs of war on an
African nation seen by much of the world as a paragon of economic and social development.
But this is no mere journalistic exercise to document just one of the innumerable crimes
carried out in the name of the American people. No, this is us, the antiwar left in the United
States, peering through the cracks in the imperial artifice – crumbling as it is from
internal rot and political decay – to shine a light through the gloom named Trump and
directly into the heart of darkness.
There are truths that must be made plain lest they be buried like so many bodies in the
desert sand.
To understand the depth of criminality involved in the US-NATO war on Libya, we must unravel
a complex story involving actors from both the US and Europe who quite literally conspired to
bring about this war, while simultaneously exposing the unconstitutional, imperial presidency
as embodied by Mr. Hope and Change himself.
In doing so, a picture emerges that is strikingly at odds with the dominant narrative about
good intentions and bad dictators. For although Gaddafi was presented as the villain par
excellence in this story told by the Empire's scribes in corporate media, it is in fact Barack
Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, former French President Nicholas Sarkozy, French
philosopher-cum-neocolonial adventurist Bernard Henri-Levy, and former UK Prime Minister David
Cameron, who are the real malevolent forces. It was they, not Gaddafi, who waged a blatantly
illegal war on false pretenses and for their own aggrandizement. It was they, not Gaddafi, who
conspired to plunge Libya into chaos and civil war from which it is yet to emerge. It was they
who beat the war drums while proclaiming peace on earth and good will to men.
The US-NATO war on Libya represents perhaps one of the most egregious examples of US
military aggression and lawlessness in recent memory. Of course, the US didn't act alone as a
wide cast of characters played a role as the French and British were keen to involve themselves
in the reassertion of control over a once lucrative African asset torn from European control by
the evil Gaddafi. And this, only a few years after former UK Prime Minister and Iraq war
criminal Tony Blair met with Gaddafi to usher in
a new era of openness and partnership.
The story begins with Bernard Henri-Lévy, the French philosopher, journalist, and
amateur foreign service officer who fancied himself an international spy. Having failed to
arrive in Egypt in time to buttress his ego by capitalizing on the uprising against former
dictator Hosni Mubarak, he quickly shifted his attention to Libya, where an uprising in the
anti-Gaddafi hotbed of Benghazi was underway. As Le Figaro
chronicled , Henri-Levy managed to talk his way into a meeting with then head of the
National Transition Council (TNC) Mustapha Abdeljalil, a former Gaddafi official who became
head of the anti-Gaddafi TNC. But Henri-Levy wasn't there just for an interview to be published
in his French paper, he was there to help overthrow Gaddafi and, in so doing, make himself into
an international star.
Henri-Levy quickly pressed his contacts and got on the phone with French President Nicholas
Sarkozy to ask him, rather bluntly, if he'd agree to meet with Abdeljalil and the leadership of
the TNC. Just a few days later, Henri-Levy and his colleagues arrived at the
Élysée Palace with TNC leadership at their side. To the utter shock of the
Libyans present, Sarkozy tells them that he plans to recognize the TNC as the legitimate
government of Libya. Henri-Levy and Sarkozy have now, at least in theory, deposed the Gaddafi
government.
But the little problem of Gaddafi's military victories and the very real possibility that he
might emerge victorious from the conflict complicated matters as the French public had become
aware of the scheme and was rightly lambasting Sarkozy. Henri-Levy, ever the opportunist,
stoked the patriotic fervor by announcing that without French intervention, the tricolor flag
flying over five-star hotels in Benghazi would be stained with blood. The PR campaign worked as
Sarkozy quickly came around to the idea of military intervention.
However, Henri-Levy had a still more critical role to play: bringing the US military
juggernaut into the plot. Henri-Levy organized the first of what would be several high-level
talks between US officials from the Obama Administration and the Libyans of the TNC. Most
importantly, Henri-Levy set up the meeting between Abdeljalil and Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton. While Clinton was skeptical at the time of the meeting, it would be a matter of months
before she and Joe Biden, along with the likes of Susan Rice, Samantha Power, and others would
be planning the political, diplomatic, and military route to regime change in Libya.
The
Americans Enter the Fray
There would have been no war in Libya were it not for the US political, diplomatic, and
military machine. In this sense, despite the relatively meager US military involvement, the war
in Libya was an American war. That is to say, it was a war that could not have happened were it
not for the active collaboration of the Obama Administration with its French and British
counterparts.
As Jo Becker of the NY Times explained
in 2016, Hillary Clinton met with Mahmoud Jibril, a prominent Libyan politician who would go on
to become the new Prime Minister of post-Gaddafi Libya, and his associates, in order to assess
the faction now garnering US support . Clinton's job, according to Becker, was "to take measure
of the rebels we supported" – a fancy way of saying that Clinton attended the meeting to
determine whether this group of politicians speaking on behalf of a diverse group of
anti-Gaddafi voices (ranging from pro-democracy activists to outright terrorists affiliated
with global terror networks) should be supported with US money and covert arms.
The answer, ultimately, was a resounding yes.
But of course, as with all America's warmongering misadventures, there was no consensus on
military intervention. As Becker reported, some in the Obama Administration were skeptical of
the easy victory and post-conflict political calculus. One prominent voice of dissent, at least
according to Becker, was former Defense Secretary Robert Gates. Himself no dove, Gates was
concerned that Clinton and Biden's hawkish attitude toward Libya would ultimately lead to an
Iraq-style political nightmare that would undoubtedly end with the US having created and then
abandoned a failed state – exactly what happened.
It is important to note that Clinton and Biden were two of the principal voices for
aggression and war. Both were supportive of the No-Fly Zone from early on, and both advocated
for military intervention. Indeed, the two have been simpatico in nearly every war crime
committed by the US in the last 30 years, including perhaps most egregiously in support of
Bush's crime against humanity that we call the second Iraq War.
As former Clinton lackey (Deputy Director of Secretary of State Clinton's Policy Planning
staff) Derek Chollet explained, "[Libya] seemed like an easy case." Chollet, a principal
participant in the American conspiracy to make war on Libya who later went on to serve directly
under Obama and at the National Security Council, inadvertently illustrates in stark relief the
imperial arrogance of the Obama-Clinton-Biden liberal interventionist camp. In calling Libya an
"easy case" he of course means that Libya was a perfect candidate for a regime change operation
whose primary benefit would be to boost politically those who supported it.
Chollet, like many strategic planners at the time, saw Libya as a slam dunk opportunity to
turn the demonstrations and uprisings of 2010-2011, which quickly became known as the Arab
Spring, into political capital from the Democratic camp of the US ruling class. This rapidly
became Clinton's position. And soon, the consensus of the entire Obama
Administration.
Obama's War Off the Books
One of the more pernicious myths of the US war on Libya was the notion – propagated
dutifully by the defense lobbyists-cum-journalists at major corporate media outlets –
that the war was a cheap little war that cost the US almost nothing. There were no American
lives lost in the war itself (Benghazi is another mythology to be unraveled later), and very
little cost in terms of "treasure", to use that despicable imperialist phrase.
But while the total cost of the war paled in comparison to the monumental-scale crimes in
Iraq and Afghanistan, the means by which it was funded has cost the US far more than dollars;
the war on Libya was a criminal and unconstitutional endeavor that has further laid the
groundwork for the imperial presidency and unconstrained executive power. As the Washington
Post
reported at the time:
Noting that Obama had said the mission could be paid for with money already appropriated to
the Pentagon, [former House Speaker] Boehner pressed the president on whether supplemental
funding would be requested from Congress.
Unforeseen military operations that require expenditures such as those being made for the
Libyan effort normally require supplemental appropriations since they are outside the core
Pentagon budget. That is why funds for Afghanistan and Iraq are separate from the regular
Defense Department budget. The added costs for some of the operations in Libya are minimal But
the expenditures for weapons, fuel and lost equipment are something else.
Because the Obama Administration did not seek congressional appropriations to fund the war,
there is very little in the way of paper trail to do a proper accounting of the costs of the
war. As the cost of each bomb, fighter jet, and logistical support vehicle disappeared into the
abyss of Pentagon accounting oblivion, so too did any semblance of constitutional legality. In
essence, Obama helped establish a lawless presidency that not only has little respect for
constitutionally mandated checks and balances, but completely ignores the rule of law. Indeed,
some of the crimes that Trump and Attorney General Bill Barr are guilty of have their direct
corollary in the Obama Administration's prosecution of the Libya war.
So where did the money come from and where did it go? It's anybody's guess really, unless
you're one of those rubes who likes taking the Pentagon's word for it. As a Pentagon
spokesperson told CNN in 2011,
"The price tag for U.S. Defense Department operations in Libya as of September 30 [was] $1.1
billion. This included daily military operations, munitions, the drawdown of supplies and
humanitarian assistance." However, to illustrate the downright Orwellian impossibility of
discerning the truth, Vice President Joe Biden doubled that number when speaking on CNN,
suggesting that "NATO alliance worked like it was designed to do, burden-sharing. In total, it
cost us $2 billion, no American lives lost."
As is painfully evident, there is no clear way to know how much was spent other than to take
the word of those who prosecuted the war. With no congressional oversight, and no clear
documentary record, the war on Libya disappears down the memory hole, and with it the idea that
there is a separation of powers, Congressional authority to make war, or a functioning
Constitution.
America's Dirty War in Libya
While the enduring memory of Libya for most Americans is the political theater that resulted
from the attack on the US facility in Benghazi that killed several Americans, including US
Ambassador Stevens, it is not nearly the most consequential. Rather, America's use of terrorist
groups (and the insurgents who emerged from them) as military proxies may perhaps be the real
legacy from a strategic perspective. For while the corporate media presented the narrative of
spontaneous protests and uprisings to overthrow Gaddafi, it was in fact a loose network of
terror groups that did the dirty work.
While much of this recent history has been buried by bad reporting, establishment
mythmaking, and conspiracist muddying of the truth, it was surprisingly well reported at the
time. For example, as the New York Times wrote of one of the
primary US-backed forces on the ground during the war in 2011:
"The Libyan Islamic Fighting Group was formed in 1995 with the goal of ousting Colonel
Qaddafi. Driven into the mountains or exile by Libyan security forces, the group's members
were among the first to join the fight against Qaddafi security forces Officially the
fighting group does not exist any longer, but the former members are fighting largely under
the leadership of Abu Abdullah Sadik [aka Abdelhakim Belhadj]."
Even at the time, there was considerable unease among Washington's strategic planners that
the Obama Adminstration's embrace of a terror group with known links to al-Qaeda could prove to
be a major blunder. "American, European and Arab intelligence services acknowledge that they
are worried about the influence that the former group's members might exert over Libya after
Colonel Qaddafi is gone, and they are trying to assess their influence and any lingering links
to Al Qaeda," the Times noted.
Of course, those in the know at the various US intelligence agencies already had a pretty
good sense of who they were backing, or at least the elements likely to be involved in any US
operation. Specifically, the US knew that the areas from which it was drawing anti-Gaddafi
opposition forces was a hotbed of criminal and terrorist activity.
"Almost 19 percent of the fighters in the Sinjar Records came from Libya alone.
Furthermore, Libya contributed far more fighters per capita than any other nationality in the
Sinjar Records, including Saudi Arabia The apparent surge in Libyan recruits traveling to
Iraq may be linked with the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group's (LIFG) increasingly cooperative
relationship with al-Qa'ida which culminated in the LIFG officially joining al-Qa'ida on
November 3, 2007 The most common cities that the fighters called home were Darnah [Derna],
Libya and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, with 52 and 51 fighters respectively. Darnah [Derna] with a
population just over 80,000 compared to Riyadh's 4.3 million, has far and away the largest
per capita number of fighters in the Sinjar records."
It was known at the time that the majority of the anti-Gaddafi forces hailed from the region
including Derna, Benghazi, and Tobruk – the "Eastern Libya" so often referred to as
anti-Gaddafi – and that the likelihood that al-Qaeda and other terror groups were among
the ranks of the US recruits was very high. Nevertheless, they persisted.
Take the case of the February 17 Martyrs Brigade, charged by the US with guarding the CIA
facility in Benghazi at which Ambassador Stevens was murdered. As the Los Angeles Times
reported in 2012:
"Over the last year, while assigned by their militia to help protect the U.S. mission in
Benghazi, the pair had been drilled by American security personnel in using their weapons,
securing entrances, climbing walls and waging hand-to-hand combat The militiamen flatly deny
supporting the assailants but acknowledge that their large, government-allied force, known as
the Feb. 17 Martyrs Brigade, could include anti-American elements The Feb. 17 brigade is
regarded as one of the more capable militias in eastern Libya."
But it wasn't just LIFG and al-Qaeda affiliated criminal groups entering the fray thanks to
Washington rolling out the blood-stained red carpet.
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A longtime asset of the US, General Khalifa Hifter and his so-called Libyan National Army
have been on the ground in Libya since 2011, and have emerged as one of the primary forces
vying for power in post-war Libya. Hifter has a long and sordid history working for the CIA in
its attempts to overthrow Gaddafi in the 1980s before being resettled conveniently near
Langley, Virginia. As the
New York Times reported in 1991:
The secret paramilitary operation, set in motion in the final months of the Reagan
Administration, provided military aid and training to about 600 Libyan soldiers who were
among those captured during border fighting between Libya and Chad in 1988 They were trained
by American intelligence officials in sabotage and other guerrilla skills, officials said, at
a base near Ndjamena, the Chadian capital. The plan to use the exiles fit neatly into the
Reagan Administration's eagerness to topple Colonel Qaddafi.
Hifter, leader of these failed efforts, became known as the CIA's "Libya point man,"
having taken part in numerous regime change efforts, including the aborted attempt to
overthrow Gaddafi in 1996. So, his arrival in 2011 at the height of the uprising signaled an
escalation of the conflict from an armed uprising to an international operation. Whether
Hifter was directly working with US intelligence or simply complimenting US efforts by
continuing his decades-long personal war against Gaddafi is somewhat irrelevant. What matters
is that Hifter and the Libyan National Army, like LIFG and other groups, became part of the
broader destabilization effort which successfully toppled Gaddafi and created the chaotic
hellscape that is modern Libya.
Such is the legacy of the US dirty war on Libya.
The Past is Prologue
It is September 2020. Americans are focused on an election between an Orange Fascist
criminal and an old-school right-wing Democrat war criminal. Where Donald Trump projects chaos
and disorder, Biden projects stability, order, and a return to normalcy. If Trump is the virus,
then surely Biden is the cure.
It is September 2020. Libya prepares to enter its eighth year of civil war. Slave markets
like the one in Bani Walid are as common as youth literacy centers were in Gaddafi's Libya.
Armed gangs and militias wield power even in areas nominally under government control. A
warlord regroups in the East as he looks to Russia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the United Arab
Emirates for support.
It is September 2020 and the US-NATO war on Libya has faded to a distant memory as other
issues like Black Lives Matter and police murder of Black youth have captured the public
imagination and discourse.
But these issues are, in fact, united by the bond of white supremacy and anti-Blackness. The
Libya once known as the "Jewel of Africa," a country that provided refuge for many sub-Saharan
African migrant workers while maintaining independence from the US and the former colonial
powers of Europe, is no more. In its place is a failed state that now reflects the kind of
vicious anti-Black racism forcefully suppressed by the Gaddafi government.
Libya as the global exemplar of the exploitation and disposability of the black body.
Squint a little and you can see President Joe Biden getting the old band back together.
Hillary Clinton welcomed into the Oval Office as an influential voice, someone to give words to
the demented thoughts of the living corpse serving as Commander-in-Chief. Derek Chollet and Ben
Rhodes laughing together as they buy another round at their favorite DC hangout, toasting to
the re-establishment of order in Washington. Barack Obama as the éminence grise behind
the political resurgence of the liberal-conservative dominant structure.
But in Libya, there is no going back, no fixing the past to escape the present.
Perhaps the same might be true of the United States.
AVmaster , 13 hours ago
Number of wars the boy king and his minions started: 6, that we know of: Ukraine, Syria,
Libya, Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan.
(Not withstanding the proxy wars during the "muslim spring" like in egypt)
Number of wars Trump has started: 0
This is NOT including the ongoing wars that trump inherited but has dialed back
somewhat, like reduced troop presence in iraq/afghan.
fucking truth , 12 hours ago
Trump hasn't started any but he still feeds the beast, hopefully his next four will see
a correction to this behaviour,one can only hope.
ay_arrow 2
GreatUncle , 3 hours ago
Has no choice.
The economic reality is the MIC is a big part of the US domestic economy.
Shut that down and you would go into a full blown depression.
If you build bullets, missile, bombs, F35's etc. they have to be used or you have to
start scrapping them.
The issue though is not the MIC as such but the lack of any moral integrity and
disregard for human life by those mentioned in the article. Once the country was put into
this position by them it is much more difficult to extract.
Now I think those in the article should be prosecuted for not going to Congress to
declare a war and fund it correctly as this is supposed to be the check and balance of a
rogue president.
play_arrow
Bollixed , 2 hours ago
Regarding the MIC, many of those companies consist of manufacturing entities comprised
of engineers, factory infrastructure and logistics infrastructure funded by government
spending that could realistically be 'retooled' to produce things that could benefit
society instead of piss money away on the tools of destruction. America is in need of a
massive infrastructure overhaul from our electric grid to our transportation modes to name
just two. Nothing is preventing those MIC giants from refocusing their efforts toward a
better America versus the current focus they are paid to undertake. It's a matter of
priorities and right now I find their priorities misplaced and vulgar.
The money is available at their current funding rates, the manpower and brain power is
there, what is lacking is the will to turn the ship around and start putting humans before
profits. There is no need to go into a full blown depression as with the shut down of that
capacity if those entities are given a mandate to redirect their output for the good of
society and create things of lasting value. In other words, take the retooling mindset that
turned refrigerator factories into weapons factories like they did in WW2 and take the
weapons factories and turn them into entities for the betterment of society. And then wean
them off of the government teat.
DeepStateThrombosis , 3 hours ago
Unused funds from the Pentagon can be redirected to the Wall and other Defense
protections not known to the public at this time.
ay_arrow
DaiRR , 1 hour ago
DemoRats and NeoCons will try every way possible to keep the wars going.
The USA is incredibly blessed to have Donald J. Trump in the White House.
play_arrow
1
muggeridge , 11 hours ago
To think Americans demonstrated in the millions to stop the Vietnam war exposed as a
fraud by Daniel Ellsberg in the PENTAGON PAPERS. Obama did admit that the removal of
Ghadaffy was his biggest foreign policy mistake. Clinton also in trouble over Tunisia while
Secretary of State with US ambassador killed in 2012. She took responsibility but was found
not to have acted improperly by US Congress. However her part in this tragedy remains an
open question. Today the only Middle Eastern country still standing IRAN supported by
China. Syria supported by Russia. Cold Wars never go away?
play_arrow 2
GreatUncle , 3 hours ago
Cold war is an inevitable consequence of a MIC that must continually produce and expend
munitions to keep its part of the economy going.
2 play_arrow
scaleindependent , 10 hours ago
Final Jeopardy, genius!
What is Syria and Iran?
HIS acts against those countries ARE acts of war.
lay_arrow
muggeridge , 10 hours ago
Regime Change as our modus operandi to serve the cause of military superiority as if
pre-set by computer.
How everything became war and the military became everything by Rosa Brooks Tales of the
Pentagon.
Something funny happened on the way to the forum; Broadway musical. Hail
Caesar?
play_arrow
CheapBastard , 7 hours ago
Hey, military contractors have to put food on the table also, even if it means murdering
millions of innocent people in Yugoslavia (like Clinton did) or in the middle east (like
Bush and Obama did).
play_arrow
GreatUncle , 3 hours ago
Yep some people don't get it.
With all the military contractors now moved into peaceful protests maybe we actually
need more war to keep them gainfully employed.
Get the picture?
2 play_arrow
SoilMyselfRotten , 3 hours ago
HIS acts against those countries ARE acts of war
Don't forget also blockading Venezuela
No1uNo , 9 hours ago
No Libya story is complete without mentioning David Shayler- the MI6 agent turned
whistleblower who was tasked with blowing up Gaddafi in his car - but refused to do so when
he was accompanied by his wife and children. (under the Tony Blair govt). -yep.
Shayler later went into a bizarre series of personas -which is understood by many as self
preservation tactic - (testimony of mentally unstable is not recognised in court - so no
threat).
Then there's the covert ratlines of gathering the ex-Libyan army weapons & shipping
them to ISIS Syria via Turkey and White Helmets (see James Corbett) organised by HRC via
Benghazi -so no rescue for US Ambassador & team (RIP) HRC prefer'd keep op covert.
Carrier 50 miles off coast -HRC killed US Diplomats & support team. -Biden knew.
Also check out the courageous Dilyana Gaytandzhieva who runs armswatch .com and some SM
in her name. for laypersons overview of extent of games-within-games &
wheels-within-wheels in arms trade/ chem weapons "research". She's currently researching
the Beirut bombings - which will be another revelation when it hits.
sauldaddy , 11 hours ago
That awkward moment when you find out the first Black President brought slavery BACK to
Africa .....Q- That awkward moment when you find out the first Black President brought
slavery BACK to Africa
_arrow
. . . _ _ _ . . . , 13 hours ago
Qaddafi kept African migrants out of the Mediterranean and away from Europe's
shores.
Sarkozy couldn't allow that knowing what was in store for Europe.
He predicted what would happen to Europe were he to be deposed. He was right. Macron's (and
Merkel's) policies are proof.
That and the gold dinar was his undoing.
.
P.S. Don't tell the leftists, but Libya was the only case of a successful socialist state.
On second thought, it might be funny to see them publicly defending Qaddafi.
Ms No , 13 hours ago
That may work for a while when you pull black gold out of the ground, for a while. Oil
declines and free **** armies breed faster. Then you are Saudi Arabia and we are about to
see how that ends up.
play_arrow
not dead yet , 12 hours ago
Libyan youth unemployment was over 30% because these spoiled kids with their families
getting oil checks in the mail every month refused to do menial jobs. Qaddafi kept the
black Africans out of the boats by letting them do the work the kids and other Libyans
thought was beneath them. A lot of the money the Africans made they sent home which was
spent in the local economies which increased jobs there. Libya also invested heavily in
Africa which created lots of jobs. These actions kept the number of Africans headed to
Europe a trickle. Once Qaddafi was gone so were all the jobs in Libya and the money that
flowed into Africa dried up and jobs were lost. A lot of businesses the Libyans created in
Africa were confiscated by the local governments and no doubt given to cronies who ran them
into the ground.
No1uNo , 9 hours ago
Gaddafi thought wrongly that job description would save him. Also suggested trading oil
for €uro's over dollar$, which blew the lid on powder keg. In the end they say it was
the oil, though my thinking was DC think tanks didn't want a monied "Mexico" on south coast
of Euroland - could make Europe too financially powerful & too difficult to
control.
play_arrow
. . . _ _ _ . . . , 6 hours ago
I had heard about selling oil for Euros in relation to Saddam, but not to Qaddafi.
Qaddafi was about the gold Dinar.
??
No1uNo , 6 hours ago
Yep, it's what can happen if I'm not careful when I post and try to watch a documentary
at the same time.
Thanks for your vigilance.
Find the Libyan gold that dissapeard.... and one likely finds the source of the
overthrow....
quanttech , 13 hours ago
try the french treasury...
Bill300 , 12 hours ago
Look no further than Hillary's brother. General Gage, a former Special Forces Colonel,
had been hired by Hillary, et al, to assemble a merc army to secure Qaddafi's gold amidst
the fog of war and transport it to Haiti to be laundered thru Hugh Rodham's little gold
mine. Does anyone really think Obama sold enough books to buy a $12M seaside mansion in
Massachusetts and the Washington DC home?
These people are so evil.
Justapleb , 12 hours ago
That's certainly titillating. Do you have a source that puts these things together?
I tried some Google searches, but I already know those searches are censored so it is
not an easy thing to find
dark pools of soros , 4 hours ago
you gotta get your hands dirty if you want to know whats in the soil
DaCrustyDad , 13 hours ago
Imagine if some country invaded us and slaughtered about 23.5 million (apples for apples
based on the 500k civilians killed out of 7,000,000)? Obama and the Clinton's should be
playing basketball at Pelican Bay the rest of their lives at best.
quanttech , 12 hours ago
It's mind boggling.
Trump dropped 7400 bombs on Afghanistan in 2019. That would be like 60,000 bombs
dropping on the US one year.
Arch_Stanton , 9 hours ago
Libya was a modern, secular Arab state. A model for the rest of Islam. Who the f@@k
decided it was appropriate to reduce Libya to a 19th century sh1thole?
Shifter_X , 9 hours ago
Hillary ******* Clinton
Constitution101 , 6 hours ago
on instruction from the cabalist banksters who never permit a rival currency system.
Qaddafi's gold-backed dinar throughout Nth Africa would have exposed and displace their
petrodollar scam in which they infinitely print their cronies untold trillion$.
end the fed, and all central banks.
Best Satan in Town , 6 hours ago
That's the story in a nutsh-ell
desertboy , 10 hours ago
The petrodollar centrality gets monotonously overplayed. For anyone who cares to look,
the geopolitics of the West/NATO are the geopolitics of all its central bank owners as an
interlinked group, who are keeping all their options open.
Destroying Libya went beyond the petrodollar to the fight for influence in Africa's
future, where France's history in Africa has made it the designated hitter. Note the new
CFR-type buzz on a "resurgent France" due to this role.
No1uNo , 8 hours ago
I maintained elsewhere on this thread, was advice of DC think tanks he was taken out.
Because a well funded, well educated, low cost, labor factory resource state on south coast
of eurozone makes europe too competitive to DC tank's interests. (and open Africa's growing
economy to cheap - outside eurozone - euro profiting business interests).
Gaddafi was never a threat to Europe, but europe buying his oil and building his
economy......different story.
No1uNo , 9 hours ago
B-I-N-G-O !
get your case of beer for that one!
not dead yet , 11 hours ago
Qaddafi would have not met with death if he only wanted to sell oil in the Gold Dinar.
Instead he wanted the Gold Dinar as the currency for all of Africa. The system was being
set up along with 4 central banks to manage African economic and monetary affairs when
Libya was attacked. Libya also invested heavily in Africa creating lots of jobs and
enhancing communications. Unlike the IMF and World Bank with their draconian edicts
attached to their loans, like no loans for fossil fueled power plants and other eco
garbage, almost guaranteeing default the Libyan Development Fund attached no such garbage
to their loans making success possible. Europe was charging Africa $500 million a year for
use of their satellites. Qaddafi ponied up $300 million of the $400 million needed to put
up Africa's first satellite screwing Europe out of $500 million a year. Qaddafi was also
the driving force for Africa for Africans and which kept US African command and it's troops
out of Africa. Now the US has troops all over Africa. Qaddafi really was bad. Bad for
Western exploitation of Africa.
At the time of Qaddafi's demise the Libyan Development Fund had $32 billion in banks
around the world. Western governments and media tried to claim it was money stolen by
Qaddafi. Last I knew the Libyan's, the rightful owners of that money, haven't seen a
penny.
Constitution101 , 6 hours ago
great info.
got a good concise source?
dark pools of soros , 4 hours ago
you have to dig deep to get little nuggets of truth about Libya since so many sides want
to tarnish and twist to push their agenda and greed on its riches
SmokeyBlonde , 12 hours ago
America, as a country, deserves whatever happens just for electing and re-electing
Obama.
Far too many grifters, Bolsheviks, pedocrats, and sub-moron IQ feral ghetto rats
oh-so-pleased with themselves for being so enlightened and bringing chaos to the whole F'n
world.
ReflectoMatic , 11 hours ago
The Democrats are working with the globalist at the United Nations & World Economic
Forum. The program being run is the destruction of the United States and elimination of
humans, per instructions from "The Cult of Rasur", which is located in the jungle at Mount
Rasur in Costa Rica but now renamed as the United Nations University For Peace. The
university teaches occult and meditation and only graduates 20 students per year, those
students then take positions of influence within the UN. The cult was founded by Maurice
Strong & Dr Muller, Strong also created the Agenda 21 & World Economic Forum, plus
in 1982, the more exclusive secret group of 300 called just "World Forum" which met in Vail
Colorado near his hippie commune at the Baca Grande in the San Luis Valley.
The GAIA Theory which was converted into GAIA Religion at the Maurice Strong Hippie
Commune in Colorado. David Perkins was there, apparently one of the first hippies to arrive
at the commune around 1978. In this podcast we get a rare look into the mindset of the
globalist and the creation of Agenda 21.
It's not clear if David Perkins & his partner, Chris O'Brian, are aware of Maurice
Strong & Klaus Schwab conducting the special and secret World Forum of 300 at Vail in
1982. At that 1982 event the concepts David Perkins describes, combined with concepts
gotten by paranormal activities at Mount Rasur in Costa Rica, were passed down to the 300
and thus began the creation that has brought the world to a standstill.
Chris O'Brian has an interesting podcast also, describing the Maurice Strong hippie
commune, in this he describes meeting Lawrence Rockefeller at the commune.
And finally, who the heck is this guy, the one in the middle? MJ-12 captured this photo
of him in Hollywood in 1972, he was then usually seen in company of Curtis LeMay, grandson
of the General who founded JPL NASA MJ-12, then in 1982 he was at that World Forum in Vail
and in charge of covertly poisoning them all with LSD. He was born in Berkley or Alameda in
1951 while his mother was at theater watching "Day The Earth Stood Still". Seems there is a
message which needs to be understood.
David Champaign, night manager at the Christie Lodge in Avon Colorado, can give further
description and verification that the ultra-secret World Forum did occur.
If you listened to that podcast, there was mention of the "group of psychics" at the
Baca hippie commune. The guy in the photo, the link just above, the photo was taken in the
presence of Allen J Funk MJ-12, Funk's only friend took the photo, Bob Custer. Bob shared
hotel rooms with the Stones & Monkeys while on concert tour as official photographer.
The guy in the photo and Bob were taken one night, in Allen's white Cadillac convertible,
to a house in the hills east of JPL Pasadena. There he met Bob's ex, Val, and Val's work
associates, the work Val and associates did was some secret psychic project in Central
America and perhaps in Colorado, usually Val just came over to Bob's house to visit when
Val was not off at those remote locations. Secret about it they were.
Shifter_X , 8 hours ago
These are self-loathing humans. Imagine wanting to destroy the human race.
SMH
bobroonie , 13 hours ago
Obama bombed Libya in defense of Islamic terrorists he sold weapons to. 600 requests for
more security from Ambassador Stevens unanswered.. But when defense contractor Osprey
Global's Sidney Blumenthal called Clinton gave him special treatment. Lots of money to be
made for a defense contractor and the Secretary of State that starts the war.
not dead yet , 12 hours ago
At the time Stevens died, he was not murdered he died of smoke inhalation as the
invaders set the place on fire and the safe room wasn't air tight, Benghazi was the most
dangerous place on earth for diplomats. Attempted murders and kidnappings of diplomats were
so rife that most governments closed their missions and evacuated their people. Stevens was
well aware of this and he went to Benghazi, the US Embassy is in Tripoli, anyway with his
last meeting running guns with the Turks. By doing so he signed his death warrant.
According to many at the time Stevens was begging for more security shortly before he left
for Benghazi he was offered a military security detachment that was already in Tripoli and
Stevens refused. Seems Stevens and Hillary didn't want the military to know what they were
up to.
quanttech , 12 hours ago
the ambassador got what was coming to him. he was a terrorist, plain and simple.
the rest of the Americans were rescued ... by Qadaffi loyalists. the Americans are shy
to admit this.
David2923 , 5 hours ago
Facts you probably do not know about Libya under Muammar Gaddafi:
• There are no electricity bills in Libya; electricity is free for all its
citizens.
• There is no interest on loans, banks in Libya are state-owned and loans given to
all its citizens at 0% interest by law.
• If a Libyan is unable to find employment after graduation, the state pays the
average salary of the profession as if he or she is employed until employment is found.
• Should Libyans want to take up a farming career, they receive farm land, a house,
equipment, seed and livestock to kick start their farms – all for free.
• Gaddafi carried out the world's largest irrigation project, known as the Great
Man-Made River project, to make water readily available throughout the desert country.
• A home considered a human right in Libya. (In Qaddafi's Green Book it states:
"The house is a basic need of both the individual and the family, therefore it should not
be owned by others.")
• All newlyweds in Libya receive 60,000 Dinar (US$ 50,000 ) by the government to
buy their first apartment so to help start a family.
• A portion of Libyan oil sales is credited directly to the bank accounts of all
Libyan citizens.
• A mother who gives birth to a child receives US $5,000.
• When a Libyan buys a car, the government subsidizes 50% of the price.
• The price of petrol in Libya is $0.14 per liter.
• For $ 0.15, a Libyan local can purchase 40 loaves of bread.
• Education and medical treatments are free in Libya. Libya can boast one of the
finest health care systems in the Arab and African World. All people have access to
doctors, hospitals, clinics and medicines, completely free of charge.
• If Libyans cannot find the education or medical facilities they need in Libya,
the government funds them to go abroad for it – not only free but they get US
$2,300/month accommodation and car allowance.
• 25% of Libyans have a university degree. Before Gaddafi only 25% of Libyans were
literate. Today the figure is 87%.
• Libya has no external debt and its reserves amount to $150 billion – though
much of this is now frozen globally.
You have explained why Libya was perfectly ripe for looting by the US Evil Empire and
its slave states.
dark pools of soros , 5 hours ago
Yes I've been shining a light on this for years. The true history of Libya should red
pill EVERYONE that can still think for themselves.
We are destroying George Washington statues while worshiping a black african american
president who destroyed the one rare prosperous socialist African nation.. which now has
slave trading!!!! all because it didn't share it's water to french/italian bottlers. And of
course the Gold Dinar becoming the African currency.
Lokiban , 11 hours ago
Gadhaffi's two mistakes leading to this war.
Threaten to sell his sweet oil in gold dinars
Threaten French president Sarkozy to pull out all of his money out of France and reveal
to the public the donations he made to the French presidential campaign of Sarkozy, which
we know is illegal because foreigners can't donate money.
That sealed his fate. America needed to stop this gold for oil scheme just like it did
in Iraq and French president Sarkozy's presidency was ont he line.
NuYawkFrankie , 12 hours ago
Slick Willy --> War Criminal
Chimp --> War Criminal
Obongo --> War Criminal
Hillarity --> War Criminal
Groper Joe --> War Criminal
Etc... etc... etc...
Are you at least BEGINNING to see a pattern here???
If not, you soon will do as 'the chickens come home to roost' and ZOG focusses it's
attention on YOUR a$$!
Apeon , 11 hours ago
Apparently you are not old enough to remember Johnson
NuYawkFrankie , 8 hours ago
I'm holding "Johnson" as we speak... and the most I can accuse him of is being a naughty
- sometimes a VERY naughty- boy. Looks like he's due for another spanking!
NAV , 2 hours ago
But in Libya, there is no going back, no fixing the past to escape the present.
Perhaps the same might be true of the United States.
Obama left this country and Libya in rags, what else is there to say.
Yet Obama lives, while Gaddafi is dead, a man who had the good of his people in mind and
already was using primary water from which eventually all of Africa could be watered and
developed into a paradise for his people, a people who live on a continent rich with more
natural resources than any other.
But this could not be allowed by the Devil's Globalists who want to own all the world's
resources in order to make beggars of all mankind. Obama was their man. He not only
betrayed Africa but all men for a $40,000,000 pot of silver proffered by the world enemy of
liberty - the DEEPSTATE.
NAV , 2 hours ago
But in Libya, there is no going back, no fixing the past to escape the present.
Perhaps the same might be true of the United States.
Obama left this country and Libya in rags, what else is there to say.
Yet Obama lives, while Gaddafi is dead, a man who had the good of his people in mind and
already was using primary water from which eventually all of Africa could be watered and
developed into a paradise for his people, a people who live on a continent rich with more
natural resources than any other.
But this could not be allowed by the Devil's Globalists who want to own all the world's
resources in order to make beggars of all mankind. Obama was their man. He not only
betrayed Africa but all men for a $40,000,000 pot of silver proffered by the world enemy of
liberty - the DEEPSTATE.
you know it makes sense , 5 hours ago
Who writes this crap and who believes a word of it ?.
No mention that Gaddafi planned to set up a new gold backed African money to sell his
oil rather than the euro or the dollar. 143+ tons of gold and 140 tons of silver went
missing.
It was because of this lie and NATO's involvement in the destruction of Libya that both
Russia and China vowed never again to allow this to happen to another country
taglady , 7 hours ago
Trump: "lock her up" became "she's been through enough." What has she been through
exactly? "Make America great again" became we need to bail out Boeing and the rest because
of an "invisible enemy." It's invisible alright, because it doesn't exist. The only
invisible enemy are the parasites shoveling our money into their own very deep pockets in
every conceivable way. Like Biden and his entire family and the Clintons and the Obamas and
many others have been doing for many years. Like Bush and Cheney made out so well after
911. That's how Gates and the pharmaceutical industry became so bloated while real
Americans have struggled to make ends meet.
taglady , 7 hours ago
Interesting coalition between finance, government and media. Like when Bush announced
the necessary, unconstitutional war and changes to our society after 911. We didn't get to
vote on these changes. No referendum ever happened. Just an announcement in the media and
media spin on public opinion, then preplanned actions by corrupt officials. This alliance
was never more obvious than during the cv response. We are censored and silenced while
liars and thieves are given the bully pulpit to beat us over the head with their idiocracy
to enrich very few parasites, again. Then the public is blamed for the rogue actions of
government/ business/media. America is bad. We just keep voting for these dummies. Except
our voting system is run by the same corrupt dummies who keep getting re-elected. Hmmm.
Just like they did to Kadafi and many others. Suddenly Libya is poor. What happened to all
of Kadafi's gold? Probably the same thing that happened to the Pentagon trillions and SS
"surplus" and public pensions across America. Taxation without representation leaves us
broke, without a voice and broken. What are we going to do about it?
Iconoclast27 , 1 hour ago
The problem is you believe imperialism and colonialism has ended in the African
continent when that clearly isn't the case, this Libyan regime change op being the latest
example of interference you are claiming no longer exists.
John C Durham , 1 hour ago
Actually the end of colonialism that FDR ("Winston, Colonialism is the Cause of this
War. This war is going to end all Colonialism".) wished for is hardly over. We got
Democratic Party's Truman, not the great Henry Wallace, remember?
Libya only proves this true.
LEEPERMAX , 5 hours ago
America's "BOTCHED CIA OPERATION OF THE CENTURY" as they funneled GADDAFI WEAPONS from
the PORT OF BENGHAZI into SYRIA as OBAMA & CO. completed their agenda to DESTABILIZE
THE MIDDLE EAST and eventually ALL OF EUROPE.
NO MORE . . . NO LESS
QABubba , 5 hours ago
This is the very reason I sat out the 2016 election. They say citizens don't vote
foreign policy but I did. The "We came, we saw, he died" statement illustrated that our
leaders didn't have a clue as to the geopolitical damage we had done. The US supported a
"no fly zone" in the UN Security Council. Russia supported it. Gaddafi declared his own,
stating that none of his air force would fly. The US and their allies quickly "redefined"
it to mean they could destroy his air force on the ground, and once destroyed, any of his
antiaircraft guns, and once destroyed, any of his tanks and artillery (which don't fly),
and his troop convoys.
Gaddafi's, Russia's, perhaps North Korea's big mistake was believing the US would stand
by their agreement in the UN Security Council. This and the Eastward creep of Nato may very
well be the deciding factor's in Putin's view that he has no responsible actors in the West
to deal with. North Korea was watching. Any dream of getting a denuclearized North Korea
just receded by about 50 years.
And of course, our presstitute media had a starring role as always. The average American
thinks this was a just war, and knows nothing of the slave markets, and nothing about the
flood of African immigrants, who are majority muslim, and have no plans whatsoever to
assimilate, into Europe. The leaders of France and supposedly Great Britain have stabbed
their citizens in the back, as they will now have to watch European culture destroyed.
Vivekwhu , 6 hours ago
Many thanks are due to Draitser for this excellent report on the vile activities of the
US Evil Empire in Libya. The power motives have been laid bare, but the massive greed of
the US/EU imperial elites have not been detailed. The greed for Libyan oil by France and
Italy is well known but the US also looted Libyan gold, just as they looted Ukrainian gold
after the 2014 Maidan coup.
By removing Gaddaffi (and who can forget Clinton's evil words "We came, we saw, he
died") and looting the gold they scuppered the plans to create a gold-backed dinar for all
of Africa, that would have challenged the use of USD, French-controlled "Franc" and other
fiat currencies.
That would have been shocking for the US/EU imperial elite that regards Africa as their
private fiefdom to loot at will.
Combined with a lust for power, the US/EU imperial elites have an insatiable greed.
After all, what use is an empire if the elites can't gorge themselves at will?
lastugro , 10 hours ago
... and Medvedev led Russia abstained (did not veto the vote) at the UNSC session where
the intervention was approved. Russia bears a tacit responsibility.
Michael Norton , 11 hours ago
Obama supplied ISIS with leftover weapons from the Libya operation to take out Bashar
Assad in Syria. That didn't work out for him too well, did it? Got an ambassador and some
CIA spooks killed in Benghazi.
dogfish , 9 hours ago
And Trump steals the oil, the oil that is desperately needed by the suffering Syrians.
Trump is a real humanitarian.
Maghreb2 , 5 hours ago
Obama believed every word he was fed about the R2P Right to Protect fantasy concocted at
the U.N. At the same time if you knew how dangerous the man was with his Green Revolution
and Desert sorcery you would have had him killed.
The first step of his plan was the Libyan African Gold Dinar which would have been a
commodity backed gold cuerrency. This would have broken Rothschild and most of the colonial
banking systems. On its own it was a just move but not even the Chinese could have an
African Bloc form that fast with that much growth. Imploding the CFA system would have
destroyed France as we know it and made it poorer than Poland.
Second factor was his ruthless plans to deal with his Islamic Nationalist and Monarchist
"Brothers". Gaddafis Green revolution could have spread across the desert wastes and easily
overthrown the Al Sauds and trapped Arab natioanlists in their citites. Not a powerful
fighter but understood desert warfare. It was the cost of Soviet equipment and the French
adapted technicals that made him weaker. The Wars of the Sahara desert like those of
Polisario Front and Libyan Chad War were decided by mobility.
Finally there were reports amongst the occultists that the man was obsessed with the
Occult and the Djinn. Giving a warlord his own banking system and access to African black
Magic was enough even for the Jesuits to view the man as a threat to global peace. Rumours
the djinns warned him of advance of air strikes and gave strength to his soldiers in the
deserts made him a force to be reckoned with in his borders. The association with Abu Nidal
is rumoured to have revealed things about the nature of these desert beings. If he had the
innate gift for it his tribe probably would have joined us at some point. Reports he had
fallen out with the real Green a man a sage and advisor to the Islamic leaders point to a
major rupture with the Islamic creed.
Only God can really judge whether his plan to emancipate Africa was his own power grab
to free the continent or another mad man trying to join the global elite by enslaving
them.
It would appear, at this point in time, that regardless of motive of his plan, the
US-backed alternative has turned out far worse. The only positive result is more money in
the pockets of the MIC and the opportunity to play war games in the desert.
Maghreb2 , 2 hours ago
Like I said he was a dangerous man. It takes one to rock the boat like he did. End of
the day the system could have been put in place for the African Gold Standard to start to
expand into areas that were tired of the Central African Franc system but it would have
destroyed Rothschild and led to hundreds of million of Black Muslims having resources to
throw at Israel.
Making Chad, Senegal and Mali into something like Yugoslavia with Chinese and Russian
Weaponry was beyond the imaginings of Africom. Would have lowered the birth rates with the
development and solved the migration and economic crisis. Having these countries like
Sweden would have also created living space for white liberals who were highly educated.
Instead all the money vanished with the Kleptokrats. Its only insane Facists who want dead
Africans on their doorsteps in Berlin and on the television that agree with this
madness.
Euafrica, Eurabia could be avoided by making sure the Africans slow their birth rates
through development and saving wealth rather than following it to Europe when the big men
run with gold and dollars.
At the same time he was known as a devil to the Arabs and the dissidents. Sort of like
Rockefeller with the company towns and corporate face. You ask the bastards to resign and
why all these people has vanished and gives you statistics on how many electrical
appliances have been handed out and says he was never in charge and you don't know how the
system works.
Hard to say but he played the game. Robbed Bunker Hunt which was enough for us. Bunker
C%nt as we called him when he tried to bring down the Morgue in Texas. Stuff like that is
why the Illuminati are feared. Its hard for anyone to gauge what is going on and what the
domino effects are. He was trained by the Americans and British and supplied with Socialist
apparatus. Gianni Agnelli the suavest yid since Joseph kept NATO off his back. He had ties
to the U.S deep State as well but that goes back to Wheelus.
Like we said about the Occult everyone has a backer but that man had demons watching
over him. According to some. Thin line between a Djinn and Shaytan when politics and murder
get involved.
Failed nation states make a perfect platform for a profitable global criminal
enterprise.
voting machine , 6 hours ago
Allen Dulles couldn't have scripted this operation any better.
This is right out of the CIA hand book. Regime change 101
Jackprong , 7 hours ago
As is painfully evident, there is no clear way to know how much was spent other than to
take the word of those who prosecuted the war. With no congressional oversight, and no
clear documentary record, the war on Libya disappears down the memory hole, and with it the
idea that there is a separation of powers, Congressional authority to make war, or a
functioning Constitution.
Got an answer for this: CUTBACKS!
bshirley1968 , 3 hours ago
" The story begins with Bernard Henri-Lévy, the French philosopher, journalist,
and amateur foreign service officer who fancied himself an international spy. "
The real reason is the threat against the `dollar`.
JeanTrejean , 6 hours ago
It's the Frenchmen Sarkozy and B.H. Levy who are responsible for this agression.
The USA and NATO (outside Europe) were just "dumb followers".
Vivekwhu , 6 hours ago
Nothing dumb about Obomber: why did he loot and murder in Libya (or Yemen, Ukraine,
Syria etc)? Because he CAN!!!
Joiningupthedots , 21 minutes ago
Everything The West touches turns to rat ****.
Mercifully Russia recognised its mistake with Libya and stepped in to save Syria from
the same fate.
Every country, its military bandits politicians involved in the unprovoked attack and
subsequent destruction of Libya can be considered........WAR CRIMINALS.
Hopefully one day they will be stupid enough to attack Russia or China and be completely
destroyed for their stupidity.
OTBorder@CA , 1 hour ago
First of all, Gadhafi gave an unconditional surrender that was brokered by international
diplomatic channels over a month before our invasion. Obama & his minions ignored it.
We knew many pilots that flew "missions" over Libya during this war & were involved in
a massive bombing campaign. Don't forget the Wikileaks where France signed onto the war on
the condition they got a % of Libya's gold. My wish is that someday history will tell the
truth about the bastard Obama. Read the Lost Arab Spring by, Walid Phares to see all of the
other Countries Obama tried to overthrow & have radical Islamic Terrorists replace the
peaceful governments.
csc61 , 1 hour ago
The author gives these idiots far too much credit. People must come to the understanding
that presidents and politicians (on all sides) simply do as they're told. It is the hidden
hand, the international financiers, who are ruining the world. Politicians are mere pawns
... minions willing to sell their souls for a few short years of presumed power, only to
scurry off afterward to play the role of elder statesmen. Politicians are nothing more than
privileged degenerates who proved early in their political lives they could be easily
corrupted and compromised. It is not them who do the damage directly - these things would
happen no matter who's in charge. No, they're simply the ones pushed out front to sign
documents and take blame for the world's ruination ... a small price they are willing to
pay to feed their narcissistic appetites.
Mentaliusanything , 7 hours ago
I would caption that image as "Who is going first to the platform and rope... Biden
thinks he has won a Prize and is excited , The Kenyan says you first Bro (loser) and the
white Privileged woman is laughing as she says , You have nothing on Me... Bitches, I bury
mine deep and dead, I do not swing
Scipio Africanuz , 8 hours ago
Fair enough..
Now that we've completed stage 1 of the harvest, perhaps we ought boost the Republic of
Liberty, and hopefully, temper the anxious wrath of folks..
Libya was a catastrophic mistake, borne of hubris, vanity, intellectual rigidity,
vainglory, and confusion. Hubris on the part of some, Sarkozy comes to mind, vanity on the
part of some, Hillary Clinton comes to mind, confusion on the part of some, Obama comes to
mind, and Ideological rigidity on the part of some, Biden comes to mind, and vainglorious
pride on the part of some, the security establishment and their directors come to
mind..
Having cleared that, it's no use crying over spilt milk, what's necessary, if the
humility to acknowledge errors is available, is contributing rationally, and pernitently,
to fixing the errors, and not by the same thinking that led to the errors, but fresh
thinking that ought now understand that..
What's sown, is what's reaped, but MERCY it is, mitigates the harvests of depravity, via
the provision of energy to restitute, and make amends..
The caveat however, is that mercy is NEVER deployed without REPENTANCE and
RECALIBRATION,
which are the foundational pillars that make MERCY provide the energy to effect
RESTITUTION..
Having clarified that, it's pertinent to inform, that Providence is NOT interested, in
any way, shape, or form, in the damnation of anyone and why?
Well, which loving father is interested in the damnation of his children, no matter how
depraved?
Still, patience ought not be mistaken for coddling and why?
With one, patience, the intent is to provide time for change..
With the other, coddling, the gambit is the turning of blind eyes to depravity..
But seeing as God, the Almighty Father is CONSISTENTLY Just, we can conclude then, that
patience is the prerequisite for either Mercy or Damnation and how so?
Because if patience is deployed, and the depraved utilize it to change, then their
salvation is self directed..
And if not, utilized that is, then their damnation as well, is self obtained..
And thus is the Justice and Honor of Divine Providence satisfied..
It's that simple..
And on that note VP Biden, we'll no longer refer to you as that, but as Joseph..
That ought awaken in you the grave responsibility on your shoulders, like that of the
Biblical Joseph, whose father made for him, a "Coat of MANY colors.."
And if you be perceptive Joseph, you're now about to wear E Pluribus Unum (Coat of many
colors..), created as a singular garment (ONE NATION..), for a reason (the glorification of
Provident Divinity..
)
And the glorification?
That E Pluribus Unum (coat of many colors created as a singular garment..), ought
demonstrate to all who see it worn, the goodness, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, and
LOVE of the Provider of the Coat..
And considering Joseph, that in service of the Republic, you've not withheld the fruit
of your loins, it's appropriate then, that you ought now demonstrate that love for the
Republic, by putting it first, just as you'd put the fruits of your loins first, except
above Divine Providence, known to you, as God Almighty..
So then Joseph, as we begin the next stage of the harvest, remember your oath that "you
keep your promises..", you'll be judged by that oath..
And Joseph, "a promise is a debt..", it MUST be paid..
And to boost you energetically, here's Parton the Sweet Voiced Nightingale..
I was mildly amused by Paul Sperry's recent tweet announcing as "breaking news" that Obama's
CIA Director, John Brennan, set up a Task Force to target Donald Trump. This should not be
considered something "new." I reported on this almost one year ago (October 2019 to be
precise). You can check out the original pieces here
and here
. The following provides an updated, consolidated piece.
While chatting in late October 2019 with a retired CIA colleague, he dropped a
bombshell–he had learned that John Brennan set up a Trump Task Force at CIA in early
2016. One of my retired buddy's friends, who was still on duty with the CIA in 2016, recounted
how he was approached discreetly and invited to work on a Task Force focused on then
Presidential candidate Donald Trump. The Task Force members were handpicked instead of
following the normal procedure of posting the job. Instead of opening the job to all eligible
CIA personnel, only a select group of people were invited specifically to join up. Not everyone
accepted the invitation, and that could be a problem for John Brennan
A "Task Force" normally is a short term creation comprised of operations officers (i.e.,
guys and gals who carry out espionage activities overseas) and intelligence analysts. The
purpose of such a group is to ensure all relevant intelligence capabilities are brought to bear
on the problem at hand. I am not talking about an informal group of disgruntled Democrats
working at the CIA who got together like a book club to grouse and complain about the brash
real estate guy from New York. It was a specially designed covert action to try to destroy
Donald Trump.
A "Task Force" is a special bureaucratic creation that provides a vehicle for bring case
officers and analysts together, along with admin support, for a limited term project. But it
also can be expanded to include personnel from other agencies, such as the FBI, DIA and NSA.
Task Forces have been used since the inception of the CIA in 1947. Here's a recently
declassified memo outlining the considerations in the creation of a task force in 1958. The
author, L.K. White, talks about the need for a coordinating Headquarters element and an
Operational unit "in the field", i.e. deployed around the world.
While a "Task Force" can be a useful tool for tackling issues of terrorism or drug
trafficking, it is not appropriate or lawful for collecting on a U.S. candidate for the
Presidency. But Brennan did it with the blessing of the Director of National Intelligence, Jim
Clapper.
A Task Force operates independent of the CIA " Mission Centers
" (that's the jargon for the current CIA organization chart).
So what did John Brennan do? My friends said that a Trump Task Force was running in early
2016 and may have started as early as the summer of 2015. Recruitment to Task Force included
case officers (i.e., men and women who recruit and handle spies overseas), analysts and admin
personnel were recruited. Not everyone invited accepted the offer. But many did.
But this was not a CIA only operation. Personnel from the FBI also were assigned to the Task
Force. We have some clues that Christopher Steele's FBi handler, Michael Gaeta, may have been
detailed to the Trump Task Force ( see here
).
So what kind of things would this Task Force do? The case officers would work with foreign
intelligence services such as MI-6, the Italians, the Ukrainians and the Australians on
identifying intelligence collection priorities. Task Force members could task NSA to do
targeted collection. They also would have the ability to engage in covert action, such as
targeting George Papadopoulos. Joseph Mifsud may be able to shed light on the CIA officers who
met with him, briefed on operational objectives regarding Papadopoulos and helped arrange
monitored meetings. Was the honey pot (i.e., the attractive woman) named Azra Turk, who met
with George Papadopoulos, part of the CIA Trump Task Force?
The Task Force also could carry out other covert actions, such as information operations. A
nice sounding euphemism for propaganda, and computer network operations. There has been some
informed speculation that Guccifer 2.0 was a creation of this Task Force.
In light of what we have learned about the alleged CIA whistleblower, Eric Ciaramella, there
should be a serious investigation to determine if he was a part of this Task Force or, at
minimum, reporting to them.
When I described this development last November to one friend, a retired CIA Chief of
Station, his first response was, "My God, that's illegal." We then reminisced about another
illegal operation carried out under the auspices of the CIA Central American Task Force back in
the 1980s. That became known to Americans as the Iran Contra scandal.
We know one thing for certain about he work of this Task Force–it failed to produce
any intelligence to corroborate the specious claim that Donald Trump was colluding with the
Russians. Even though the despicable Brennan has continued to insist that Trump was/is under
the thumb of Putin, he failed to provide any substantive information in the January 2017
Intelligence Community Assessment that supported the claim.
The curious "leaks" of Michael Cohen tapes on both Cuomo and Zucker, broadcast by Tucker
Carlson, makes me think Cohen also has some Trump tapes.
Cohen of course would be be more than willing to drop any Trump tapes into Tucker
Carlson's lap too - or at least work a tease dropping these bit player tapes on others first
to weasel a Trump pardon for Cohen at the 11th hour, in return for not dumping his Trump tapes
pre-election on Carlson's lap too.
Do you think these "leaked" Cohen tapes are just coincidentally coming out now - or was
Micheal Cohen a fifth column all along, and even in direct cahoots with Brennan too? Other
Trump business partners were IC assets, why not Cohen who would do anything for a buck and
publicity.
The night before the Mueller report came out pundit Brennan on prime time TV (whomever he
was working for CNN, MSNBC?) claimed Trump would be facing multiple indictments.
The next day when his distinguished punditry proved 100% false, Brennan then claimed on
prime time TV his source (sources?) were obviously wrong. And they moved quickly on to the
next topic.
Brennan was obviously operating off of some form of inside intelligence (or just making
things up for effect and a paycheck?) .
Just a few lines were uttered on both nights, but now in retrospect, Brennan did admit
some sort of intelligence gathering group was passing on this critical information to him -
bogus or not. He claimed was in some sort of insider loop.
It would be good to review both those pre-and post Mueller report statements now. Who was
he hoodwinking and should he have been paid for his "insights"?
Cohen is a know nothing "would be if they could be". I have described this type before. He
had no access to Trump, the person, as opposed to a tenuous business relationship with Trump
the company.
"But Brennan did it with the blessing of the Director of National Intelligence, Jim
Clapper. " Obama isn't mentioned at all? I wonder who was actually running the show.
I'm sure he was. He's being very careful about all the current actions on the left too.
He'll be running what's left of the democratic party, if they don't succeed in bringing down
the constitutional republic this election.
For a community organizer Obama is pretty crafty. He found favor with the Chicago big
money who backed him for the Illinois legislature and then the Senate. And then directly to
the presidency. Now he's best friends with David Geffen and Richard Branson and hangs out
with the billionaire class.
He is the "puppeteer" of the Democratic Party, IMO. I'm convinced that if Biden fails,
Michelle will run and likely beat an establishment Republican in 2024.
Who do you think was the ringleader in this operation: Brennan, Comey or Clapper?
To me, it seems most likely that it was Brennan (with Obama's reluctant approval). Comey and
Clapper don't strike me as the kind of guys who would risk everything on an operation that
could backfire.
What I'd really like to know is whether Director Brennan communicated with elites outside
the agency who might have encouraged the spying to begin with. Can you clarify this point?
Does the CIA take orders or instructions from powerful-connected elites outside of the
agency??
It seems we know that NSA identified unreasonable queries of their comms database in 2016,
leading Adm Rodgers to shut off access. Immediately after, we see FBI getting involved and
setting up Crossfire Hurricane. After the election, we see FBI working with DoJ NSD to move
the op into a special counsel organization which then runs the op. It appears the Senate
Select Committee (Burr/Warner) was complicit in the op, not to mention Schiff.
I'm not sure Obama wants to run the Democratic party. It's likelier he wants to secure his
legacy and play a supportive role within the party rather than lead it.
Obama's community organizing skills are null. It was only a title; never an actual
product. He will remain the token figure head of the party; but hot heads under the radar are
now its life and blood of the Democrat party today. With no small dose of our tax
dollars.
Democrats produce nothing; they only consume. There is a brewing turf war within the
Democrat party between their historic connection to the government unions and the new
socialists - two very different forces with two very different goals. Ironically, the
Democrat government unions created the new wave of Democrat socialists.
Watch how this play out - Biden is clueless about what is now seething under his titular
party head. Didn't Biden promise he would put Alexandra Cortez in a key administrative
position?
I remember the eye-opening essay about the CIA Trump task force, especially in light of
Brennan's self-assured posture that only briefly slumped (along with all of his brethren on
the Left) when the Mueller report finally came out and dashed such great expectations. We can
only hope that the Durham probe will expose and at the very least somehow strongly
condemn and spell out WITH EVIDENCE in no uncertain terms any seditious activity. After
hearing that Trey Gowdy doubts any more prosecutions will come of the probe, I'm not going to
hold my breath for perp walks.
Laughably, the Left's still beating that same old Russian Dead Horse though. Just as with
the DNC's lackluster national convention, I'm surprised, almost shocked actually, that in
spite of the overwhelming support of the "creative class", Democrats can't come up with a
better hoax. On the other hand I can't remember the last time I was dying to see a new film,
buy a new book or recording, or tune into a new TV drama, so while it could just be me, I
suspect the "creative class" ain't quite what it used to be...
Re: Michael Cohen comments: I have to agree with walrus and take exception to the MSM
characterization of Cohen as "Trump's personal attorney". My husband and I have a
small real estate company but even so, we've simultaneously employed several attorneys for
various personal and business needs and our holdings are minuscule compared to Trump's. SO I
seriously doubt that the MSM's inference about Cohen's role and insight into Trump's private
and business dealings - that he knows all - is greatly exaggerated.
Cohen does not need to "know all", if he was recording Trump. He just has to dole out a
few juicy sound bites prior to Nov, with our without context when they did contact each other
pre-2016.
Cohen's chance to make Trump squirm since Cohen just demonstrated he was willing to do
this to Cuomo and Zucker - so will he or won't he IF he has Trump tapes too - just crude talk
at this point would not be welcome as Trump tries to take the edge off his usual "gruff"
personality.
No magic carpet to the White House for anyone. I also think people don't like giving any
race like this away too early in the game - all the prior elections have swung back and forth
almost daily, until they finally broke on election day.
Even John McCain and Romney were still nip and tuck until the final hours if one watched
certain indicators. Ironically, the only race called conclusively before election day was
Clinton-Trump 2016, and we know how that finally worked out. So more cat (Trump) and mouse
(Biden) on a seesaw for a few more months.
All of which begs to say, where the heck is the Durham Report and when will we start
seeing accountability for Democrat/Obama high crimes and misdemeanors?
There is a deep cynicism even in California that "no one gets punished" for anything any
more, unless you are unlucky enough to be a law abiding, responsible person. Everyone else
gets a free ride and a double standard of justice - and it is causing a lot of anger out
here. "Law and order" is a building hunger our west.
Where is the Durham Report? Hahaha. We've had the Durham Report. One small fish indicted.
That's it. Were you really expecting more?
I said when the "investigation" was first made public that it was a red herring, a tool to
keep us from making noise because we would be pinning our hopes on this "report" that would
make everything wonderful. I said then that it would never be anything but a pacifier
dangling in front of our noses, like a carrot keeping a donkey dragging the cart along.
This article came out in May 2020 - essentially why did Obama want to frame Flynn?
It was Iran-gate; not Russia-Gate that drove the Obama spying and the Russia-gate
cover-up, according to this author.. Was this the motivation for the Trump Task Force in your
post- to spy on Team Trump to learn if they were going to undo Obama's Iran "legacy",
particularly since Flynn was advising them? https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/russiagate-obama-iran
The Flynn Spygate unraveling is far more credible as Iran-gate, and ties up many of the
very loose ends, much better than the Russia-gate nonsense. If this is the more credible
explanation of Obama's Spygate, what happened after this article was published several months
ago in May, during the height of the "pandemic". Has this theory been debunked?
And is its current article re-circulation right now tying Obama to Iran-gate spying the
reason Adam Schiff, out of no where, is back to screaming Russia-gate yet again?
And everyone else on the left is back to screaming high crimes, misdemeanors and
impeachment ......yet again. Gheesh - long and complicates article but it did gel for me.
Including explaining the always mysterious role played by Samatha Powers, the Queen of US
Unmaskers.
Still waiting to hear more about Obama's Ambassador to that tiny Italian enclave San
Marino, that got in his licks unmasking Flynn too. Who was he fronting at the time. And why
San Marino?
Connecting the dots - Obama's San Marino Ambassador unmasks Micheal Flynn
The Atlantic Media Company, parent company of the Atlantic Magazine the wife of Obama's
former US Ambassador to Italy - Linda Douglass -, who himself had been curiously caught up
among the many 11th hour unmaskings of Gen Flynn. For as yet undisclosed reasons.
Atlantic Magazine, part of the Atlantic Media Group, now partly owned by Steve Job's very
wealthy widow Laurane Jobs and rabid anti-Trumper, is taking great delight dropping bogus
bombs against Trump, that can't even last for a 24 hour credibility cycle. With the promise
of many more to come.
Will Linda Douglass be delving into her husband and San Marino Ambassador's great treasure
trove of Obama era unmaskings to provide these daily TDS hit pieces? A classified no-no. Or
just continue to make stuff up.
Or does this recent leftist media hit piece frenzy mean Russia-gate, Iran-gate and/or
Obama Spy-gate is finally going to be broken open?
Such a small, small world. Why was Obama's Ambassador to San Marino unmasking Micheal
Flynn? And his wife just happens to now work for the Atlantic Magazine.
Deap,
Iran-Gate might be the motivating, proximate cause for Obama to approve the overall
"counterintelligence" mission. With Russia-Gate the legal cover / excuse. For Brennan / Comey
/ et al, however, it does not seem like the personal reason for their involvement. The Trump
anti-Borg inclinations is probably what motivated the Borg to go after him.
Deap, my initial reaction to your mention of an Italian connection was to point to Michael
Ledeen, Flynn's co-author and, apparently, consultant - colleague.
Ledeen is known for his Italian connections -- he is thought to have been responsible for
the yellow-cake fabrication that pushed along Iraq war.
But the SanMarino connection appears to be on the other side of the ledger that Ledeen
inhabits -- tho one should put nothing past that crafty warmonger.
"Iran has long been Ledeen's bête noir, arguing that .the country has been heavily
involved in supporting attacks against U.S. forces in hotspots across the globe.[9] "No
matter how well we do, no matter how many high-level targets we eliminate, no matter how
many cities, towns, and villages we secure, unless we defeat Iran we will always be
designing yet another counterinsurgency strategy in yet another place. We are in a big war,
and Iran is at the heart of the enemy army." '
If Flynn's anti-Iran sentiments are as unhinged as Ledeen's, then I have little sympathy
for his troubles, even though it appears that Ledeen's view prevailed in the Trump
administration. Flynn: twice back-stabbed.
I followed John Kerry's and Wendy Sherman's negotiations carefully; I listened to hours
and hours of the Congressional debates over the deal -- not a treaty, the debates seemed a
sop to Congress; I listened as Iranian representatives (Mousavian, iirc) explained that the
Deal was not good for Iran and most Iranians understood that, but that Iranians would go
along to show good faith; because they were backed into a corner; and because of the belief
that an Iran that was engaged in robust trade with Europeans & others would "come in from
the terror cold." I was at American University when Obama announced that the JCPOA was
affirmed.
From an "America First" perspective I endorse(d) Obama's vision, as the Forward article
explained it:
"[JCPOA} was his instrument to secure an even more ambitious objective -- to reorder the
strategic architecture of the Middle East.
Obama did not hide his larger goal. He told a biographer, New Yorker editor David
Remnick, that he was establishing a geopolitical equilibrium "between Sunni, or
predominantly Sunni, Gulf states and Iran." According to The Washington Post's David
Ignatius, another writer Obama used as a public messaging instrument, realignment was a
"great strategic opportunity" for a "a new regional framework that accommodates the
security needs of Iranians, Saudis, Israelis, Russians and Americans."
The catch to Obama's newly inclusive "balancing" framework was that upgrading relations
with Iran would necessarily come at the expense of traditional partners targeted by Iran --
like Saudi Arabia and, most importantly, Israel. Obama never said that part out loud, but
the logic isn't hard to follow: Elevating your enemy to the same level as your ally means
that your enemy is no longer your enemy, and your ally is no longer your ally."
From my America First pov, "rebalancing" USA relations such that Israel -- not a formal
ally and never a trustworthy informal ally (ask survivors of USS Liberty), and other
states in MidEast all held positions on a more level playing field in the eyes of American
foreign policy, is appealing.
The Forward article failed to mention Ledeen, but it was, unsurprisingly, unapologetically
pro-Israel and from a decidedly Jewish perspective.
The Forward's tone and underlying assumptions were and are offensive to me.
Regarding the statement
"The Task Force members were handpicked instead of following the normal procedure of posting
the job.
Instead of opening the job to all eligible CIA personnel, only a select group of people were
invited specifically to join up."
Two questions naturally arise:
Who was doing the selection, and
was the politics of the candidates a factor, perhaps a very big factor, in the selection
process?
"Right" to whom, and by what criteria?
Did the FBI director not know this was an important matter, which required the best
investigators?
In any case, we can see who was put on it, such Trump-haters as Strzok, Page, and
Clinesmith.
Just Trump's bad luck, or something more deliberate?
There was not really an "Italian" connection in the Iran-gate piece bur rather the
curiosity why Obama's Italian ambassdor had interests in unmasking Michael Flynn, since his
name showed up on the odd list of Obama persons who did unmask Flynn.
His name being there - Ambassador Phillips - may have been there due to his other Obama
connections, or his wife Linda Douglass' Obama connections. Or his wife's current connection
to the tabloid Atlantic Magazine.
Not really anything Italian per se, or even wee San Marino. Other than perhaps a mutual
veneration for things Machiavellian-as this unfolding story twists and turns..
By
Tony
Cox
, a US journalist who has written or edited for Bloomberg and several major daily newspapers.
The New York Times and CNN are desperate to paint Donald Trump as an enemy of the military, due to his desire not to get
involved in pointless wars. But this is simply not true, and Trump has the backing of many soldiers.
Someone should tell the
New York Times, CNN and other mainstream media outlets that soldiers don't actually like getting killed or maimed for no good
reason. Nor do they like generals and presidents who spill their blood in vain.
Alas, ignorance of these
obvious truths probably isn't the issue. This is likely just another case of the biggest names in news pretending to not get
the point so they can take the rest of us along for a ride in their confidence game of alternative reality.
The latest example is the
New York Times spinning President Donald Trump's critique this week of Pentagon leadership and the military industrial complex
as disrespect for the military at large.
"Trump has lost the right and authority to be
commander in chief,"
the
Times quoted
retired US Marines General Anthony Zinni as saying. Zinni cited Trump's alleged
"despicable
comments"
about the nation's war dead – reported last week by
The
Atlantic
, citing anonymous sources – as one of the reasons Trump "must go."
Never mind that Trump and all on-the-record administration sources denied The Atlantic's report. The Times couldn't resist
when the pieces seemed to fit so well together for the military's latest propaganda campaign against Trump. First the
president disses the troops, calling them "losers" and "suckers," then he has the
temerity
to say
Pentagon leaders want to fight wars to keep defense contractors happy.
Except the pieces don't
fit. The many people who occupy so-called boots on the ground don't have the same interests as the few people who send them to
war. In fact, combat troops are given reason to hate the generals who send them to die when there's not a legitimate national
security reason for the war they're fighting. And the US has fought a long line of wars that didn't serve the nation's
national security interests. Even when a war is justified, the interests of top brass and front-line soldiers often clash.
Remember that great 1967
war movie, '
The
Dirty Dozen'
? A group of 12 soldiers who were condemned to long prison sentences or execution in military prison for their
crimes were sent on a 1944 suicide mission to kill high-ranking German officers at a heavily defended chateau far behind enemy
lines. After succeeding in the mission and escaping the Germans, the lone surviving convict, played by tough-guy actor Charles
Bronson, told the mission leader,
"Killing generals could get to be a habit with me."
So no, New York Times, speaking out against ill-advised wars does not equal bashing the military. And sorry, General Zinni,
but generals, defense contractors and their media mouthpieces don't get to decide who has the
"right
and authority"
to be commander in chief. The voters decided that already, and they expressed clearly that they don't want
senseless and endless wars and foreign interventions.
The Times cited General
James McConville, the Army's chief of staff, as saying Pentagon leaders would only recommend sending troops to combat
"when
it's required for national security and a last resort."
And no, it wasn't a comedy skit. What's the last US war or combat
intervention that measured up to that standard? Let's just say the late Bronson, who died in 2003 at the age of 81, was a
young man the last time that happened.
CNN tried a similar ploy
on Sunday, while trying to sell the "losers" and "suckers" story in an interview with US Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert
Wilkie. Host Dana Bash said the allegations fit a
"pattern of public statements
" by
the president because Trump called US Senator John McCain a "loser" in 2015 and said McCain shouldn't be considered a hero for
being captured in the Vietnam War. She repeatedly suggested to Wilkie, who didn't take the bait, that Trump's attacks on
McCain, who died in 2018, showed disrespect for the troops.
Apparently, this follows
the same line of propagandist thought which told us that saying there are rapists among the illegal aliens entering the US
from Mexico – which is undeniably true –
equals
saying
all Mexicans are rapists. In CNN land, a bad word about McCain is a bad word about all soldiers.
McCain was
a
warmonger
who didn't mind getting US troops killed or backing terrorist groups in Syria. If
he
had his way
, many more GIs would be dead or disabled, because the intervention in Syria would have been escalated and the
US might be at war with Iran. Soldiers wouldn't want their lives wasted in such conflicts.
All wars are hard on the
people who have to fight them, but senseless wars are spirit-crushing. An average of about 17 veterans commit suicide each day
in the US, according to Veterans Administration
data
.
Veterans account for 11 percent of the US adult population but more than 18 percent of suicides.
The media's deceiving
technique of trying to pretend that ruling-class chieftains and front-line grunts are in the same boat reflects a broader
campaign of top-down revolution against populism. The
military
is
just one of several pro-Trump segments of the population that must be turned against the president. Other pro-Trump segments,
such as
police
,
are demonized and attacked.
Trump has managed to keep
the US out of new wars and has drawn down deployments to Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan – despite Pentagon opposition. His rival,
Democrat presidential nominee Joe Biden, can be expected to rev up the war machine if he takes charge. His foreign policy
adviser, Antony Blinken, lamented in a May
interview
with CBS News
that Trump had given up US "leverage" in Syria.
Trump also has turned
around the VA hospital system, ending
decades
of neglect
that left many veterans to die on waiting lists.
Like past campaigns to
oust Trump, the notion that he's not sufficiently devoted to the troops might be a tough sell. No matter how good their words
may sound, the people who promote endless wars without clear objectives aren't true supporters of the rank and file.
This is surely the last thing the American people want to hear, but it does confirm
President Trump's
recent statements saying that top Pentagon brass essentially seeks out constant wars to
keep defense contractors "happy": the Department of Defense plans to cut major military
contractors a $10 billion to $20 billion COVID bailout check .
Defense One
reports : "With lawmakers and the White House unable to come to an agreement on a new
coronavirus stimulus package, it's unlikely that money requested to reimburse defense
contractors for pandemic-related expenses will reach these companies until at least the second
quarter of 2021, according to the Pentagon's top weapons buyer."
Defense undersecretary for acquisition and sustainment, Ellen Lord, in recent statements has
indicated the private defense firm stimulus would cover the period from March 15 to Sept. 15
and is estimated at "between $10 and $20 billion."
"Then we want to look at all of the proposals at once," Lord said at a press briefing
Wednesday. "It isn't going to be a first in, first out, and we have to rationalize using the
rules we've put in place what would be reimbursable and what's not."
And strongly suggesting that it won't be the last of such stimulus for defense firms who
have already profited immensely off post 9/11 'wars of choice' launched under Bush and Obama,
Lord
said , "I would contend that most of the effects of COVID haven't yet been seen."
"I'm not saying the military's in love with me," Trump added , as he advocated for
the removal of U.S. troops from "endless wars" and lambasted NATO allies that he says rip off
the U.S. "The soldiers are."
"The top people in the Pentagon probably aren't because they want to do nothing but fight
wars so all of those wonderful companies that make the bombs and make the planes and make
everything else stay happy," he added.
"Some people don't like to come home, some people like to continue to spend money," the
president said. "One cold-hearted globalist betrayal after another, that's what it was."
The "outrage" that followed included reporters claiming that Trump's words were
"unprecedented".
But that's far from the truth, as Glen Greenwald reminded his fellow journalists:
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Well over a half-century ago, Eisenhower warned, "In the councils of government, we must
guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the
military-industrial complex . The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists
and will persist."
And further: "We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry
can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our
peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."
"Crazy" was the term the FBI agent used to describe the behavior of Christopher Steele,
author of the now-debunked Trump-Russia dossier. "I've seen crazy source-related stuff in 20
years in New York and this was one of the craziest," the veteran agent testified to the Senate
Select Committee on Intelligence.
Christopher Steele: "I'm very upset about – we're very upset – about the actions
of your agency," Steele said, according to Gaeta. Using the first person plural, Steele likely
meant himself and his client, Fusion GPS head Glenn Simpson. Victoria Jones/PA via AP
Nevertheless, the FBI continued to rely on Steele's allegations – that Donald Trump
and his team were conspiring with Russians who possessed compromising information – to
justify its surveillance of the Trump campaign. Without evidence to verify Steele's claims, the
FBI fell back on its assertion that the former British intelligence agent was reliable.
The previously unreported testimony of FBI agent Michael Gaeta is found on page 900 of the
fifth and final volume of the Senate committee's probe of Russian interference in the 2016
election. It raises new questions about the basis of the FBI's investigation of the Trump
campaign, Crossfire Hurricane, and the declarations it made to the FISA court in four separate
applications submitted to spy on American citizens.
Gaeta had a long history with the London-based Steele, who had started his own firm, Orbis
Business Intelligence, after leaving the British spy service MI6 in 2009. Between 2013 and
2016, the bureau had paid Steele $95,000 to pass along tidbits on Eurasian organized crime;
Gaeta was his contact at the bureau . It was Gaeta whom Steele approached in July 2016 with
wild and depraved stories of collusion and kompromat. Gaeta became the "handling agent" for
Steele's participation in Crossfire Hurricane. Among his tasks was to get Steele paid (a
process that came along slowly) and to see to it that Steele didn't violate the FBI's rules on
confidentiality.
This requirement for discretion created a conflict of interest for Steele, who was also
being paid for the same information by the Washington-based firm Fusion GPS. Fusion, in turn
was being paid by the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign for
opposition research on Trump. The Democrats wanted Steele's information spread far and wide.
They also wanted to be able to claim that the FBI was investigating the allegations. Paid FBI
informants, however, are not allowed to tell anyone of their work for the FBI or of the
bureau's investigations.
Gaeta was astonished, then, when shortly before the 2016 election an article appeared in
Mother Jones titled
"A Veteran Spy Has Given the FBI Information Alleging a Russian Operation to Cultivate Donald
Trump." The sub-headline asked, "Has the bureau investigated this material?" Gaeta was
convinced Steele was the source for the article and confronted him about it. Steele readily
admitted he was behind the Mother Jones story.
The conversation that followed and its aftermath have been described before, but in
bloodless ways that fail to capture the importance of that confrontation in determining
Steele's reliability and credibility. For example, a Justice Department inspector general
report says "Handling Agent 1 advised Steele that he must cease collecting information for the
FBI, and it was unlikely that the FBI would continue a relationship with him."
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"Listen, Is It About the Money?"
Here's how Gaeta recounted that conversation to the Senate: "Listen, is it about the money?"
Gaeta asked Steele. "Because we have the money now. Is it about the money?" The FBI had
promised, but had yet to deliver to Steele, $15,000 for one meeting with Crossfire Hurricane
agents. The bureau had further promised Steele he would be paid "significantly" for his
Trump-Russia research.
Gaeta assumed at first a delay in payment had made Steele go rogue.
"Yes, I'm owed the money, but that's secondary," Steele told Gaeta. "I'm very upset about
– we're very upset – about the actions of your agency." By the "we" in "we're
very upset" one can reasonably infer that Steele was speaking about himself and his client,
Fusion GPS head Glenn Simpson (whose client, not counting cutouts, was Hillary Clinton's
campaign).
The handling agent was shocked: "I had no idea what he was talking about." Before Gaeta
could inquire further, Steele started railing about ''your Director" and his "reopening of the
investigation." This was an apparent reference to former FBI Director James Comey's decision to
reopen the probe into Hillary Clinton's private email server after 340,000 copies of State
Department emails between Clinton and her close personal aide, Huma Abedin, were discovered on
a laptop used by Abedin and her husband, Anthony Weiner. He was a disgraced congressman under
investigation by the bureau's New York office for sending sexually explicit messages and photos
to an underage girl.
At which point it all became clear to the handling agent:
"I'm now understanding that he did this because he was upset that the Director's reopening
of the investigation was going to negatively affect the election for Hillary Clinton."
The handling agent described his reaction to Steele's behavior as "surprise and disbelief."
Gaeta told the Senate that Steele's actions and attitude weren't just "crazy source-related
stuff," but "one of the craziest" the veteran agent had seen in two decades of handling
sources. The words are significant: Steele's behavior with the FBI has been characterized as a
sort of professional disagreement, uncomfortable perhaps but not unreasonable. Gaeta's blunt
assessment casts things in a much harsher light and undercuts subsequent efforts by the FBI's
top officials to rehabilitate Steele in order to justify using his "reporting."
Although it has been downplayed until now, Steele's acting out – and his overtly
declared partisan motivations -- constituted a crisis for the bureau, so much so that the
handling agent describes it in violent terms:
"After that point – after everybody digests what happened," Gaeta told the Senate
committee, "[p]hones were ringing at that point; people's ears were bleeding."
Bill Priestap, left, with Michael Horowitz, DoJ inspector general. Priestap vouched for
Steele's reliability, and that misrepresentation is important because it was Priestap who was
responsible for the official launch of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation in the first
place. AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin
Whose ears would those have been? Gaeta's first call likely would have gone to Bill
Priestap, assistant director of the FBI's Counterintelligence Division.
He had just been made Gaeta's point of contact at FBI headquarters.
"Management said we were going to close him," Gaeta told the Senate.
"At that point it's just obvious. That's all you could do." The "management" was Priestap,
according to Inspector General Michael Horowitz. "Priestap decided that Steele had to be
closed immediately." Gaeta drew up the paperwork and Steele was removed from the list of
official bureau sources on Nov. 17, 2016.
In the wake of Donald Trump's election, President Obama ordered a multi-agency "Intelligence
Community Assessment" of Russian interference in the presidential campaign. James Comey, the
director whose actions had prompted Steele to go outside the bureau in the first place, now
pushed for Steele's "reporting" to be included in the document, even though none of it had been
corroborated. Comey called Director of National Intelligence James Clapper.
"I informed the DNI that we would be contributing the [Steele] reporting (although I
didn't use that name) to the IC [Intelligence Community] effort," Comey reported in an email
to his top deputies the next day.
"I told him the source of the material, which included salacious material about the
President-Elect, was a former [REDACTED] who appears to be a credible person."
First in the list of recipients of Comey's email was Priestap.
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Priestap would have known from Gaeta that Steele's behavior was among the "craziest" the
handling agent had run into in two decades of source work. He would have known also that, by
his own admission, Steele's motivations were to promote Hillary Clinton's campaign apparently
by sabotaging Trump's. Yet Priestap went along with Comey's presentation of Steele as a
credible source. More than that, Priestap promoted the idea of including Steele's allegations
in the intelligence assessment, himself writing to the CIA and describing the former British
spy as "reliable."
Finally, Priestap vouched for Steele's reliability even though he later admitted to the
Justice Department inspector general that he "understood that the information [from Steele]
could have been provided by the Russians as part of a disinformation campaign."
Steele
Cast as 'Person of Integrity'
But that's not how Steele's materials were presented to the secret FISA court. Shortly after
the election, Priestap went with FBI agent Peter Strzok to London to see if they could
rehabilitate Steele's credibility by gathering the opinions of "persons who previously had
professional contacts with Steele." They found some who described Steele as "smart" and a
"person of integrity" But several lamented Steele's "poor judgment" or "lack of judgment" and
his habit of "pursuing people [with] political risk but no intel value." But because Priestap
and Strzok did not find any former colleagues to say Steele made things up out of whole cloth,
the Crossfire Hurricane team declared him to be credible for the purpose of justifying
surveillance warrants.
The willingness of the assistant director for counterintelligence to misrepresent essential
information is important because it was Priestap who was responsible for the official launch of
the Crossfire Hurricane investigation in the first place.
Gaeta explained to senators just how serious and irrevocable a break it was to "close" a
source: ''Once he's closed, nobody is allowed – we can't talk to him."
In this case, that practice was not followed. Priestap's apparent rationale was that the
decision to close Steele as a source was not made because he offered unfounded claims but
because he had violated confidentiality agreements by sharing them with the press. And so, the
FBI continued to gather new "reporting" by Steele. One of channels was David Corn, the Mother
Jones reporter who had written the article about Steele's accusations. Corn was a longtime
friend of then-FBI General Counsel James Baker. Their children had gone to the same school
years before and carpooled. Corn gave Steele memos to Baker and then Baker passed them on to
Priestap. Thus the strange situation in which an assistant director of the FBI forbade agents
from talking to Steele because of the source's indiscretion with Mother Jones and then
proceeded to gather Steele materials through a back-channel relationship with Mother Jones.
Strange, yes, perhaps even crazy.
fxrxexexdxoxmx2 , 1 hour ago
They will never give up reshaping this story.
Here is the truth
Barack Hussein Obama used the DOJ,FBI, CIA, State Department to spy on his campaign
rival.
Those loyal to him then used the same agencies in an COUP attempt to remove a duly
elected President.
End of story, no spin.
JimmyJones , 1 hour ago
Oh I love President Trump for completely exposing the Deep State and their partners in
Crime at the MSM...
BaNNeD oN THe RuN , 58 minutes ago
"completely exposing the Deep State"??
This is but a small corner of a huge termite infestation.
Blondefire , 1 hour ago
The only thing crazier than the Steele dossier are the deaths of Seth Rich and Epstein,
or HRC maintaining a private email server which was literally a superhighway for highly
classified information to be funneled directly to China for which no one ever suffered even
trivial consequences, or HRC and WJC supporting the Uranium One deal along with Sleepy Joe
and selling materials vital to our national defense to our sworn enemies, or Obummer being
elected to any office higher than dog catcher, or the entire set of circumstances
surrounding the death of Justice Scalia and the complete lack of curiosity on the part of
the "impartial press", or the deaths of innocent patriots in Benghazi during an arms deal
gone wrong, or the complete lack of curiosity on the part of the "impartial press" on the
Las Vegas massacre and resultant civilian deaths during an arms deal gone wrong, or the
current situation across the nation with civilian police forces being slandered and
defunded, with officers being arrested or encouraged to resign en masse, presumably to
create a vacuum which can only be filled by a national police force of some sort and
probably overseen by the DHS, or almost any of the other headlines from the past 10
years.
MitchRyderAndTheDetroitWheels , 59 minutes ago
I am only 70 and I wouldn't piss on any of the members of the FBI/CIA/Congress if they
were on fire. They are all useless to the common good of this country. The entire
government workforce in DC needs to be fired starting this afternoon. The most useless
MFers on the planet work in city/count/state/federal government. It takes 7 of them to do
the job of one good associate.
Bay of Pigs , 1 hour ago
Huma Abedin. Oh yeah, I remember her.
Anyone know what happened to her husband's laptop?
MitchRyderAndTheDetroitWheels , 1 hour ago
Lindsey Graham isn't going to do **** about anything going forward because he like his
useless butt boy John McCain are knee deep in this coup.
MrBoompi , 1 hour ago
Steele is a criminal along with a long list of others, starting off with Obama and
Brennan.
MitchRyderAndTheDetroitWheels , 56 minutes ago
Barr has 2 more weeks before The Donald has to stand and use the Pulpit....it's ugly now
with the dems coming everyday with a new scheme for Trump to have to counter. The good news
is the MSM is Chicken Little at this point. Only a F fool believe anything they say since
95% of everything they say about Trump is already negative.
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I love your wife , 1 hour ago
How come the fact that Steele is a foreigner never comes in to play?
mikka , 1 hour ago
He is an "allied" foreigner.
BetterOffDead , 27 minutes ago
Are we sure he is retired from MI-6? Sounds like foreign interference in our election,
sponsored by a candidate for president. Good thing she didn't win, she would have been
impeached for this! /sarc
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Ditch , 1 hour ago
There are no good actors in any of these stories. And don't tell me to just wait for
Sessions, Horrorwitz,Dumbham ...
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Joebloinvestor , 51 minutes ago
The FBI acts with impunity and no integrity.
Slammofandango , 15 minutes ago
Just to be clear, Steele was paid by the FBI, with our tax dollars, to meet with the FBI
so as to lend legitimacy to fiction created by a company paid to smear Hillary Clinton's
political opposition, with itself being paid with other funds that came by way of a law
firm hired by Hillary Clinton.
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Freespeaker , 26 minutes ago
Rod Rosenstein is complicit. He should lose his pension and other gov benefits. He
should be seriously considered for prosecution.
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RickyLaFleur , 14 minutes ago
Shadowgate explains why these outsourced contractors are the root of the problem. We
have been advised.
Freespeaker , 9 minutes ago
They are part of the problem. But really it is just another way to cover things up.
sborovay07 , 21 minutes ago
The treasonists behind the coup, other than 1, still remain free. Strzok, instead of
making license plates, has his 2nd book coming out. Meanwhile, the individual who could
have exposed the hoax, Julian Assange, is withering away in prison. It has been so obvious
for a number of years that the Deep State operatives on both sides of the political
spectrum still control the system. Most Americans are not aware of this as the
MSM/Socialist/Marxist/Globalist/DeepState cabal will never admit their crimes. Assange, as
in my book,
Dad, Why Are You Still Talking About Saul Alinsky, He's Been Dead Since 1972? Socialism and
the Deep States War on Our Constitution, tells a tale to Congress that the Deep State
and Obama treasonists never want you to hear. They need to pay!!!
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LOL123 , 22 minutes ago
Priestap may have been the first on list from comey but that's not the first source of
dossier.
"
Rahm Emmanuel, who became President Obama's chief of staff, wouldn't allow him (sidney
blumenthal) near the Obama White House. Hillary kept him, however, at a $10,000 a month
sinecure at the Clinton Foundation where he went on to be instrumental in creating the
bengaziscandal from his "Libyan sources."
Trey Gowdy said that the FBI used information from Hillary Clinton hatchet man Sidney
Blumenthal to corroborate the Steele dossier.
"I have seen each factual assertion listed in that dossier, and then I've seen the FBI's
justification. And when you're citing newspaper articles as corroboration for a factual
assertion that you have made, you don't need an FBI agent to go do a Google search," said
Gowdy, a former South Carolina congressman and member of the House Intelligence Committee,
in a Fox News interview.
"And when the name Sidney Blumenthal is included as part of your corroboration, and
you're the world's leading law enforcement agency, you have a problem," Gowdy said.In 2018,
Gowdy hinted that Blumenthal was responsible for the creation of the dossier.
"When you hear who the source or one of the sources of that information is, you're going
to think, 'Oh my gosh, I've heard that name somewhere before. Where could it possibly have
been?'" Gowdy
said in February 2018
Blumenthal, you recall , was an assistant senior
advisor to President Clinton from 1997 to 2001, the prime Clinton scandal years, following
a career as a writer for the New Yorker. He was a prime witness in the grand jury
testimonies over the Monica Lewinsky scandal and famous for leaking creepy stories about
the Ken Starr special prosecutor investigation to the press, and came to be known as a man
who would do anything for the Clintons. He got a reputation so slimey that even Rahm
Emmanuel, who became President Obama's chief of staff, wouldn't allow him near the Obama
White House. Hillary kept him, however, at a $10,000 a month sinecure at the Clinton
Foundation where he went on to be instrumental in creating the Benghazi scandal from his
"Libyan sources." These days, he's affiliated with David Brock's Media Matters, the slime
machine featured by Sharyl Attkisson in her bestseller,
The Smear: How Shady Politcal Operatives Control What You See, What You Think and How You
Vote .
Since then, he's got Clinton in this Steele dossier mess. You'd think Hillary would not
want to have anything to do with him after Benghazi, but they're birds of a feather.
Blumenthal is to Clinton as Ben Rhodes is to Obama.
Blumenthal was on Hillarys retainer and he is really good at making **** up and getting
FBI/CIA involved so much so that he was NOT ALLOWED IN OBAMAS WHITE HOUSE.
To try and pin this on Priestap is a joke.
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Freespeaker , 1 hour ago
Halper, Steele and Mifsud should testify publicly.
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Shifter_X , 23 minutes ago
No one talks about the true origins of the "pee" story anymore
"... The idea, therefore, that Paul Manafort was an agent of influence for the Russian government flies against everything we know about what he actually did. As for Kilimnik, maybe he is a Russian intelligence agent – I'm not in a position to say. But if he is, he's a very weird one, who spent years actively pushing the Ukrainian government to pursue a policy which directly contradicted Russian interests. ..."
"... None of this, needless to say, appears in the US Senate report. Instead, the report chooses to focus on the apparently shocking revelation that Manafort shared Trump campaign polling data with Kilimnik, as if this sharing of private information was in some ways a massive threat to national security and proof that Manafort was working for the Russians. The fact that both Manafort and Kilimnik spent years doing their damnedest to undermine Russia is simply ignored. Go figure! ..."
Despite the secondary roles played some bit part actors in the Russiagate drama, the central
figure in allegations that Donald Trump colluded with the Russian government to be elected as
president of the United States has always been Trumps' onetime campaign manager Paul Manafort.
The recent US Senate report on Russian 'interference' in the 2016 presidential election thus
started off its analysis with a long exposé of Manafort's comings and goings.
Simply put, the thesis is as follows: while working in Ukraine as an advisor to
'pro-Russian' Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovich, Manafort was in effect working on behalf
of the Russian state via 'pro-Russian' Ukrainian oligarchs as well as Russian billionaire Oleg
Deripaska (a man with 'close ties' to the Kremlin). Also suspicious was Manafort's close
relationship with one Konstantin Kilimnik, whom the US Senate claims is a Russia intelligence
agent. All these connections meant that while in Ukraine, Manafort was helping the Russian
Federation spread its malign influence. On returning to the USA and joining the Trump campaign,
he then continued to fulfill the same role.
The fundamental flaw in this thesis has always been the well-known fact that while advising
Yanukovich, Manafort took anything but a 'pro-Russian' position, but instead pressed him to
sign an association agreement with the European Union (EU). Since gaining independence, Ukraine
had avoided being sucked either into the Western or the Russian camp. But the rise of two
competing geopolitical projects – the EU and the Russia-backed Eurasian Union – was
making this stance increasingly impossible, and Ukraine was being put in a position where it
would be forced to choose. This was because the two Unions are incompatible – one can't
be in two customs unions simultaneously, when they levy different tariffs and have different
rules. Association with the EU meant an end to the prospect of Ukraine joining the Eurasian
Union. It was therefore a goal which was entirely incompatible with Russian interests, which
required that Ukraine turn instead towards Eurasia.
Manafort's position on this matter therefore worked against Russia. Even The
Guardian journalist Luke Harding had to concede this in his book Collusion ,
citing a former Ukrainian official Oleg Voloshin that, 'Manafort was an advocate for US
interests. So much so that the joke inside [Yanunkovich's] Party of Regions was that he
actually worked for the USA.'
If anyone had any doubts about this, they can now put them aside. On Monday, the news agency
BNE Intellinews
announced that it had received a leak of hundreds of Kilimnik's emails detailing his
relationship with Manafort and Yanukovich. The story they tell is not at all what the US Senate
and other proponents of the Trump-Russia collusion fantasy would have you believe. As
BNE reports:
Today the Yanukovych narrative is that he was a stool pigeon for Russian President
Vladimir Putin from the start, but after winning the presidency he actually worked very hard
to take Ukraine into the European family. As bne IntelliNews has already reported,
Manafort's flight records also show how he crisscrossed Europe in an effort to build support
in Brussels for Yanukovych in the run up to the EU Vilnius summit.
On March 1, his first foreign trip as newly minted president was to the EU capital of
Brussels. The leaked emails show that Manafort influenced Yanukovych's decision to visit
Brussels as first stop, working in concert with his assistant Konstantin Kilimnik In a
memorandum entitled 'Purpose of President Yanukovych Trip to Brussels,' Manafort argued that
the decision to visit Brussels first would underscore Yanukovych's mission to "bring European
values to Ukraine," and kick start negotiations on the Association Agreement.
The memorandum on the Brussels visit was the first of many from Manafort and Kilimnik to
Yanukovych, in which they pushed Yanukovych to signal a clear pro-EU line and to carry out
reforms to back this up.
To handle Yanukovych's off-message antics, Manafort and Kilimnik created a back channel to
Yanukovych for Western politicians – in particular those known to appreciate Ukraine's
geopolitical significance vis-à-vis Russia. In Europe, these were Sweden's then
foreign minister Carl Bildt, Poland's then foreign minister Radosław Sikorski and
European Commissioner for Enlargement Stefan Fule, and in the US, Vice President Joe
Biden.
"We need to launch a 'Friends of Ukraine' programme to help us use informal channels in
talks on the free trade zone and modernisation of the gas transport system," Manafort and
Kilimnik wrote to Yanukovych in September 2010. "Carl Bildt is the foundation of this
informal group and has sufficient weight with his colleagues in questions connected to
Ukraine and the Eastern Partnership. ( ) but he needs to be able to say that he has a direct
channel to the President, and he knows that President Yanukovych remains committed to
European integration."
Beyond this, the emails show that Manafort and Kilimnik also tried hard to arrange a meeting
between Yanukovich and US President Barack Obama, and urged Yanukovich to show leniency to
former Prime Minister Yuliia Timoshenko (who was imprisoned for fraud).
It is noticeable that the members of the 'back channel' Manafort and Kilimnik created to
lobby on behalf of Ukraine in the EU included some of the most notably Russophobic European
politicians of the time, such as Carl Bildt and Radek Sikorski. Moreover, nowhere in any of
what they did can you find anything that could remotely be described as 'pro-Russian'. Indeed,
the opposite is true. As previously noted, Ukraine's bid for an EU agreement directly
challenged a key Russian interest – the expansion of the Eurasian Union to include
Ukraine. Manafort and Kilimnik were therefore very much working against Russia, not
for it.
The idea, therefore, that Paul Manafort was an agent of influence for the Russian
government flies against everything we know about what he actually did. As for Kilimnik, maybe
he is a Russian intelligence agent – I'm not in a position to say. But if he is, he's a
very weird one, who spent years actively pushing the Ukrainian government to pursue a policy
which directly contradicted Russian interests.
None of this, needless to say, appears in the US Senate report. Instead, the report
chooses to focus on the apparently shocking revelation that Manafort shared Trump campaign
polling data with Kilimnik, as if this sharing of private information was in some ways a
massive threat to national security and proof that Manafort was working for the Russians. The
fact that both Manafort and Kilimnik spent years doing their damnedest to undermine Russia is
simply ignored. Go figure!
Oh, look, no masks! And you thought that got covered up by the investigation done by the
Mueller team? Let's go over this one more time:
The document declassified by DNI Grenell shows that there were 14 unique days when the NSA
received requests to "unmask"--the first was on 30 November 2016 by UN Ambassador Samantha
Power and the last came on 12 January from Joe Biden. There were two separate requests on the
14th of December by Samantha Power, which indicates two separate NSA reports. Samantha Power
would not have to submit two requests for the same document.
"... There has been a long string of U.S. provocations toward Russia. The first one came in the late 1990s and the initial years of the twenty-first century when Washington violated tacit promises given to Mikhail Gorbachev and other Soviet leaders that if Moscow accepted a united Germany within NATO, the Alliance would not seek to move farther east. Instead of abiding by that bargain, the Clinton and Bush administrations successfully pushed NATO to admit multiple new members from Central and Eastern Europe, bringing that powerful military association directly to Russia's western border. In addition, the United States initiated "rotational" deployments of its forces to the new members so that the U.S. military presence in those countries became permanent in all but name. Even Robert M. Gates, who served as secretary of defense under both George W. Bush and Barack Obama, was uneasy about those deployments and conceded that he should have warned Bush in 2007 that they might be unnecessarily provocative. ..."
"... Such provocative political steps, though, are now overshadowed by worrisome U.S. and NATO military moves. Weeks before the formal announcement on July 29, the Trump administration touted its plan to relocate some U.S. forces stationed in Germany. When Secretary of Defense Mike Esper finally made the announcement, the media's focus was largely on the point that 11,900 troops would leave that country. ..."
"... Among other developments, there already has been a surge of alarming incidents between U.S. and Russian military aircraft in that region. Most of the cases involve U.S. spy planes flying near the Russian coast -- supposedly in international airspace. On July 30, a Russian Su-27 jet fighter intercepted two American surveillance aircraft; according to Russian officials, it was the fourth time in the final week of July that they caught U.S. planes in that sector approaching the Russian coast. Yet another interception occurred on August 5, again involving two U.S. spy planes. Still others have taken place throughout mid-August. It is a reckless practice that easily could escalate into a broader, very dangerous confrontation. ..."
"... The growing number of such incidents is a manifestation of the surging U.S. military presence along Russia's border, especially in the Black Sea . They are taking place on Russia's doorstep, thousands of miles away from the American homeland. Americans should consider how the United States would react if Russia decided to establish a major naval and air presence in the Gulf of Mexico, operating out of bases in such allied countries as Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua. ..."
"... I think this has been bipartisan policy since at least 1947. Unlikely to change anytime soon, even with realists gaining ground. Perhaps expanding NATO east, sending support to Ukraine, and intervening in Syria (despite attempts to leave, the best we can get at this point are small troop reductions that most likely are redeployed to neighboring countries) aren't the best idea after all? ..."
"... they think Russia is a weak state and can do nothing therefore they are free to do as they please. ..."
"... the US leadership wants ether country to take a shot at some thing US. Then then can scream and stomp their feet that no one on earth is allowed to trade with ether country and the US can block all trade with ether country. ..."
"... The other thing at play is Americans love it when their leaders act like gangsters. That's why leaders do it. Nothing will get you votes faster in the US than saying your going to kill people. I see US citizens try that non-sense about it's all Washington we don't want that. But you keep voting for people that are going to give you the next war fix. When you stop they will stop. ..."
"... if people are convinced that Russia is a weak state -- then it is easier to approve adventures abroad -- including ringing Russia. ..."
"... Please explain to me, a Russian person, what kind of anti-American policy Russia is spreading in countries? If we exclude acts of counteraction against American expansion and aggression against Russia? ..."
"... The only people that are destroying Americans are within our borders, wielding power to fulfill their mission -- enrich themselves, keep the borders open, and our military all over the globe. ..."
"... I think there is a third option besides escalation and deescalation - exhaustion. Projecting power across the globe is expensive, it is a slow but steady drain on US resources, which are needed elsewhere (for example to quell the riots in major US cities). ..."
"... I see it as exhaustion by corruption. The US military is increasingly bureaucratic, political and ineffectual. Our weapons are gold-plated, hyper-tech focused and require highly-skilled people to maintain them, which means we can't quickly train new people up. The weapons themselves are so complex and expensive that there is no way to manufacture them at scale quickly. ..."
"... Read Jean Lartegy's "The Centurions." That is the direction where the tactically brilliant, but strategically incompetent US military leadership is headed. ..."
"... Stop focusing on what Trump says and look at what his administration does. Troops in Poland and Eastern Europe, Nord Stream 2, intrusive US reconnaissance flights along Russia's borders, support of Ukraine, interference with Russian patrols in Syria, the continuing attempt to destabilize Assad in Syria, the destruction of JCPOA, global sanctions campaign on Russia among others, withdrawal from arms control treaties, accusation that Russia was cheating on INF treaty, hiring dozens of anti-Russia hardliners, etc, etc. ..."
"... I don't think US-Russian cooperation is doable at this point--or any time soon. Given how erratic US policy is--yawing violently from one direction to another--Russia has no reason to accept the damage to its relationship with China that shifting to a strategic arrangement with the US would entail. The risk is too high and the potential rewards too uncertain. ..."
"... We have pretty much alienated the Russian state under Putin, and now we're trying to wait him out, with the expectation that there is no one of his capabilities to maintain the strategic autonomy of the Russian state in the longer term and that once he exits the scene, some Yeltsin-like stooge will present himself. ..."
"... Everyone is focusing on Russia because of the Russia hoax. Dems started a new cold war based on an irrational fear that Russia was threatening our democracy. ..."
"... The foreign policy elite dislikes Russia, always has, and will do anything to keep this "adversary" front and center because their prospects for prestige, power and position depend upon the presence of an enemy. As an example see Strobe Talbot and Michael McFaul. ..."
Tensions are becoming dangerous in Syria and on Russia's back doorstep. US soldiers stand
near US and Russian military vehicles in the northeastern Syrian town of al-Malikiyah (Derik)
at the border with Turkey, on June 3, 2020. (Photo by DELIL SOULEIMAN/AFP via Getty Images)
A dangerous vehicle collision between U.S and Russian soldiers in Northeastern Syria on Aug.
24 highlights the fragility of the relationship and the broader test of wills between the two
major powers.
According to White House
reports and a Russian video that went viral this week, it appeared that as the two sides
were racing down a highway in armored vehicles, the Russians sideswiped the Americans, leaving
four U.S. soldiers injured. It is but the latest clash as both sides continue their patrols in
the volatile area. But it speaks of bigger problems with U.S. provocations on Russia's backdoor
in Eastern Europe.
A sober examination of U.S. policy toward Russia since the disintegration of the Soviet
Union leads to two possible conclusions. One is that U.S. leaders, in both Republican and
Democratic administrations, have been utterly tone-deaf to how Washington's actions are
perceived in Moscow. The other possibility is that those leaders adopted a policy of maximum
jingoistic swagger intended to intimidate Russia, even if it meant obliterating a constructive
bilateral relationship and eventually risking a dangerous showdown. Washington's latest
military moves, especially in Eastern Europe and the Black Sea, are stoking alarming
tensions.
There has been a
long string of U.S. provocations toward Russia. The first one came in the late 1990s and
the initial years of the twenty-first century when Washington violated tacit promises given to
Mikhail Gorbachev and other Soviet leaders that if Moscow accepted a united Germany within
NATO, the Alliance would not seek to move farther east. Instead of abiding by that bargain, the
Clinton and Bush administrations successfully pushed NATO to admit multiple new members from
Central and Eastern Europe, bringing that powerful military association directly to Russia's
western border. In addition, the United States initiated "rotational" deployments of its forces
to the new members so that the U.S. military presence in those countries became permanent in
all but name. Even Robert M. Gates, who served as secretary of defense under both George W.
Bush and Barack Obama, was uneasy
about those deployments and conceded that he should have warned Bush in 2007 that they might be
unnecessarily provocative.
As if such steps were not antagonistic enough, both Bush and Obama sought to bring Georgia
and Ukraine into NATO. The latter country is not only within what Russia regards as its
legitimate sphere of influence, but within its core security zone. Even key European members of
NATO, especially France and Germany, believed that such a move was unwise and blocked
Washington's ambitions. That resistance, however, did not inhibit a Western effort to meddle in Ukraine's
internal affairs to help
demonstrators unseat Ukraine's elected, pro-Russia president and install a new, pro-NATO
government in 2014.
Such provocative political steps, though, are now overshadowed by worrisome U.S. and
NATO military moves. Weeks before the formal announcement on July 29, the Trump administration
touted its plan to relocate some U.S. forces stationed in Germany. When Secretary of Defense
Mike Esper finally made the announcement, the media's focus was largely on the point that
11,900 troops would leave that country.
However, Esper
made it clear that only 6,400 would return to the United States; the other nearly 5,600
would be redeployed to other NATO members in Europe. Indeed, of the 6,400 coming back to the
United States, "many of these or similar units will begin conducting rotational deployments
back to Europe." Worse, of the 5,600 staying in Europe, it turns out that at least 1,000 are going
to Poland's eastern border with Russia.
Another result of the redeployment will be to boost U.S. military power in the Black Sea.
Esper confirmed that various units would "begin continuous rotations farther east in the Black
Sea region, giving us a more enduring presence to enhance deterrence and reassure allies along
NATO's southeastern flank." Moscow is certain to regard that measure as another on a growing
list of Black Sea provocations by the United States.
Among other developments, there already has been a surge of alarming incidents between
U.S. and Russian military aircraft in that region. Most of the cases involve U.S. spy planes
flying near the Russian coast -- supposedly in international airspace. On July 30, a Russian
Su-27 jet fighter
intercepted two American surveillance aircraft; according to Russian officials, it was the
fourth time in the final week of July that they caught U.S. planes in that sector approaching
the Russian coast. Yet
another interception occurred on August 5, again involving two U.S. spy planes. Still
others have
taken place throughout mid-August. It is a reckless
practice that easily could escalate into a broader, very dangerous confrontation.
The growing number of such incidents is a manifestation of the surging U.S. military
presence along Russia's border,
especially in the Black Sea . They are taking place on Russia's doorstep, thousands of
miles away from the American homeland. Americans should consider how the United States would
react if Russia decided to establish a major naval and air presence in the Gulf of Mexico,
operating out of bases in such allied countries as Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua.
The undeniable reality is that the United States and its NATO allies are crowding Russia;
Russia is not crowding the United States. Washington's bumptious policies already have wrecked
a once-promising bilateral relationship and created a needless new cold war with Moscow. If
more prudent U.S. policies are not adopted soon, that cold war might well turn hot.
Ted Galen Carpenter, a senior fellow in security studies at the Cato Institute and a
contributing editor at The American Conservative, is the author of 12 books and more
than 850 articles on international affairs. His latest book is NATO: The Dangerous Dinosaur
(2019).
I mean, I think this has been bipartisan policy since at least 1947. Unlikely to change
anytime soon, even with realists gaining ground. Perhaps expanding NATO east, sending
support to Ukraine, and intervening in Syria (despite attempts to leave, the best we can
get at this point are small troop reductions that most likely are redeployed to neighboring
countries) aren't the best idea after all?
This is a very anti American article! Patriots know that where the U.S. gives political
or economic ground Russia and other adversaries will fill the vacum with policies intended
to destroy American peoeple. So no, it is not a bad idea to be involved in Syria and
Ukraine in fact it is a very good idea.
The entire framing of Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the Muslim Brotherhood as "pro American"
and those who oppose them as "anti American" is delusional.
Russia is a weak state trying to maintain its natural spheres of influence along the Curzon
line. Why has the State Department/ Pentagon decided to try and roll this back? How the F
to they expect Russia to react. How would America react if a foreign power tried to turn
Mexico into a strategic asset. So why is it ok to make Ukraine into a Nato member? It's
reckless and ultimately it is pointless. Weakening Russia further serves little strategic
purpose and potentially threatens to destabilize the Balkans and mid east with Turkish
adventurism. What will America do if the Turks seize Rhodes under some pretext?
Syria is another case of State Department midwits not understanding the results of their
regime change. What purpose does it serve to put a Sunni extremist government in Damascus.
How hateful do you have to be to subject Syria's minorities to genocide at the hands of an
ISIS sympathetic government? How do you delude yourself that such a regime will serve
America's interests in the long run? So you can own Iran before the election? You are
trading victory today for permanent loss tomorrow. It's insane.
Just like you, they think Russia is a weak state and can do nothing therefore they are free to do as they please.
Also, since Turkey is a NATO member and as such an ally to the U.S. shouldn't you be cheering in good faith for Turkey
and against Russia?
You got that one. Because Turkey is a thorn in NATO side. It has massive economic
interests in Russia, China and the rest of Asia. The "adventure" in Syria is coordinated
with Russia to the last detail, while playacting tensions. US problem in Syria is not
Russia or Turkey, but Russia AND Turkey.
As US is frowning at Egypt Al-Sisi , or Saudi MBS -- it is because they frown at Egypt
AND Russia, as well as Saudi Arabia AND Russia.
Basically, countries nominally counted in OUR camp are frowned upon when collaborating with
the ENEMY countries.
Our foreign policy is stuck in Middle East -- and cannot get unstuck. Cannot be better
illustrated then Pompeo addressing Republican convention from Jerusalem.
The only way Russia can challenge encirclement is by challenging US in its home away
from home -- Middle East. And creating new realities in the ground by collaborating with
the countries in the region -- undermining monopoly.
And as the entire world is hurting from epidemic related economic setbacks, Russia and
China are economies that are moving forward. And nobody in the Middle East can afford to
ignore it.
I agree with you with the exception of Russia being weak. One day the US which has never
seen any thing in advance will push Russia one time to many and find the Russian Army in
Poland and Romania. That is if China doesn't take out some thing precious to the US in the
mean time like a U2, aircraft carrier etc.
There are two things at play here. The first is the US leadership wants ether country to
take a shot at some thing US. Then then can scream and stomp their feet that no one on
earth is allowed to trade with ether country and the US can block all trade with ether
country.
The other thing at play is Americans love it when their leaders act like gangsters. That's why leaders do it. Nothing will get you votes faster in the US than saying your going
to kill people. I see US citizens try that non-sense about it's all Washington we don't
want that. But you keep voting for people that are going to give you the next war fix. When
you stop they will stop.
I agree with your assessment except Russia will not put troops into any country without
the express request from the legitimate government.
They are not going into Poland and especially not Romania (Transnistria maybe) why would
they? The countries do not have any resources that Russia wants.
The only reason to put troops into Belarus is to maintain a distance between Poland and the
borders.
Russia needs nothing from the rest of the world except trade. Un-coerced, free trade. This
drives the US corporations crazy as no one will trade with the US anymore without
coercion.
PS the same goes for China with the proviso that Taiwan is part of China and needs to be
reabsorbed into the mainstream. It will take +20 years but China just keeps the pressure on
until there will be no viable alternative.
It has never meant to serve American interests. Ever. Once you put it in perspective, it
makes sense.
But if people are convinced that Russia is a weak state -- then it is easier to approve
adventures abroad -- including ringing Russia.
The problem for never satiated Zealots is the following -- regional powers in the Middle
East are hitching their wagons to Eurasian economic engine. That is definitely true of
Turkey, Egypt and even Saudi Arabia.
The tales of Moslem Brotherhood are here to interpret something today from the iconography
from the past. And to explain today what an entirely different set of leaders did -- be
that few years ago or one hundred years ago. Same goes for iconography of Al-Qaeda, ISIS,
Communism, Socialism, authoritarianism, and other ISMS.
Those icons serve the same purpose as icons in religion or in cyber-space. You look at
them, or you click -- and the story and explanation is ready made for your consumption. Time to watch actions -- not media iconography to tell us what is going on.
If we're being purely ideological here those with an overtly internationalist
disposition (barring leftists) are those who want to be involved overseas, hardly ones to
go on about national interest or pride. Its been a common stance associated with American
Nationalism and Paleoconservatives to be anti-intervention, these people (of which I
consider myself a part) can hardly be bashed for holding unpatriotic views.)
Russia has a declining population, and an economy smaller than that of Spain. Its hardly
a threat and our involvement in Eastern Europe was relatively limited pre-2014 and even so
the overall international balance of power hasn't shifted after Russian annexation of
Crimea, and the Ukrainians proved quite capable of defending their nation (though not so
capable as to end retake separatist strongholds.
Please explain to me, a Russian person, what kind of anti-American policy Russia is
spreading in countries? If we exclude acts of counteraction against American expansion and
aggression against Russia? What ideological foundations does Russia have after 1991? Isn't
Russia's actions a guerrilla war on the communications of the self-proclaimed "Empire of
Good", which is pursuing a tough offensive policy? And is it not because the Russians
support a significant part of Putin's initiatives (despite a number of Putin's obvious
shortcomings) precisely because they have experience of cooperation with the "Empire of
Good" in the 90s: give loans, corrupt officials and deputies, put Russian firms under
control big American companies, and then just give orders from the White House.
PS. I beg your pardon my google english
Another Zealot in Patriot garb. The only people that are destroying Americans are within our borders, wielding power to
fulfill their mission -- enrich themselves, keep the borders open, and our military all
over the globe.
It would be interesting to read the minds of the US pilots engaged in these activities.
My guess is that the cognitive dissonance energy in those heads is equivalent to the
biggest nuclear bomb ever exploded...
Hmmm... I think there is a third option besides escalation and deescalation -
exhaustion. Projecting power across the globe is expensive, it is a slow but steady drain on US
resources, which are needed elsewhere (for example to quell the riots in major US cities).
In a major crisis this could lead to a breaking point. What if some US adversary decides to
double down and attack (directly or by proxy) US troops and the US will not be able to
respond? A humiliating defeat combined with an exhausted public decidedly set against
military adventures abroad could cause a rapid retrenchment and global withdrawal.
I see it as exhaustion by corruption. The US military is increasingly bureaucratic,
political and ineffectual. Our weapons are gold-plated, hyper-tech focused and require
highly-skilled people to maintain them, which means we can't quickly train new people up.
The weapons themselves are so complex and expensive that there is no way to manufacture
them at scale quickly.
The DOD today is only about personal political position, and grubbing tax-payer dollars
for self-aggrandizement. In any real war with a real adversary, we wouldn't stand a
chance.
I wouldn't be so pessimistic regarding US military capabilities and I'm neither a US
citizen or a fan of US global hegemony.
The US armed forces are made up of professionals. There are some universal advantages
and disadvantages of such forces. A professional army is good at fighting wars but bad at
controlling territory because of its limited size and higher costs-per-soldier. In order to
control territory you need "boots on the ground" in great numbers, standing at checkpoints
and patrolling the countryside. They didn't have to be trained to the level of Navy SEALS,
for them it is enough if they can shoot straight and won't be scared from some fireworks
and the US lacks such forces.
So how is one going to get the millions of manpower to fulfill these tasks? Pauperize
the masses so that joining the army becomes the only viable solution? Introduce the Draft?
Provide a pathway for US citizenship for any foreigner that joins, establishing a US
Foreign Legion?
And then, how you'll have enough boots on the ground to pacify Russia or China. It took
more than a month to establish and secure the beach heads in Bretagne in France in 1944.
How do you think you can even get those boots to land in Russia or China, when you know
that the ICBMs are going to start flying towards the continental US if something like this
will ever happen?
So how is one going to get the millions of manpower to fulfill these tasks? Pauperize
the masses so that joining the army becomes the only viable solution? Introduce the
Draft?
It is no longer possible to introduce the draft in the US - even mentioning it would
lead to social unrests.
Read Jean Lartegy's "The Centurions." That is the direction where the tactically
brilliant, but strategically incompetent US military leadership is headed.
In addition, those gold-plated weapon systems often do not work as advertised. Look how
the multi-billion IADS of the Saudis couldn't protect their refinery complex from a cruise
missile attack from Yemen. Look at the embarrassing failures of the LCS and Zumwalt ship
classes, and the endless problems with the Ford CVN. The F35 is proving a ginormous
boondoggle that will massively enrich LM shareholders but will do squat for US military
capabilities.
He already did and the Military ignored him.
He backtracked with endless excuses and conditionals.
https://www.nbcnews.com/new...
**
Bill Clinton once reportedly told senior White House reporter Sarah McClendon, "Sarah,
there's a government inside the government, and I don't control it."
**
Since I entered politics, I have chiefly had men's views confided to me privately. Some of
the biggest men in the United States, in the field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid
of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organised, so subtle, so
watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they better not speak above their
breath when they speak in condemnation of it.
– Woodrow Wilson, 28th President of the United States (1856-1924)
**
Do you really think that the adults with so much to lose would allow an idiot like Trump
(or Clinton or Obama or Bush) to actually run things?
Stop focusing on what Trump says and look at what his administration does. Troops in Poland and Eastern Europe, Nord Stream 2, intrusive US reconnaissance flights
along Russia's borders, support of Ukraine, interference with Russian patrols in Syria, the
continuing attempt to destabilize Assad in Syria, the destruction of JCPOA, global
sanctions campaign on Russia among others, withdrawal from arms control treaties,
accusation that Russia was cheating on INF treaty, hiring dozens of anti-Russia hardliners,
etc, etc.
I'll repeat: Focus on what Trump does, not what he says, and then total up the
pro-Russia and anti-Russia actions of this administration and see what that reveals.
A danger with this "new Cold War" is the assumption it will end like the first one
– peacefully. If this is the thinking among policy-makers we are in a very perilous
situation. History shows that fatal miscalculations contributed to the First World War, and
as a consequence the second. Today there is no room for miscalculation, which will set off
unstoppable escalation into a third.
https://www.ghostsofhistory...
Russians deliberately repeatedly ram an American vehicle, but I'm sure it's all our fault. Shouldn't have worn that skirt
I guess.
Before y'all armchair Putin experts say all your loving things: you have nothing to contribute unless you speak fluent
Russian. I watched the video taken and published by the Russians and it was pretty clear what they were doing.
Something critical is being missed entirely. The United States has invaded Syria without
a mandate from the UN. Its' president has explicitly stated that it is the intention of the
US to take Syria's oil. Both are violations of international law. Any hostile action taken
against the illegal US presence in Syria is justifiable as self defense. While the US
presence in Syria is illegal, Russia's presence is not. Russia was invited into Syria by
the UN recognized Syrian government to assist it in defending against the US regime change
by Al Qaeda proxy operation..
establish a major naval and air presence in the Gulf of Mexico, operating out of
bases in such allied countries as Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua.
What would happen if China or Russia established bases in the Caribbean and Latin
America? Trump joked about selling Puerto Rico, what if the Chinese bought it?
If the Israeli's have a problem with Russia being in Syria then Israel should deal with
it. Its not our problem and Russia is not our enemy. Infact India is bringing closer
relations between Russia and Japan. Which do you want? Russian antagonism because Israel
doesn't want Russians in Syria or Russian partnership with India, Japan, Australia and the
US dealing with China? Remember....you could spend 1000 years in the middle east and not
make a dent in the animosities between peoples there...so one is a futile endeaver...while
the other has great benefit.
Note that Russian soldiers are in Syria at the request of its government to help fend
off foreign invaders. The American troops are there illegally, with no UN or even
Congressional authorization.
Also note the USA risks another Cuban missile crisis by withdrawing from the INF treaty
after illegally building missile launch complexes in Romania and Poland that can hit Russia
with nuclear cruise missiles.
The USA did much more than "meddle" in Ukraine. The Obama/Biden team openly organized a
coup to overthrow its elected President because he didn't want to join NATO and the EU.
Is that guy in the middle of the left seated Vlad Klitschko? I great boxer no doubt, but
also known for his stunning stupidity. Is he part of the new Ukrainian political elite?
Poor Ukraine.
A Russian vehicle sideswipes an American vehicle, injuring two US soldiers, and that's
an American provocation? An American spy plane claims to be in international waters, and
you tack in a "supposedly" in that sentence? "Violating" a tacit promise, really?
Russia aggression against Georgia and Crimea is OK because Sphere of Influence? This
article is loaded with Blame America First crap usually associated with the Left
(much to this liberal's disgust). Never expected to find it here.
Yes, the expansion of NATO east must have looked to Russia like something coming at
their borders entirely too fast. I thought it was a terrible idea at the time, and wrote it
off to the wheels of a fifty-year-old bureaucracy not knowing how to slow down. Your
eye-straining gaze at the tea-leaves for Deeper State motives is unpersuasive, even without
your odious prejudices.
Maybe some play of Rashomon would be in order here. That is your perspective.
Now your honor, what I have seen is that Georgia attacked first and hoped to occupy a
certain area that Russian Federation was protecting, As a side comment, I have to point to
an Orwellian use of the word "aggressive" and "attack". It seems that anything that the US
cannot wantonly control or bomb is inherently aggressive and attacking either directly or
indirectly the "rules based order".
Crimea had Russian assets that became endangered. Crimea was part of Russia until 1954,
when was donated in an unsanctioned manner to Ukraine. The majority Russian population in
Crimea has been persecuted by the Ukrainian state since at least 1994. The Euromaidan would
have exacerbated that. A referendum was carried on and just considering ethnic lines,
Russians won in their desire to re-unite with the Russian Federation. There aren't many
legal arguments against that referendum and that process, if one looks for them...
So the above perspectives have nothing to do with just "sphere of influence" but with
direct core interests of the Russian state and its core security...
The deep state is a tool that is trying to fulfill one objective: integration of Russian
economy under the control of US and its Oligarchy. Otherwise it will always be a threat. A
Nationalist, democratic (but not oligarchic) and sovereign Russia will always be considered
an enemy of the world hegemon...
And the provocation is the actual presence in Syria of US troops. Ramming the US
military vehicle is not a provocation from Russians, it is a simple eviction notification.
End of story!
Isn't it just amazing how this writer gets to turn an incident of provocation by Russian
soldiers into a story of persistent provocation by America. That is remarkable dexterity
even for this paper. I am used to them suggesting that we should leave the people of
Eastern Europe to the tender mercies of the whims and wishes of a dictator in Moscow -
because they are in his backyard. But to be able to switch from that incident to their
regular theme is an achievement one can recognize, though not respect. The people of those
countries should have a choice about who they associate, and they certainly have a right
not to align with people they fear. Calling us for not respecting he rights of other people
to decide their fates is right and proper. I enthusiastically support this paper when they
do. But when they turn right around and castigate us for not respecting Russia's right to
do it - I am flabbergasted.
This piece spends too much time re-hashing everything Russia-US since 1990 and fails to
focus on the key current issues.
The vehicle incidents in Syria are distinct from the European issue -- see below in this
post -- that is generating some of the other tensions the author lists. Syria is really part
of the larger Middle East issue.
His brief summary of the latest Syria mishap is inadequate to convey what actually
happened.
If you actually look at the video, it does NOT appear to be the case that a Russian
vehicle simply "sideswiped" a US vehicle. It appears that the US was maintaining a
checkpoint on a road that in effect blocked Russian passage. Given the terrain, the
Russians could of course bypass such a checkpoint, which is what they appear to have done.
Then, however, other US vehicles left the checkpoint and attempted to block and turn back
the Russian bypass movement, and this led to the collision. So the incident is part of a
larger US policy to impede Russian operations in NE Syria.
Almost two years ago, Trump ordered US forces out of Syria, and Russia, in agreement
with that plan, sent patrols to the NE to ensure that provisions of an stability agreement
with Turkey and the Kurds were maintained. But then Trump was almost immediately
convinced--by whom is not clear, but ultimately Israel in all probability--to do a 180 and
keep US forces in NE Syria, the superficial rationale being to take control of oil, the
kind of pirate operation that Trump likes. In fact, the goal of those who influence Trump
is to keep Syria weak and unable to rebuild with the expectation that Assad can still be
overthrown at some future point. This is the desire of Israel and its operatives in the
US.
Trump's zag after the zig of planned withdrawal left the US-Russian understanding in
chaos. Now both the US AND the Russians were operating in NE Syria. And over time the US
has become more and more aggressive about impeding Russian operations. The Russians
claim--credibly--that we are demanding that they, in moving their patrols up to the area of
the Syria-Turkey border area not use the M4 highway, the main and direct route and instead
follow a secondary route that circuitously follows the border. The Russians don't accept
that demand. And the vehicle incidents that we are seeing are the outcome of that
disagreement. The Russians are driving up Highway 4 and when they get to the US checkpoint
are bypassing and then continuing up the highway. We are aggressively trying to deter them
from that route choice.
Not sure why this article does not go into detail on this issue in order to clarify
it.
Much of the other stuff the author is talking about here--intrusive air ops in the Black
Sea, etc--is really a separate, European issue. The US is highly concerned about the
economic interactions between Russia and Europe--especially the big economies of Western
Europe and most especially Germany. We are worried that over time Russian-European economic
integration will erode our strategic control and dominance over Europe in general.
Hence, we are making common cause with the anti-Russian elements in "the New Europe,"
i.e., Eastern Europe to try, in essence, to place a barrier between Russia and Western
Europe, playing off Poland, the Baltics and Romania, among others, against Russia, Germany,
France et al. Moving more US forces into Poland and the so-called "Black Sea Region";
impeding Nord Stream 2 and other Russian pipeline initiatives; indulging in recurrent
anti-German propaganda for not maintaining a more robust anti-Russian military posture;
fomenting (behind the scenes) the recent disturbances in Belarus; and promotion of the
so-called "Three Seas Initiative" intended to weld Eastern and Central Europe together into
a reliable tool of US policy are all part of this plan to retain US strategic control of
Europe over the long term.
That's what the heightened tensions in Europe are about.
As I said, the Syria issue, part of the larger Middle East struggle, is separate from
the parallel struggle for mastery in Europe.
It's all an important topic, but this article doesn't really capture the salient
points.
And you're playing word games. Syria's oil is effectively under US control. Yes, we are
deriving strategic benefit from it in that we are denying it to the Syrian government in
order to further destabilize it. It's not a good policy, but the policy does benefit from
denying Syria its oil.
The problem is that most of the oil is on Arab land, not Kurdish land, and the Arabs of
the Northeast are now realigning themselves with Assad, so holding on to the oil is likely
to get more difficult in the future.
I have no idea what you mean by "slander." Guess that means truths you find
inconvenient. Sorry--not in the business of coddling the faint of heart. Trump likes the
idea of taking resources which he imagines to be payment for services we have
rendered--like leaving the country in a state of ruin. He talked about Iraqi oil that way
too, but taking that would be much harder.
Time for you to stop dismissing every reality you don't like as unpatriotic.
The "Assad regime" is the UN recognized government of Syria. That is the only entity
entitled to the country's resources. How is it "the property of the Syrian nation" if the
Syrian government and its people no longer have access to it? To whom is the oil being
sold? Who is receiving the proceeds of the oil sales?
Here are some of Trump's own words with respect to Syria's oil. "I like oil. We are
keeping the oil." 4/11/2019. "The US is in Syria solely for the oil." "We are keeping the
oil. We have the oil. The oil is secure. We left troops behind only for oil." "The US
military is in Syria only for oil." What part of Trump's public assertion that "We are
keeping the oil" are you having difficulty in understanding? How can you say the US "did
not take possession of the oil" when Trump could not have been more explicit in saying
precisely the opposite? Do you not comprehend that the US presence in Syria has no mandate
either from the UN or from the US Congress. Do you not understand that the US presence in
Syria is illegal under international law? Do you not understand that "Keeping the oil" is a
violation of international law? Your post is one of the most ridiculous I have even
read.
1. It's quite clear from the video that the US had set up a checkpoint on the road at
left in the video. (Indeed, we are open about the fact that we are doing so in general in
NE Syria.) And it's equally clear that Russian vehicles are seen bypassing those
checkpoints. The encounter between US and Russian vehicles takes place off the road. There
is only one logical interpretation of what happened. What is your alternative
explanation?
2. "No one reading this can believe that Eastern Europeans have genuine cause to fear
Russia, or that these countries continually request more military and political involvement
than we are willing to provide or that we are not inducing them to do anything or
manipulating them."
First of all, there are no current indications of any Russian intent to do anything in
regard to Eastern Europe. Yes, one can understand the history, which is why there is
anti-Russian sentiment in Eastern Europe, but aside perhaps from the Baltic states in their
unique geographic position, there is no country that has any basis in reality to worry
about Russian aggression in the present.
Of course, this does not stop the Poles from doing exactly that. And perhaps the
Romanians to a much lesser extent. So yes, there is fear in a few key countries based on
past history, Poland being the keystone of the whole thing, and yes, we are indeed
manipulating that fear in an attempt to block/undermine any economic integration between
Germany and Russia. We are also trying to use the "Three Seas Initiative" to block Chinese
commercial and tech penetration of Eastern Europe--5G and their plan to rebuild the port of
Trieste to service Central and NE Europe.
Do you actually believe Russia, which has lately been cutting its defense budget, is
actually going to invade Europe? That really is a fantasy. The only military operations
they will take are to prevent further expansion of NATO into Ukraine and Belarus. The real
game today is commercial and tech competition. Putin knows it would be disastrous for
Russia to start a war with NATO. Not sure why that's hard for you to see.
Your notion of the Russian threat--as it exists today--is wildly exaggerated.
Once President Putin remarked that there are forces in the United States trying to use
Russia for internal political struggle. He added that we will nevertheless try not to be
drawn into these confrontations.
A scene from a Hollywood action movie rises before my eyes, when two heroes of the film are
fighting and a circular saw is spinning nearby, and each of the heroes is trying to shove a
part of the enemy's body under this saw.
The relationship between Russian and American servicemen, I would compare with two hockey
teams, when the tough behavior of the players on the ice does not mean that the players of
one team would be happy with the death of the entire opposing team, say in some kind of
plane crash, since the presence of a strong opponent is a necessary condition for getting a
good salary.
Still, I would not completely deny the possibility of a "hot war".
Since the times of the Roman Empire, the West of Europe has been trying to take control of
the territory of Europe, Eurasia, and Eurasia, in turn, dreams of mastering the
technologies of the West.
The defeat of the 3rd Reich provided the Soviet Union with a breakthrough in the nuclear
industry and space...
It's hard to imagine that Russia is capable of defeating NATO, but I can imagine that in
the current situation, President Putin can offer China to build military bases in western
Russia for a million Chinese servicemen, for 100 thousand on the Chukchi Peninsula, for 500
thousand on Sakhalin...
The extra money for renting military bases in a coronavirus crisis will not hurt
anyone.
Of all the things about Hillary Clinton to despise, her selfish attempt to explain her
loss, and to attack the President (to whom she never conceded the election!) by blaming
Russia, is at the top of the list. To generate a completely unnecessary conflict with a
nuclear super-power that could burn this country to ashes in minutes, out of personal
vindictiveness, ... is lower than it can get.
I don't think US-Russian cooperation is doable at this point--or any time soon. Given
how erratic US policy is--yawing violently from one direction to another--Russia has no
reason to accept the damage to its relationship with China that shifting to a strategic
arrangement with the US would entail. The risk is too high and the potential rewards too
uncertain.
We have pretty much alienated the Russian state under Putin, and now we're trying to
wait him out, with the expectation that there is no one of his capabilities to maintain the
strategic autonomy of the Russian state in the longer term and that once he exits the
scene, some Yeltsin-like stooge will present himself.
We thought we were dealing with the main threats to our global hegemony
sequentially--Russia "defeated" in the Cold War, and then on to a defeat of "militant
Islam" in the Greater Middle East and finally to a showdown with China. But now, the
sequencing has fallen apart, and we're trying to prosecute all three simultaneously.
You have inverted the facts. The video evidence shows the Americans side-swiped the
Russian vehicle and claimed "American soldiers had 'concussions'". A concussion requires
loss of consciousness or significant changes in mental function. In football, you have your
"Bell rung". You can't add 2+2 correctly. There is no evidence to support that.
Everyone is focusing on Russia because of the Russia hoax. Dems started a new cold war
based on an irrational fear that Russia was threatening our democracy.
Along with Dems, I also blame Putin; he bribed Hillary millions for uranium -- that
doesn't lend to good relations.
The foreign policy elite dislikes Russia, always has, and will do anything to keep
this "adversary" front and center because their prospects for prestige, power and position
depend upon the presence of an enemy. As an example see Strobe Talbot and Michael
McFaul.
A full-bench US federal appeals court has reversed an earlier decision to dismiss the
'Russiagate' case against former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, returning it to the
judge who refused to let the charges be dropped.
In a 8-2 ruling on Monday, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals sided with Judge Emmet Sullivan,
and sent the case back to him for review. Sullivan had been ordered by a three-judge panel in
June to drop the case against Flynn immediately, but hired an attorney and asked for an en
banc hearing instead.
Flynn's attorney Sidney Powell said the split was "as expected" based on the tone of
the oral arguments, pointing to a partisan divide on the bench, and added it was a
"disturbing blow to the rule of law."
The former top lawyer for the Barack Obama administration, Neal Katyal, hailed the decision as
"an important step in defending the rule of law" and argued the case should not be
dismissed because Flynn had pleaded guilty.
Flynn had indeed pleaded guilty to one charge of lying to the FBI, but Powell moved to
dismiss the charges due to the failure of his previous attorneys – a law firm with ties
to the Democrats – and the government to disclose evidence that could set him free. After
producing documents revealing that the FBI set out to entrap Flynn, had no valid cause to
interview him in the first place, and the prosecutors improperly extorted him into a plea by
threatening to charge his son, the Justice Department moved to drop all charges.
Sullivan had other ideas, however. In a highly unusual move, he appointed a retired judge
– who had just written a diatribe about the case in the Washington Post – to be
amicus curiae and argue the case should not be dropped. It was at this point that Powell took
the case to the appeals court, citing Fokker, a recent Supreme Court precedent that Sullivan
was violating.
Ignoring the fact that Sullivan had appointed the amicus and sought to prolong the case
after the DOJ and the appeals court both told him to drop it, the en banc panel argued the
proper procedure means he needs to make the decision before it can be appealed.
One of the judges, Thomas Griffith, actually argued in a concurring opinion that it would be
"highly unusual" for Sullivan not to dismiss the charges, given the executive branch's
constitutional prerogatives and his "limited discretion" when it came to the relevant
federal procedure, but said that an order to drop the case is not "appropriate in this case
at this time" because it's up to Sullivan to make the call first.
The court likewise rejected Powell's motion to reassign a case to a different judge.
Conservatives frustrated by the neverending legal saga have blasted the appeals court's
decision as disgraceful. "The Mike Flynn case is an embarrassing stain on this country and
its 'judges',"tweeted TV commentator Dan
Bongino. "We don't have judges anymore, only corrupted politicians in black robes."
While Flynn was not the first Trump adviser to be charged by special counsel Robert
Mueller's 'Russiagate' probe, he was the first White House official pressured to resign over
it, less than two weeks into the job.
With Mueller failing to find any evidence of "collusion" between President Donald
Trump's campaign and Russia, Democrats have latched onto Flynn's case as proof of their
'Russiagate' conspiracy theory. The latest argument is that the effort to drop the charges
against Flynn is politically motivated and proof of Attorney General Bill Barr's
"corruption."
Barr is currently overseeing a probe by US attorney John Durham into the FBI's handling of
the investigation against Trump during and after the 2016 election, with the evidence disclosed
during the Flynn proceedings strongly implicating not just the senior FBI leadership but senior
Obama administration figures as well.
Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!
"... The "humanitarian intervention" in Libya having ended in debacle and war crimes (including the execution of Muammar Gaddafi) in which NATO was clearly involved, it was back to the old Cold War mission of "containment." ..."
US foreign policy elite wants Biden & detests Trump because President failed to launch new NATO missions to justify its existence
One reason for the extraordinary hostility of the foreign policy insiders' brigade toward President Trump is that he has not wasted
his time conjuring up new missions to justify NATO's continued existence.
Instead, he has promised to withdraw 12,000 US troops from Germany and, to add insult to injury, he has demanded that NATO member
states increase their financial contributions toward the upkeep of the military alliance ostensibly there to "protect"
them.
This is sacrilege to a foreign policy elite that have spent the last 70 years worshipping at the altar of NATO.
"US troops aren't stationed around the world as traffic cops or welfare caseworkers -- they're restraining the expansionary
aims of the world's worst regimes, chiefly China and Russia," Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., fumed.
Former National Security Adviser Susan Rice
expressed alarm about the
"continued erosion of confidence in our leadership within NATO, and more efforts that call into question our commitment, and
more signals to the authoritarians within NATO and Russia itself that this whole institution is vulnerable."
Trump,
according to Nicholas Burns, former US ambassador to NATO and current adviser to Joe Biden, has cast America's military allies
primarily as a drain on the US Treasury, and he has aggressively criticized Washington's true friends in Europe -- democratic leaders
such as France's President Emmanuel Macron and Germany's Chancellor, Angela Merkel -- even as he treats Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping,
Kim Jong Un, and other 'authoritarians' around the world with unusual tact.
Seventy former Republican national security officials recently issued a statement accusing Trump of having "disgraced America's
global reputation and undermined our nation's moral and diplomatic influence." And -- horror of horrors! -- Trump "has called
NATO 'obsolete.' "
Not only has Trump failed to spell out a new mission for NATO, the one mission of sorts he has come up with -- extraction of more
funds from NATO member-states -- is calculated to cause mutual recriminations within the alliance. Trump regularly boasts that he
has cajoled NATO to cough up an additional $130 billion a year "and it's going to be $400 billion," he recently warned.
To the denizens of Washington's foreign policy think-tanks, pressuring NATO member states to come up with more money is a dangerous
business. It could have the undesirable effect of forcing them to wonder whether devoting scarce resources to NATO -- particularly
now following the Covid economic downturn -- is a sound investment.
It is no secret that ever since the fall of the Soviet Union and the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact, NATO has been desperately
searching for a reason to justify its existence. The alliance has expanded its membership from 16 to 30 in 20 years, while failing
to put forward a convincing reason, other than inertia, for staying in business.
To be sure, there were and are threats -- cybersecurity, mass migration, human trafficking, narcotics, nuclear proliferation,
international terrorism -- but it was never clear how a narrowly-focused military alliance would be able to address them unilaterally.
NATO has thus been forced to engage in some vigorous head-scratching.
During the 1990s, we had the "humanitarian intervention" craze. This led to the NATO bombing of Bosnia-Herzegovina in
1994 and 1995 and, more horrifically, to the bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999. Neither operation achieved anything that could not have
been achieved years earlier -- and without the use of force.
In 2001, NATO got in on the Global War on Terror. After 9/11 NATO, for the first time in its history, invoked Article 5 of the
North Atlantic Treaty, declaring that the terrorist attack on the US was an attack against every NATO member.
When the United States retaliated by invading Afghanistan in October 2001, NATO was on hand to assist. In December, it established
something called the International Security Assistance Force, the nebulous mission of which was to "assist the Afghan Government
in exercising and extending its authority and influence across the country, paving the way for reconstruction and effective governance."
Next came Iraq. Despite the vocal opposition of France and Germany to the 2003 invasion, NATO, in no time got involved. In 2004,
it established NATO Training Mission-Iraq, the aim of which was supposedly to "assist in the development of Iraqi security forces
training structures and institutions so that Iraq can build an effective and sustainable capability that addresses the needs of the
nation." One of its tasks was to train the Iraqi police. However, as WikiLeaks' Iraq War Logs
disclosure revealed, Iraq's
finely-trained police conducted horrific torture on detainees. Neither NATO's Afghanistan nor its Iraqi mission covered itself in
glory.
With the Democrats returning to power in Washington in 2009, NATO was back in the "humanitarian intervention"
business.
Its bombing of Libya in 2011 destroyed government, law and public order, institutions that before the intervention had ensured that
the people of Libya were able to go about their daily lives free from the fear of death, not to mention the spectacle of slave markets.
The "humanitarian intervention" in Libya having ended in debacle and war crimes (including the execution of Muammar Gaddafi)
in which NATO was clearly involved, it was back to the old Cold War mission of "containment."
Following the February 21, 2014, coup in Kiev and the reincorporation of Crimea into Russia, NATO's new mission was very much
like its old. NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen promised that: "We will have more planes in the air, more ships on
the water, and more readiness on the land. For example, air policing aircraft will fly more sorties over the Baltic region. Allied
ships will deploy to the Baltic Sea, the Eastern Mediterranean and elsewhere."
Six years on, it's clear that there simply aren't enough armed conflicts in the world to justify the continued existence, not
to mention huge expense, of such a gargantuan military organization. NATO has therefore resorted to seizing on the latest fashionable
social and cultural issues to prove how up-to-date it is.
For example, NATO has added "climate change" to its repertoire. NATO's 2010 Strategic Concept
declared that "Key environmental
and resource constraints, including health risks, climate change, water scarcity and increasing energy needs will further shape the
future security environment in areas of concern to NATO and have the potential to significantly affect NATO planning and operations."
One would have thought that the most effective way NATO could contribute to minimizing global warming would be to cut back on
armaments, military exercises and naval and air patrols. But no, apparently the solution to "climate change" is more NATO,
not less.
Then came the issue gender equality. "Achieving gender equality is our collective task. And NATO is doing its part,"
said Mari Skåre, the NATO Secretary General's Special Representative for Women, Peace and Security, in 2013. In March 2016, on International
Women's Day, NATO held a so-called "Barbershop Conference" on gender equality. Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg took the
opportunity to declare that gender equality was a frightfully important issue for the alliance because "NATO is a values-based
organization and none of its fundamental values -- individual liberties, democracy, human rights and the rule of law -- work without
equality .We learned in Afghanistan and in the Balkans that by integrating gender within our operations, we make a tangible difference
to the lives of women and children".
Definitely a "tangible difference to the lives of women and children" : As a result of NATO's bombing campaigns in Yugoslavia
and Libya, thousands of women and children lost their lives. In Libya, for example, NATO helped deliver perhaps thousands of women
into the hands of ISIS.
This is how Human Rights Watch in 2017 described the record of ISIS rule in Libya:
"In the first half of 2016, fighters loyal to ISIS controlled the central coastal town of Sirte and subjected residents to
a rigid interpretation of Sharia law that included public floggings, amputation of limbs, and public lynchings, often leaving the
victims' corpses on display."
Trump's failure to articulate a new mission for NATO, combined with his desire to extract more and more funds from the 29 member
nations, puts the military alliance in a very vulnerable position. With no new mission and no obvious threats to Europe on the horizon
-- or at least none that NATO seems capable of addressing -- its member states, sooner or later, are bound to question the value
of belonging to an organization, with such high membership fees and so few benefits. No wonder the foreign-policy cognoscenti are
fulminating and praying for a Biden presidency.
One of the reasons the foreign policy crowd detests Trump is that he hasn't wasted his time trying to invent some "new mission"
for NATO. Where Trump differs from his predecessors is that he hasn't bothered trying to invent some new reason for NATO's continued
existence: Clinton had Yugoslavia, Bush Afghanistan & Iraq, Obama Libya. Trump hasn't identified any "new mission"
for NATO.
Maybe because there isn't one.
Think your friends would be interested? Share this story! Michael Chan 3 hours ago Presidentials elections in the US
are a joke. The voters are given two choices: either Trump or Biden. Both are bad. They can only choose between who they think is
less bad, knowing full well that they will regret their choice the minute they leave the voting booth. So, half of the voters will
choose not to vote. And it seems that one of the two candidates will be happy if more than 90% of the voters choose not to vote.
Reply 2 CHEVI789 Michael Chan 2 hours ago You are lead to believe you have a choice, the fact is they are the same evil that both
are controlled by the same group. Reply T. Agee Kaye 4 hours ago Good article. If true, NATO will want a doozy of a conflict to make
up for lost time / earnings. Reply 2 MarkG1964 4 hours ago The problem is that the Trump administration has failed everywhere. Talks
with North Korea have stalled, and even President Moon in South Korea is losing patience with US policy. Sanctions and tariffs against
China have failed miserably, as it's left a record number of US farmers facing bankruptcy, has not helped to reduce the US trade
deficit with China, or persuaded US manufacturers to relocate back to the US. In Venezuela, every attempt to replace President Maduro
with Gaido has fallen short. The wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria continue unabated, with no end in sight. Whether it's Biden
or Trump, the US can't afford another four years of the same. Reply Jeff_P 5 hours ago The purpose of NATOs existence is to provide
the US with cannon fodder for its hegemonic designs. Nothing else. Reply 1 Bob 3 hours ago the USA should let Europe defend itself.
Save us taxpayers billions of dollars Reply Krieger 3 hours ago NATO = Neocon America's Terrorist Organization Reply 1 CHEVI789 2
hours ago Now tell me if america is not the tyrant and dictator of the world. I really feel sorry for the good americans who's name
is tainted by the evil running their country, being the you know who. Reply shadowlady 1 hour ago Clearly the old farts in Washington
DC are still stuck in the Cold War era, the US taxpayers can't continue to police the world with US military.
George Szamuely is a senior research fellow at Global Policy Institute (London) and author of Bombs for Peace: NATO's
Humanitarian War on Yugoslavia. Follow him on Twitter
@GeorgeSzamuely
The Awan Brothers aided former DNC chief Debbie Wasserman Schultz in making threatening voice modulated phone calls to
attorneys suing the DNC for election fraud.
Lt. Colonel Tony Schaffer told
Fox
News
that Schultz ordered the Awan Brothers to scare off the lawyers due to the threat they pose in exposing widespread
election fraud committed by the Democratic Party in 2016.
Disobedientmedia.com
reports: If substantiated, the claims may have significance for the DNC fraud lawsuit proceedings,
and add to the growing controversy surrounding the recent arrest of Imran Awan on bank fraud charges.
Jared Beck, and attorney litigating the DNC Fraud Lawsuit noted
on Twitter
:
Among the most notable highlights at last night's Republican National Convention, Senator
Rand Paul delivered a blistering take down of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden's
foreign policy, which Paul linked to multiple wars under Democrat administrations spanning
decades (going back to Clinton's bombing of Serbia).
"I fear Biden will choose war again," Paul
asserted . "He supported war in Serbia, Syria, Libya. Joe Biden will continue to spill our
blood and treasure. President Trump will bring our heroes home."
"If you hate war like I hate war, if you want us to quit sending $50 billion every year to
Afghanistan to build their roads and bridges instead of building them here at home , you need
to support President Trump for another term," said Paul, who has long been a fierce critic of
former President Obama's foreign policy, including overt intervention in Libya, and covert
action toward destabilizing Syria.
He slammed Biden as a hawk who has "consistently called for more war" and with no signs
anything would be different.
Interestingly, Sen. Paul has also in the recent past led foreign policy push back against
President Trump - especially over the two times Trump has bombed Syria following alleged Assad
chemical attacks, which Paul along with other anti-interventionists across the aisle like Tulsi
Gabbard questioned to begin with.
But it appears Paul is firmly supportive of Trump's newly
released 50-point agenda for his second term outlining the Commander-in-Chief will "stop
endless war" and ultimately bring US troops "home." The plan still emphasized, however, the
administration will "maintain" US military strength abroad while 'wiping' out global
terrorism.
"President Trump is the first president in a generation to seek to end war rather than start
one. He intends to end the war in Afghanistan. He is bringing our men and women home. Compare
President Trump with the disastrous record of Joe Biden, who has consistently called for more
war ," Paul
said further.
Back during the primaries in 2016, Paul and Trump sparred intensely over national security
questions:
He also highlighted Biden's unrepentant yes vote to go to war in Iraq .
"I'm supporting President Trump because he believes as I do that a strong America cannot
fight endless wars. We must not continue to leave our blood and treasure in Middle East
quagmires," Paul concluded.
Elsewhere in the approximately four-minute speech, Paul said Trump will fight "socialists
poisoning our schools and burning our cities."
Cluster_Frak , 7 hours ago
Obama was a warmonger and so is Biden. They love war and doing everything possible for the
next war to be on the home ground.
Davidduke2000 , 7 hours ago
Obama had skeletons in his closet, he did what the neocons want, Trump gave them the
embassy and other shenanigans.
Izzy Dunne , 2 hours ago
And so is Trump. They are all warmongers, because war is what the US does...
Weihan , 7 hours ago
Paul is right.
Biden knows who butters his bread. At least candidate Trump - in principle - stood for
opposition to the deep state's monstrous agenda.
Biden, Clinton, Bush, Obama are despicable warmongers. Their administrations were
responsible for the slaughter of tens of thousands in Libya, Syria, Ukraine, and the list
would have gone on and on had it not been for Trump.
Remember Biden's 1992 Wall Street Journal article titled:
"How I Learned to Love the New World Order."
JUICE E SMALL IT EMPIRE , 7 hours ago
Rand was the only guy I watched last night and he was on point. I did not disagree with
anything he said.
kulkarniravi , 8/26/2020, 2:33:07 PM
You can diss Obama all you want, but he signed a peace accord with Iran and Trump reneged
on it. Iran is not the villain, at least not when compared to the likes of Saudi Arabia. And
what's the deal with Cuba?
d_7878 , 6 hours ago
Rand on Trump:
"Are we going to fix the country through bombast and empty blather?
"Unless someone points out the emperor has no clothes, they will continue to strut about,
and then we'll end up with a reality TV star as our nominee."
"Donald Trump is a delusional narcissist and an orange-faced windbag"
"Have you ever had a speck of dirt fly into your eye?""[It is] annoying, irritating and
might even make you cry.
"If the dirt doesn't go away, it will keep scratching your cornea until eventually it
blinds you with all its filth. A speck of dirt is way more qualified to be president."
Trump is a "fake conservative."
mike_1010 , 7 hours ago
Trump might be talking peace, but he has increased US military spending significantly more
than previous presidents. He also tore up the US peace agreement with Iran and nearly
triggered a US war with Iran by assassinating one of their top generals.
If any president is going to start a war with Iran, then it's Trump. And such a war would
dwarf any recent wars USA has fought. Because Iran is three times bigger than Iraq in terms
of their population, and they've been preparing for a possible US attack for decades.
Perhaps Biden might start a small war here or there. But Trump goes big on anything he
does. If he starts a war, then it's going to be either with China or Iran.
So, neither Biden nor Trump is to be trusted, when it comes to war. But I'd say that Trump
is the bigger danger compared to Biden. Because if Trump starts a war, then it might end up
being a nuclear war.
Airstrip1 , 6 hours ago
Rand Paul needs to ask himself if the pot is blacker than the kettle.
How can he expect people to believe this disingenuous claptrap ?
The USA is an Empire-building Crime Cartel.
Dims or Reps are just frontmen managers for the Mob.
chopsuey , 7 hours ago
Ron and Rand. The dog and pony show. The alternative. They say what you want to hear.
I say
Phuck OFF Ron and Rand. You had many many years to do something (anything) about the
endless "wars" and in reality, they are not really wars. They are ruthless invasions of
vulnerable countries whereupon natural resources are contained, the culture and its symbolic
treasures are destroyed/stolen and thousands to millions are killed in the name of USA. These
unwarranted invasions are justified with lies and fraud and deceit.
Washington DC is the military capital of the world doing the dirty work of the elite. And
its soldier are your kids and grandkids.
Wake the Phuck UP people. It will not end until they have achieved their objectives. You
are fodder for their cannon.
Dragonlord , 7 hours ago
Biden voted for war in Iraq and supported Obama aggression in Libya, Syria, etc and he is
disappointed that Trump did not help Kurd to wage war against Turks for their
independence.
ConanTheContrarian1 , 7 hours ago
Not sure. Trump has to play ball with established Deep State interests while he tries (I
hope) to set things right. So, yes, questions will abound for some time.
takefive , 7 hours ago
whatever the reason, he is now part of the swamp. and that's why he's in a tough
re-election battle with a stiff.
Ex-Oligarch , 3 hours ago
You have it exactly wrong. If Trump were really part of the swamp, they wouldn't be
fighting so desperately to prevent his re-election. They wouldn't have spent three years on
the Russiagate failed coup, they wouldn't have gone through the ridiculous partisan
impeachment exercise, they wouldn't have torpedoed the economy over coronavirus, and we
wouldn't have organized race riots in all the democrat strongholds.
LaugherNYC , 3 hours ago
Rand Paul is just about the only grown-up in American politics.
How much bettter off would the USA be with a Paul/Gabbard ticket?
But ANYTHING is better than Joe Biden. Literally ANYTHING.
Well...assuming Hillary were dead or incapacitated,
DaVinciCode , 7 hours ago
It's happening. Yugoslavian girl give dire warning to Americans.
This all happened in her country the same way.
PLEASE LISTEN - it is coming to the USA and the West
I agree with the Yugoslav girl's premise that the powers that be have been deceptively
employing a divide-and-conquer strategy to get the American people to fight among themselves
rather than confront their own corrupt government, but I do not buy into the conclusion drawn
that the solution lies in trusting the head of the government (in this case Trump) to do
right by the people.
As George Carlin famously said, "it's a big club, and you ain't in it!" The American
people are not going to be able to fix the problems now confronting them by voting for one
uniparty politician over another any more than the Yugoslav people were
wick7 , 7 hours ago
The Democrats will get their regime change war no matter what. If Biden is elected they'll
continue the Syrian war that has cost 800,000 innocent lives so far. If Trump is elected
they'll try to have one here to take him down.
yojimbo , 7 hours ago
Afghani GDP - $20bn. US military spending - $50bn.
They must have the best services in the world!
yesnomaybe , 7 hours ago
That video clip from the 2016 GOP debate is classic... as Paul questions Trump attacking
personal appearances, Trump flat out denies it, and then proceeds to do just that in his next
breath.
In all seriousness, Rand is a stand up guy and would make a great president.
Maghreb2 , 7 hours ago
Ru Paul has as much chance of stopping this war as Rand Paul. If he was a threat to the
people starting it he would be getting the **** bashed out of him or shot dead by a mad man.
Don't see many people talking about auditing the Fed outside of Texas anymore.
He's got a point. Biden's son is in Ukraine milking it high on crack cocaine like a
senators son should in the new Roman Emperor. Ukrainian color revolution and CIA long war
strategy means he has set up shop there permanently like a little princeling. Same as
princess Kushners wonderful tour of the Middle Eastern courts to meet his boyfriends. Old
days they would both have be poisoned to death or strangled as children for disrespecting the
senate.
Real rules of Eastern European politics are Nationalist winding up dead in dust bins
behind the American Embassy and Russians threatening to switch of the gas and freeze everyone
to death every winter. Footage of hard man dictator Lukashenko showing up at opposition
protests with an assault rifle is broadcast to school children. I'd like to see Hunter Biden
and Jared Kushner show up to something like that.
Truth is Trump is a ******* liar. the Moment they started to shut down Rammenstein airbase
they moved forces close to the Belarus border to pull another color revolution right in front
of Putin. Trump and the Republicans are just stooges for the Zionist mafia. They are playing
war scare but its too piss take for anyone now. Polish and Baltic States are NATO and have
their own prerogative. They just push people closer to war.
Rand Paul should worry about the Civil War that should come after the election.
Aint no senators sons for that game....
DEDA CVETKO , 5 hours ago
Thank you, Rand, for remembering the little Serbia -- twice (in both World Wars) America's
fiercest and most loyal ally, and now a roadkill of the Clinton Foundation and Madeleine
Albright,
the new owner of Kosovo.
The nations that sadistically massacre and dismember their friends and allies do not have
a future, nor the right to claim any.
Scipio Africanuz , 5 hours ago
Again Senator Paul, we don't do self deception..
In almost four years, how many legions have been repatriated home, or how many of the
existing wars have been ended?
All we've observed, is an escalation of hybrid wars, reducing in some, kinetism, and
increasing death tolls via other means, and in some, increased covert kinetism..
Your candidate brazenly murdered a top general of a nation not at war with the US..
Imagine Senator Paul, if Iran had murdered Petraeus, would the US not have declared
war?
That the Iranians didn't significantly escalate, was NOT due to fear, but back channel
advocacy and energetic remonstrations by adult folks..
If you believe Biden is worse than your candidate who's done worse, in terms of brazen law
abrogation, then why aren't you a candidate, or is it that you'd prefer partisanship to
patriotism?
Look within your party for corollary and accomplice warmongers, and leave Biden alone
after all, you do have a rabid warmongering Lindsey Graham and Tom Cotton as party
colleagues, no?
Senator Paul, there's principle, character, and integrity and then there's opportunism,
partisanship, and betrayal..
Of nobility..
Anyhow, you're sovereign and thus, fully entitled to your choices, we simply point out
inconsistencies between what you espouse, and what you support..
Character, Senator Paul, is destiny..
Cheers...
Anthraxed , 4 hours ago
Trump has dropped more bombs than Obama at the same time in his term.
You're in complete denial if you think Trump has stopped any of the wars. And yes, he is
expanding the wars to a much larger country.
Trump's first veto was a bill that would have stopped the Yemen war.
Reality is like Cryptonite for Trumptards.
quanttech , 4 hours ago
lol, 10 minutes ago I was being accused of being Antifa, and now I'm a Trumptard.
Definitely doing something right.
Yes, Trump is a war criminal extraordinaire. He dropped a MOAB. He removed controls on
civilian casualties. He dropped 7400+ bombs on Afghanistan in 2019.... 60% of the casualties
were civilians, mostly children.
He also stupidly listened to his generals when they told him to kill Sulemani. BUT... when
the Iranians retaliated (and they DID retaliate, injuring dozens of US soldiers) Trump
de-escalated. Similarly, when the Iranians downed a drone, the generals wanted to retaliate -
Trump asked how many Iranians would die. The generals said 150. Trump said it didn't make
sense to kill 150 people for downing a drone.
Trump is a moron who is completely out of it most of the time. But when he pays attention
for a moment, he's against a a war with Iran.
Now, if I'm a Trumptard, then you're a Hillaryhead. My question to you is... where would
we be if Hillary was president? Answer: at war with Iran. Another question: where will we be
if Biden is president?
Dull Care , 3 hours ago
How much authority do you think Trump has over the foreign policy? Not a rhetorical
question but I have yet to see an American president run for office advocating a more
interventionist foreign policy yet it doesn't change greatly no matter who is in office.
Trump often carries a big stick but he's nowhere near as reckless as his predecessors.
The one thing we know is Trump is hostile to the Chinese government and hasn't turned
around relations with Russia.
quanttech , 1 hour ago
"... I have this feeling that whoever's elected president when you win, you go into this
smoky room with the twelve industrialists capitalists scum-***** who got you in there. And a
big guy with a cigar goes: 'Roll the film.' And it's a shot of the Kennedy Assassination from
an angle you've never seen before - It looks suspiciously off the grassy knoll. Then the
screen comes up, and they go to the new president: 'Any questions?'"
- Bill Hicks, Rant in E-Minor (1993)
Observer 2020 , 5 hours ago
The spiritual, moral, ethical, philosophical, intellectual and cultural bankruptcy of
Biden and his fellow death cult reprobates is depthless. One need know nothing more about
them that they have become so detached from reality as to regard abortion, partial birth
abortion, infanticide, euthanasia, generational genocide, genocide, of the white race,
unremitting sociocultural warfare and the balkanization of this nation as being virtues.
Anyone who would even begin to contemplate supporting Biden or any of his fellow Fifth
Columnists should be regarded as being too demented or otherwise Bidenesque to be competent
to vote.
12Doberman , 5 hours ago
Biden has a record showing him to be a Neocon...and that's why we see the neverTrumpers
supporting him.
Musum , 5 hours ago
And Pompeous is 10X worse than Biden. And he serves as Trump's Sec. of State.
Of course, he's just a viceroy serving on behalf of the kosher people.
ted41776 , 8 hours ago
it's not what the president chooses
it's what chooses the president
conraddobler , 8 hours ago
This has lost all it's entertainment value.
Hollywood and the Postman was a more realistic view, in that movie I believe the warlord
was a former copier either salesman or technician, can't remember but it's more likely a guy
like that would have leadership capabilities than these clowns would.
invention13 , 1 hour ago
It saddens me that people can just go about their business in this country without giving
a thought about the men and women who are getting injured and coming home stressed out and
addicted to painkillers. Also that the real motive for continued military involvement in the
ME is that some people are making tons of money off it. We need our own version of Smedley
Butler these days.
It is all decadent beyond belief.
mrjinx007 , 1 hour ago
That MF no good SOB war mongering no good neocon SOB Shawn did everything he could to get
RP to agree with him that we need to continue with the policy of regime change.
Rand just basically told him to shut the f up and stop blowing the Neo-cons' erections. It
was precious. You know how people like this ******* Hannity get their funding from. Deep
state, MIC, and all the f'king Rino's like Tommy Cotton.
gm_general , 2 hours ago
Thanks to Hillary and Obama, Libya is a complete mess and black people are being sold as
slaves there. Let that sink in.
"Welcome to America, the Land of Freedom" , read the signs at Washington, DC's
international airport as you line up to have your fingerprints taken and your body cavities
searched for mini nuclear devices.
I could have titled this article "Setting the Cat among the Pigeons". In an attempt to
forestall the expected avalanche of disagreement, I confirm my awareness of statistics produced
by a wide range of individuals and institutions of widely-varying intent and ideology, and
which can "prove" almost anything one cares to prove, GINI coefficients being one easy example.
The statistics on which this article is based were not selected carelessly and are not
invalidated by a reader's disaffection.
The United States Is the Best Only at Being the Worst
The US today has the greatest income inequality of all Western nations [1] [2] ,
surpassing China and more than a few undeveloped nations as well. From this, it has the lowest
social mobility of most nations [3] , meaning that
improving one's station in life is becoming increasingly impossible. If your parents are not
educated and wealthy, you will never be either, and the American Dream is dead . The US
today has the smallest middle class and the largest lower class of all major
nations, the middle class having been mostly eviscerated in 2008, that process completing
itself today, and will probably never now recover. Americans carry the largest amount of
personal debt among all nations [4] , including
credit card debt and increasingly unrepayable student loans , and the US now
leads the world in personal bankruptcies[5] . Since 2008,
according to the US government's own statistics, the US has the lowest percentage of home
ownership at 57% [6] , ranked 43rd in
the world, far below China at 90% [7] , and America now
has a virtual epidemic of homelessness compared to most other nations, with untabulated
millions of homeless families with children.
The poverty rate in the US is extraordinary, with official statistics placing this
number at 13% but in reality with more than 25% of the population living below the poverty
line, in most cases far below [8] . It also has the
highest percentage of children living in poverty , and with almost a third of all US
citizens dependent on food stamps and other government aid to survive [9] .
Unemployment is also extraordinary. According to the government's own statistics, fully
40% of working-age Americans have no job [10] [11] , with many
of the rest under-employed , working only part-time. It is only American cities or those
in the most impoverished of nations that contain such vast areas of urban decay and
desperate slums like those of Detroit and Chicago, where half of the areas are violent
crime-ridden wastelands where no one goes.
The US has the highest educational costs , and yet the poorest overall quality of
education in the developed world and parts of the rest. Read this article [12] .
It will open your eyes. A few good schools or universities in an entire nation do not make it a
world leader, the proof residing in the highest level of functional illiteracy of all
major nations (25%) and a truly legendary level of ignorance[13] . The US is the
only country in the world where, in repeated polls for the past 60 years, a full 75% of the
adult and student populations cannot find their own country on a map of the world [14]
. Compared to other nations, the US has the highest health care costs by a factor of two
to ten, and yet has a surprisingly poor overall quality as well as the highest
percentage of a population without health care [15] . The US has the
highest infant mortality rate and the shortest life expectancy at birth of all
major nations and far below many others [16] [17] , ranking
around 50 in a list of countries. The US has the highest obesity rate of all nations,
with nearly half of the population being overweight [18] , one of the
highest rates of sexually-transmitted diseases[19] , of
anti-depressant drug use that increased by 65% in only 15 years [20] , a national
crisis in opioid drug use[21] and of
depression . It has the highest teen-age pregnancy and abortion rates of all
developed nations [22] , and one of the
highest divorce rates [23] [24] . Note that
in many international studies US statistics aren't collected because, as observers noted "The
authors left out the US because the country is "an extreme outlier." The US also has the
largest number of one-person households (about 30%) [25] [26] , and the
largest percentage of fatherless children (about 25%) [27] .
America is one of the two most racist countries in the world, where even the random
and unprovoked killing of non-whites is not only permissible but usually meets with approval.
Americans are gun-crazy, owning more guns than the entire rest of the world combined, and
more guns than all the world's police and military. They carry their guns everywhere, and
use them everywhere, the US having the highest rates of gun shootings and murders of any
nation, with more than 20 small children and more than 200 adults being sent each day to either
the hospital or the cemetery. Many small American cities, like the nation's capital of
Washington DC with only half a million people, or places like Detroit or Chicago, have more
murders each year (by an order of magnitude) than does Shanghai with 25 million people. The
overall homicide rate for China is 0.6 and for Shanghai 0.2; that for the US is 4.0. The
gun death rate for children in the US is 40 times higher than for any other nation in the world
[28] [29] . The US
also has the highest number of crimes committed with firearms each year, a staggering
total of a minimum confirmed of 500,000 and an estimated 3 million [30] [31] , and the
highest number of violent raids on private homes, with more than 80,000 instances per
year of SWAT teams kicking in someone's front door in the middle of the night, always
terrorising and sometimes killing the occupants, usually without identifying themselves and
often attacking the wrong house. [32] [33]
The US has the highest rate of cocaine and meth usage of any nation [34] ,
thanks in large part to the CIA's very successful war on drugs which permits that agency to
import cocaine duty-free. The US has the highest rate of gender inequality[35]
among industrialised nations, far exceeding egalitarian nations like China (and formerly Iraq
and Libya). The US has the highest number of lawyers and lawsuits in the world, by
orders of magnitude, a reflection of both natural belligerence and inborn greed, Americans
spending twice as much on lawsuits each year as on new cars [36] . Japan has
14,000 lawyers, China 160,000, the US 1.35 million (11 per 100,000 for Japan and China compared
to 300 per 100,000 for the US). Americans surpass the entire world in their amount of
useless consumption , having long passed the point where it can be deemed pathological.
As one measure, that of shopping mall space per capita, Germany has 2.7 sq ft per person, Japan
has 3.9 and the UK has 5. For every American shopper there are 24 sq ft of mall. The US has by
far the highest level of carbon emissions on a per-capita basis, thanks in no small part
to General Motors who has repeatedly committed genocide on electric automobiles.
Wars and violence are defining adjectives of America. The US as a nation is now, and
has always been, intensely militaristic, inherently provocative, combative and violent.
The US is by far the largest merchant of death in the world, being responsible for about 70% of
total world arms sales . For comparison, Russia is second at 17%, while China is at 3%.
If we include everything, the US spends about twice as much on its military each year as
the entire rest of the world combined, already well-documented by many authors at well in
excess of $1 trillion. It also has the world's largest network of foreign military bases
, with more than 1,000 such installations, including many that appear on no map, and the
world's largest number of bio-weapons labs , with more than 400 outside the US. America
has launched the most wars of aggression in the history of the world and has been at
war for 235 of its 243 years as a nation , all those wars unprovoked and unjustified, and
none of which were either wars of 'liberation' or 'to make the world safe for democracy', but
for colonisation and plunder. The US is also outstanding in that it has assassinated more
foreign world leaders and other officials (about 150) [37] than even Israel
has done, and also operates the largest network of torture prisons that has ever existed
in the history of the world. The US also wins first prize for having some of the most
bloodthirsty homicidal mass murderers and pathological killers in the history of the
world, far exceeding our former heroes Stalin and Hitler. Kissinger, Albright and Curtis
LeMay come immediately to mind, but there are more.
The US has by far the highest incarceration rate of all nations, with more than 25%
of the world's prisoners in its jails and with almost 35% of all adult Americans having a
criminal record . Alarmingly, the US has by far the highest number of internment
camps – prison camps – in the world, all 800 fully-staffed but empty, waiting
for Americans to dare launch another Occupy Wall Street or similar protest. The US has the most
militarised police forces of any nation, with frighteningly heavy-duty military hardware
like MRAPs, APCs, drone aircraft and automatic weapons. The police motto "To protect and serve"
that was once plastered on every police car, has been amended. It now reads "To occupy and
kill". The US has by far the highest number of civilians killed each year by police
(well over 1,000) of any nation in the world, even including rogue states and axis of evil
members. Americans have far more to fear from their local police than from terrorists.
Police brutality in America is now legendary, so common as to be one of the nation's
defining adjectives, with beatings, shootings, harassment, false criminal charges reaching
epidemic proportions and increasing.
America is the world's only nation with a website named "Killed by Police.org" to document
the epidemic of civilians killed by police, and the only nation where local newspapers have
sections devoted to listing the number of daily killings in each neighborhood of the major
cities to assist citizens in house purchases. Violent crime rates in the US are at least
an order of magnitude above those of China or Japan (and many other nations).
The US also has one of the most corrupt police and judicial systems in the world. No
Western country is particularly free of this charge, but America excels. As one example, the US
has by far the largest number in the world of citizens falsely convicted by fraudulent
testimony , some 40,000 convictions caused by one fraudulent forensics lab alone. And of
course, the US has the world's largest espionage network by orders of magnitude, with an
ambition to steal every secret and to record and save every communication by every human on the
planet.
It is no longer a secret that American-style democracy has a few flaws , with extreme
dysfunction and rampant corruption among the more visible, though looting the public trough
would run a close second. The US also has the government most totally over-run with
puppet-masters and controlled by parasitic aliens, having entirely lost control to its various
lobbies and with all its elected officials having sworn allegiance to the Jews and Israel
rather than to America. The US has the highest number and percentage of Presidents,
Secretaries of State and Defense Secretaries who were certifiable as criminally insane
and who should have been given lobotomies and committed to institutions for life. Too many
names to list here. America is the one nation that has more or less institutionalised
government corruption at virtually every level, extending deeply into the judiciary, the
regulatory bodies and Congress, as well as local and state governments. The US is well-known
for compiling the most fraudulent economic statistics of all developed and undeveloped
nations, including the hugely fictitious 'average income' of $45,000, and is one of the most
indebted of all countries in the world today. I strongly suggest everyone read this short
article on US economic statistics [38] and cease the
rubbish about how China's numbers can't be trusted.
Not to be outdone, the US media are in a class by themselves in terms of dishonesty,
bias, censorship, and petty opinion-based journalism. American journalists are mostly
cut from the same cloth, displaying more or less the same malignancies.
The US has the most complete immunity for elite white-collar crime , prosecuting only
its person-companies but never the persons. Americans boast of their transparent and
corruption-free financial system, and the US media enjoys trashing China for what appears to be
an occasional corporate fraud. But in the long list of the world's largest corporate
bankruptcies due to fraud and corruption , all but one occurred in the US. Ron Unz prepared
a list that included Enron, WorldCom, Tyco, Global Crossing, Adelphia, MF Global, Lehman, Bear
Stearns, Merrill Lynch, Washington Mutual, and Wachovia. The US has also been home to the
world's largest Ponzi schemes like those of Bernie Madoff and Allen Stanford, that resulted in
almost $100 billion in public losses. It is the US, not China, that is the home to corporate
fraud and deceit, while all but two of the largest corporate frauds in China in recent
decades were committed by American firms, not Chinese.
To end our list of areas in which American Exceptionalism truly shines, the US has for years
been deservedly voted the world's most hated nation , is widely reviled as the
world's greatest bully , and judged by all peoples – including Americans – as
the greatest threat to world peace .
Lest anyone think the above list is unfair or exaggerated, you can do a simple test by
applying the items to other countries. Germany, for example, or China or Canada. Certainly
every nation has some deaths, crime, divorces, military spending and so on, but none of the
items in this list can be applied to Germany, China or Canada, nor to any other nation. The US
does have the greatest debt, highest military spending, racism, killings, guns, incarceration,
torture prisons, initiated wars, and all the rest. The records for inequality, obesity,
consumption, personal debt, poverty, cocaine use, murders, all belong to America, with no other
nation even in the running. The claim is as demonstrably true for ignorance and hypocrisy as it
is for police brutality. As an accusation or an indictment, the list is 100% accurate, a
factual description of America as it is today, seen without the propaganda and rose-colored
glasses.
A complete list of areas of American Exceptionalism must include one other item:The most
traitors . This unfortunate category exists on several levels, the first being the
President and White House staff and the US Congress who, as we already know, have
pledged allegiance to Israel rather than America. The second is the foreign-owned US FED
, criminally pursuing its own agenda while systematically destroying the economic fabric of
America. The cadre of elite owners of most large US banks and multinationals fall into
this category as well, pursuing their own private advantage while consciously gutting the
economy of their own nation.
But there is a third, more pervasive level, a large cadre of educated Americans who are
essentially compradors, traitors to most of their values and to their people , embedded in
the system and dependent on it, participating fully in the destruction of their own country by
acting as lieutenants for the officials of the secret government. These individuals are vital
for the success of the transformation of the US to a fascist state, with the elites dependent
upon them to execute their policies, yet they also profit from their positions in terms of
attractive salaries and protection from much of the law. These are the people who best know of
all the crimes and social injustices, being in fact a willing part of their execution process,
but least likely to blow the whistle for fear of damaging their careers. It is the middle level
of educated executives, lawyers, accountants and managers in government, criminal
corporations, Foundations, think tanks, the media , and so many others, who are directly
responsible for knowingly inflicting the vast damage on their own people and nation. Like the
CEOs of the banks and multinationals, these compradors seek only their own advantage,
discarding their human values and blinding themselves to the harm they do.
The following bulleted list is for your ease in reading.
Look at the comments. These bozos don't care about inequality. They don't care if the rich
are eating their lunch. They don't care about the poverty rate, and think that blacks make up
all the poor, when their are actually more poor whites than poor blacks. They think the
majority of homeless are black when the majority of homeless are white. (The cross-eyed
retards.) They don't care about the wars. NIMBY is the farthest they can see. Horizons are
foreshortened for them. They actually think that, say, Nigeria or North Korea is more corrupt
than the US....
What makes US truly exceptional are its elites. Obviously this exceptionalism doesn't
extend all the way down to more than half of the population – the so called deplorables
– who are thankfully replaceable, which is currently under way – just to show
them who are really the exceptional ones.
Luckily, no one is even planning to do any replacement of the exceptionals – which
would be treason of course, and probably dealt with accordingly, but not to worry, once the
3rd world deplorables fully replace the domestic deplorables, the replacement of the
exceptionals WILL occur, despite the beliefs of the degenerates that they possess some unique
qualities that are universally admired – especially by their 3rd world
protégés.
You see, the 3rd world deplorables tend to be emotional that way, they don't care about
the "unique" qualities of the exceptionals and eventually will come to see the different hue
of the skin of the exceptionals, exceptionally offensive to their sensibilities and will do
away with the degenerates who see themselves as untouchables – but that's probably few
decades down the road and the degenerates definitely don't possess such fair-sightedness to
see what's coming to them.
@Ultrafart the
Brave g in the US have you observed the architecture of the public buildings –
Federal and State? Even the Congress and seat of the legislative branch of the federal
government, is called The Capitol, after Rome. Coincidence?
So when we see a world body, something like the UN Security Council for instance, expanded
to include 5 more countries e.g., Germany, India, Brazil, Japan and another(?) that would
give us our 10 "crowns" on one of the 7 heads I've designated above (which one of them is the
7th, IOW has primacy, is open to debate).
It's all there hiding in plain sight , for our eyes to see.
Okay, okay. When I hit a sentence like this "even the random and unprovoked killing of
non-whites is not only permissible but usually meets with approval," I realize I'm dealing
with a chucklehead who swallows everything he hears in the news media. The news media go out
of their way to highlight all white-on-black crime while they ignore the reverse. On
Americans' general ignorance, though, I think he's unfortunately right.
This is trolling but sadly, it is also based on the truth.
Nowadays, all the young people outside America no longer want to go to America to work or
study, and the older people, who used to admire or look up to America now look at at it with
pity or disgust.
It's very sad what America has now become, esp under the relentless idiocy of the corrupt
and incompetent Trump regime.
America has now sadly become like the "shit-hole" countries Trump told those 4 young
minority congresswomen to go back home to.
Every empire in history has believed in its own exceptionalism: and history has always,
ultimately, proven it wrong. This delusion is, to quote the last of the author's bullet
points – the "greatest threat to world peace". https://www.ghostsofhistory.wordpress.com/
Mr.. Romanoff: "America is one of the two most racist countries in the world, where even
the random and unprovoked killing of non-whites is not only permissible but usually meets
with approval."
I stopped reading here. Mr. Romanoff isn't as informed or experienced as I'd thought, but
this is outright deception, ignorance or both. He hasn't apologized yet, so I'll guess
both.
America is one of the two most racist countries in the world, where even the random and
unprovoked killing of non-whites is not only permissible but usually meets with
approval.
Enough of your fucking shit!
Blacks in America are the luckiest blacks on the planet.
Americans are gun-crazy, owning more guns than the entire rest of the world combined,
and more guns than all the world's police and military.
That is patently false it is amazing how full of shit you are.
Another fact goes unmentioned: the US has the largest number of unindicted war criminals
in the post-WW II world, a fact that allows for an escalation of war crimes committed. For
those here who refuse to accept the racist nature of our country, they need only look at the
ethnic makeup of the millions of victims of our unprovoked foreign wars of aggression.
@Larry Romanoff
i Restoration was a Jew operation. Japan, like America, are both 100% ZOG.
Emperor Hirohito was only 5 feet 4 inches tall, but they told him he was 10 feet tall and
Japan was (((exceptional))).
Hence the exceptional cruelty with which the Master Race Japs dispensed with their enemies
during WW2. They groomed him well for that kosher mass slaughter.
What Mr.Romanoff has written is obviously true, despite its troll-some flavor.
One point that may have been neglected is how the USA is the greatest money launderer in
the world.
It does this by printing money out of the thin air(ie: quantitative easing), and thus
creating new money to pay for all that stuff that China makes for the US consumer.
This has allowed the USA to live well beyond its means, and have a bloated and overrated
military that is used to attack other small countries that cannot effectively defend
themselves and thus create great profits for the military-industrial complex, at the expense
of millions of foreign lives and only some thousands of US soldiers.
This sort of regime change operation is actually no more than a stock market pump and dump
operation, first you demonize some little country with false accusations, sanction them and
provoke them into doing some hostile acts, or pretend that they have made some human rights
violation like using poison gas or are committing genocide or incarceration of a minority,
then bomb the shit out of them, and then rack in all that weapons used and resupply bucks.
Maybe after that, install a puppet govt and steal their resources.
Oh Yeah, Big Daddy Warbucks! Go USA!
Also, by having the US dollar as the reserve currency(past cleverness no longer present),
all other countries have to keep a supply of dollars for trading and thus the demand for this
imaginary currency and also demand for US Treasuries. Thus countries buy US debt, further
funding the USA's bloated military and overspending.
Everybody knows the USA will never pay back that debt, and also the debt will never go
down. It will just go up and up until nobody wants to use the US dollar or hold US debt and
then the US dollar will crash.
This is the way that the shit-faced USA rapes the world financially, and everybody knows
this.
The USA was founded on the genocide of the Red Indians and the stealing of their land. The
USA made 200 treaties with the Red Indians and broke every one.
After that, the USA grew fat on the slave labor of innocent Africans, raping their women
and "going black" in reverse.
But Trump is even better, with his family descending from primitive savages in the black
forest of Germany. Sometimes they caught the wild boars there and reamed them good, sometimes
the wild boars caught THEM and reamed them good.
In any case, Trump's grand-daddy fled conscription and came to the USA as a lice-ridden
and filthy immigrant, but made good selling liquor and supplying prostitutes to the miners. A
pimp.
And Trump's daddy was a KKK member, arrested at a KKK rally after being too slow to run
away from the police, and then became a front-man for Nazi business interests in the USA
before WW2.
From Drumpf to Trump, but in the end, no change to the clown-like shit-show called the
Trump drama series.
Wow. a very precise shot at America's most underlying problem:
These individuals are vital for the success of the transformation of the US to a fascist
state, with the elites dependent upon them to execute their policies, yet they also
profit from their positions in terms of attractive salaries and protection from much of the
law . These are the people who best know of all the crimes and social injustices, being
in fact a willing part of their execution process, but least likely to blow the whistle for
fear of damaging their careers. It is the middle level of educated executives, lawyers,
accountants and managers in government, criminal corporations, Foundations, think tanks,
the media, and so many others, who are directly responsible for knowingly inflicting the
vast damage on their own people and nation
A very illuminating description of modern day America, no punches pulled by Larry
Romanoff.
Larry is a classic white uncle type. The Japanese rightwing have their own "white guy who
is on our side" who spouts their beliefs in english about how the Rape of Nanking never
happened, Japan didn't start the war, Tojo dindu nuffin and they love him for it. Larry is
the Chinese version. Larry's worldview = China never did anything wrong in its entire
history. Tienamen was a myth, Great Leap Foward famine was a myth, forced abortions due to
One Child Policy is a myth, China's neighbours hating China's guts is a myth, America bad,
America bad, America bad.
Can you name even one negative thing about China's government?
@Tom Welsh
"Explanations exist; they have existed for all time; there is always a well-known solution to
every human problem -- neat, plausible, and wrong".
You will have to explain why America prior to 1965 immigration act, was a scientific and
intellectual powerhouse, without peer in the world.
Whites were 89% of the population of the U.S. in 1965, and the amount of northeast asians,
and sub-continent Asians was statistically insignificant (1 percent or less). This white
co-hort of 89% had the additional drag of a black population that is not known for its
engineering and technical prowess.
This is a fast but excellent piece in placing a mirror on America in the 21st Century. I for
one dont understand why there are so many negative replies to LR's conclusions. There are
obviously many so called White Nationalists or Patriots (both real and fake)
venting rage here, that still believe they are "Exceptional" above the rest of the non-Anglo
Saxon world, but as LR says the exceptionalism might be more on the negative side these days.
The critics need to grow up and take responsibility for the mess the US is now in, in order to
fix things, if that is their real goal.
I find his bullet list of conclusions to be basically in line, but of course there surely
exists a similar bullet list of positive achievements to the US experiment as well, but that
was obviously not the thrust of this article. As should be well understood, self aggrandizement
does not fix anything.
What all Americans should agree on is the US national experiment is being sunk maybe even
per plan, from certain elements of the controlling leadership, but not necessarily by us
"bottom feeders" as the moneyed elite like to call the rest of us these days.
The cries of outrage and venom being spewed at LR would be better placed into how to fix
things in the USA and how the population can come together to put America back on a sane and
positive coarse that serves the entire populace, not those who just consider them Chosen of
some sort. What we have had the last 40 years, is surely a divide and conquer mission by the
two parties.
For me the LR bullet list is a fairly accurate of national examples that demonstrate a
societal and governance destruction. My exceptions are :
The most strident nationalism of all nations
Highest level of racism and race-related violence
Other countries can be exemplified here of potentially taking the lead, one being our Most
Favored
State, which is a large part of our national problem, suckering our leadership at every turn,
and plundering our wealth and ethos.
This should be the title and subtitle of this article:
The Destruction of American Exceptionalism
The consequences of the decisions and policies of selfish, corrupt, traitorous and
dishonorable politicians who are the puppets of the international corporate and finance
elite
Probably a lot here is true, but let me play Alexander the Great cutting the Gordian Knot
with a very simple question: if America is the worst, then why do we have so much
immigration?
The USA is the best of the worst, and has maybe the worst handle on influx of the
miserables.
Compared to Japan, the US cities are almost universally shitholes, or on the way there, where
immigrants seem to be draw, though the US plantations can always use their labor.
It's always been a neoliberal project to open borders to destroy the citizen worker who had
some rights.
Wherever there is benefit from lies, States lie. UK re Hitler, OZ re Taz, or even China re
Japan, US re China today, etc.
My appreciation of Mao was enhanced from facts, while a lot is mythology. Humans aren't
perfect, and act under circumstance for the best.
My emperor should offer a post-humous medal to Sun Yatsen, his supporters, and Mao and his
collaborators.
Then we should figure out outstanding issues on a non-western idea of territoriality.
I hope that the U.S. will follow through on this. The more it sanctions left and right
for totally irrational reasons the more incentives will other countries have to build
mechanisms that make U.S. sanctions ineffective and useless. Russia has already done that
and China to some extend. The Europeans should have done this long ago but are only now
considering it seriously.
There are also counter measures that could and should be considered. A European tax on
digital products would seriously hurt Google, Facebook, Ebay and other U.S. companies. When
their profits and stocks drop the Trump administration might learn that wreaking balls have
the tendency to swing back.
We are seeing desperate measures taken to keep empire from crashing further and faster.
We may be at the point where things where going slowly and then speed up all of a
sudden.
I agree that Trump tactics have been like those of a wrecking ball and I don't think
he/his handlers care about any coincidental damage.....this game continues to be for
control of all the marbles and empire is losing, hence more delusional bullying.
The facets of the civilization war humanity is in will visit and touch every country.
The bonds of financial slavery will be broken by this war.
It seems to me Trump/Pompass are hoist on their own petard here, in that: had they
stayed in the JCPOA, they would now be in a better position to induce "snapback". Hmmm.
Priceless.
It's almost as if the U.S. state is a mindless, merciless, soulless entity which evil,
selfish people serve for own self-interest. Fortunately it would appear this monstrous
creature is discrediting and destroying itself. Perhaps with help from occasional
provocation. It flails like a blinded cyclops, momentarily very dangerous.
Any group still collaborating with the US deserves no sympathy for what happens.
There are also counter measures that could and should be considered. A European tax on
digital products would seriously hurt Google, Facebook, Ebay and other U.S. companies.
When their profits and stocks drop the Trump administration might learn that wreaking
balls have the tendency to swing back.
I don't think the EU can do that (unless it's just a symbolic tax, "to the delight of
the masses"). At this point in history, those big American companies are probably very well
fused and entrenched with the European government and governments of its members.
Besides, to do that would (that is, even if it could) automatically mean having to go
back to China as an inferior part, and we already know at least Germany and France don't
want that (they want a new European imperialism, as Merkel has already made clear many
times over the years of her endless reign).
The U.S. hopes to pressure Iran until it formally declares the deal dead. That could
then give pretext for launching a larger conflict against the country.
israel/neocons want war with iran before trump leaves office bc while they don't think
biden/harris would necessarily start it they'd have no choice but to continue if war was
already started, hence the (30 day) timeline.
If the sanctions are really imposed, it is likely the poodles (UK, France, Germany) will
chicken out rather than fighting against US. That will give Russian and China companies and
arms sellers a field day - bigger profits, less competitions - won't they?
So, who says Trump is not an agent of Russia / China? /sarc
The world's largest producer and arms trader, sponsor of terror ...
"It is an enormous mistake not to extend this arms embargo. It's nuts!" Pompeo told
reporters at the United Nations.
In the meantime, Iran announced a new ballistic missile with a range of approximately
870 miles and is named after Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani. A new cruise missile boasting a
range more than 620 miles was named after Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi
al-Muhandis.
Interview Pompeo at a friendly CNBC broadcast today.
What the useless morons leading Europe should realize is that the only way forward is to
isolate the US and work with everyone else, China and Russia to begin with, to fully
blockade the country economically. Basically do to them what they'll end up doing sooner or
later to any other country. That EU countries can't see that they'll share Iran or Russia
fate in the future is painful - one wonders how world leaders can be so dumb.
all those European "allies" have simply been bought with money. Money talks and BS
walks, right? But they are finally understanding that US will trample them over as much as
it would trample Iran. the North Stream 2 project gave them a big clue.
The US has been stomping on the Euro for decades now, in fear it will become more powerful
than US dollar.
It just takes time. 50 million jobless in USA, dollar's purchasing power collapsing, while
the Americans argue over Antifa and BLM and the rights of transgenders as their country is
imploding all around them. Soon very soon indeed. The only problem is US might start a war
to divert the attention of the average American moron. War is always the final card they
use.
Below is a quote from the latest Reuters posting
"
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The United States was further isolated on Friday over its bid to
reimpose international sanctions on Iran with 13 countries on the 15-member U.N. Security
Council expressing their opposition, arguing that Washington's move is void given it is
using a process agreed under a nuclear deal that it quit two years ago.
"
Something is puzzling to me. What countries will be intimidated by the "snapback"
sanctions of weapon trade with Iran? It is quite possible that Chinese and Russian have
some shipments ready or getting ready for the Fall delivery. But Iran is not about to
engage in some huge shopping spree.
The editor-in-chief of a major Chinese tabloid slammed Mike Pompeo for
comparing his country to Nazi Germany, likening his words to those of Hitler's propaganda chief
and reminding the secretary of state of America's endless wars.
Hu Xijin took to Twitter on Sunday venting his anger about Mike Pompeo's remarks.
"You are inciting radical hostility and ripping the world apart. You aren't like a top
diplomat, instead, you talk like Goebbels of Nazi Germany. I'm worried that world peace will
eventually be destroyed by extreme politicians like you," he wrote.
"... The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House. ..."
"... "The US-centralized empire is held together by endless violence, and the plutocrats who run it have built their kingdoms upon the status quo of that empire." That statement is a synopsis of the past 500+ years of European expansion/ imperialism ..."
Yesterday the US
ordered an airstrike on Syrian forces, killing one, when they refused to let the illegal
occupying force past a checkpoint in northern Syria.
In both cases an arm of the US-centralized empire used wildly disproportionate force
against people who stood against a hostile occupation of their own country. In both cases the
more powerful and violent occupiers claimed they were acting in "self-defense". In both cases
dropping explosives from the sky upon human beings barely made the news.
Bombs should not exist. Explosives designed to blow fire and shrapnel through human bodies
should not be a thing. In a sane world, there wouldn't be bombs, and if some mentally
unbalanced person ever made and used one it would be a major international news story.
Instead, bombs are cranked out like iPhones at
enormous profit , and nearly all bombings are ignored. Many bombs
are being dropped per day by the US and its allies, with a massive
civilian death toll , and almost none of those bombings receive any international
attention. The only time they do is generally when a bombing occurs that was not authorized
by the US-centralized empire.
This is one of those absolutely freakish things about our society that has become
normalized through careful narrative management, and we really shouldn't allow it to be.
The fact that explosives designed to rip apart human anatomy are dropped from the sky many
times per day for no other reason than to exert control over foreign countries should horrify
us all.
An interesting social experiment when you talk to someone might be to tell them solemnly,
"There's been a bombing." Then when they say "What?? Where??", tell them "The Middle East
mostly. Our government and its allies drop many bombs there per day in order to keep a
resource-rich geostrategic region balkanized and controllable."
Then watch their reaction.
You will probably notice a marked change in demeanor as the person learns that what you
meant is different from what they thought you meant. They will likely act as though you'd
tricked them in some way. But you didn't. You just called a thing the thing that it is, and
let their assumptions do the rest.
When someone gravely tells you "There's been a bombing," what they almost always mean is
that there has been a suspected terrorist attack in a western, majority-white nation. They
don't mean the kind of bombing that kills exponentially more people and does exponentially
more damage than terrorism in western nations. They don't mean the kind of terrorism that our
government enacts and approves of.
There's a lot of pushback nowadays against the racism and prejudices that are woven
throughout the fabric of our society, and rightly so .
But what doesn't get nearly enough attention in this discourse is the fact that while some
manifestations of bigotry may have been successfully scaled back somewhat in our own
countries, it was in a sense merely exported overseas.
The violence that is being inflicted overseas in our name by the US-centralized empire is
more horrific than any manifestation of racism we're ever likely to encounter at home. It is
more horrific than the pre-integration American South. It is more horrific than even slavery
itself. Yet even the more conscious among us fail to give this relentless onslaught of
violence a proportionate degree of recognition and condemnation, even while the consent for
it is largely born of the unexamined
bigoted notion that violence against people in developing and non-western countries does
not matter.
Like many other forms of bigotry, this one has been engineered and promulgated by powerful
people who benefit from it. If the mainstream news media were what it purports to be, namely
an institution dedicated to creating an informed populace about what's truthfully going on in
the world, we would see the bombings in foreign nations given the same type of coverage that
a bombing in Paris or London receives.
This would immediately bring consciousness to the unconscious bigotry that those in the
US-centralized empire hold against people in low and middle income countries, which is
exactly why the plutocrat-owned media do not report on it in this way. The US-centralized
empire is held together by endless violence, and the plutocrats who run it have built their
kingdoms upon the status quo of that empire.
When people set out to learn what's really going on in their world they often start
cramming their heads with history and geopolitics facts and figures, which is of course fine
and good. But a bigger part of getting a clear image of what's happening in the world is
simply turning your gaze upon things you already kind of knew were happening, but couldn't
quite bring yourself to look at.
The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not
necessarily reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House.
From the Ramparts, 17 hours ago
"The US-centralized empire is held together by endless violence, and the plutocrats who run it have built their
kingdoms upon the status quo of that empire." That statement is a synopsis of the past 500+ years of European expansion/
imperialism.
The AmeriKKKan Empire is the reigning heir to that legacy of Western thuggery, plunder and pillage.
IMO NATO should have ended with the fall of the USSR. It now "confronts" a largely
imaginary threat, concocted for the purpose of maintaining the status quo in US government
expenditures for defense and supporting the imperial dreams of the neocons.
Does anyone really think Russia is going to invade the Baltics? Really?
Isn't the western alliance for all intents & purposes already dead?
It is a shame as it could work together to counter the totalitarian CCP. But Mama Merkel
it seems would rather get a few yuan from the communists and turn a blind eye to CCP
authoritarianism until it becomes obvious that the CCP are ruthless and will be competing
with Germany around the world for machine tools and autos by undercutting them on price and
heavily subsidizing their companies until German industry is destroyed.
I have heard of these elusive creatures called "Europeans", but have yet to meet one, so
am not able to comment on their alleged "smug superiority". How many divisions do they
have?
If anything drives the US and Europe apart, it will be trade, not security. Germany is
clearly chafing under the US bit, which sacrifices European industry to US interests --
sanctions on Nordstream 2, trade with Russia, trade with Iran, and China and Huawei. The US
clearly prioritizes it's own LNG , finance, technology and arms industries over European
prosperity. It amazes me that it has taken Europe so long to wake up.
Biden will do nothing to change that dynamic, since he is beholden to the same interests
as Trump.
Does anyone really think Russia is going to invade the Baltics? The Baltics and most
likely the Poles do with past history in mind. I would like to see them and the Ukrainians
transition into something like the Finns who acknowledge Russian power but maintain their
independence. Right now they are looking at NATO as their guarantee of independence in the
future. Who can blame them when looking at history.
The Trump admin's (and for that matter, Trump's own instincts) are and have continuously
been quite correct with regards to EU's defense expenditures agenda. The European 'humanists'
take advantage of the American defense umbrella inside their own countries so they can afford
to NOT spend on defense and instead spend more on domestic and economic development. So while
America continues to pay for the EU's defense it cannot afford to invest in its own domestic
programs (infrastructure, etc.) adequately. These Europeans then with the collaboration of
their Atlanticist fellows on the other side of the pond do nation-building and
democratization projects (call it endless wars) abroad, such as in Afghanistan. Just don't
ask them about their track record in this department.
However, the thing is when their immediate interests are in danger they forget about
America in a heartbeat. Examples, Germany's Nordstream pipeline with Russia, 5G
infrastructure and development, trade with China, Paris climate accord, etc.
I tend to believe that EU knows best how to make an existential threat out of Russia.
Anyone still remembers the novichok incident back in 2018? The thing with Russia is that from
the POV of EU, they view their Eastern neighbor as a solid and stable illiberal system that
is not within the ideological orbit of the western liberal democracy and thus they feel
threatened by that ideologically, NOT a scenario in which from Tallinn to Toulouse is invaded
and captured by Putin. In this endeavor they also have found willing partners in
'anti-authoritarian' hawks such as Bob Kagan, Hilary, Sam Power et.al that tow the same line
and advocate for NATO expansion and other similar projects.
The EU in definitely terrified of a scenario in which the U.S. (under a nationalist
conservative administration) starts de-funding NATO or withdraws its troops from Europe. In
this case they need to cut public spending and allocate more on defense which has a clear
impact on the 'democratic spirit' of EU's over-hyped social democracy.
In the past few years we have seen the rise of right-wing populsit nationalist parties in
pretty much every single major EU country. I believe there are strong tendencies in the Trump
admin-if DJT manages to stay in power for another 4 years- to do a little *something
something* about EU's decades-long nefarious free-riding of U.S. defense umbrella and I don't
think the effeminate EU leaders will gonna like it very much.
Barbara Ann - You say "I have heard of these elusive creatures called "Europeans", but
have yet to meet one, so am not able to comment on their alleged "smug superiority". How many
divisions do they have?"
The term "European" has become disputed territory. As an Englishman I regard myself fully
as "European" as any German or Frenchman but for many the term now seems to mean exclusively
"Member of the European Union". Tricky, that one.
Me, I prefer the term "Westerner". It takes in the so-called "Anglosphere" as well and
therefore covers all the ground without going into the fact that some parts have become
considerably less powerful over the last century and others considerably more. Also
accommodates without fuss the fact that the cultural centre of gravity, at some indeterminate
time in that last century, moved across from Paris, Vienna and Berlin to New York and parts
west.
Not always to your advantage, to you as an American that is, because a fair chunk of the
Frankfurt mob moved over your way with it. You caught from Old Europe the destructive and
vacuous tenets of "Progressivism" and are now sharing the disease in its full vigour with
us.
I mention that last because the violent TDS you see across the Atlantic isn't specifically
European. It's merely that it's natural for progressives to detest Trump or rather, not the
man himself but the "populist" forces he is taken to represent. It's garlic to the vampire
for the progressive, the Little House on the Prairie or its various European equivalents, and
the allergic reaction will become stronger yet. That "smug superiority" you will therefore
find in the States as readily as you will find it here. America or here we live on sufferance
in occupied territory, if we are not progressives ourselves, and should not the occupiers
always be superior and smug?
I went hunting for the Telegraph article the Colonel discusses above. I didn't like that
article at all. It gets the "freeloading" part right but in the context of a Russophobia
that's seemingly set in stone. And the Telegraph is not so much a progressive newspaper as
one that, while throwing a few token bones to its mainly Conservative readership, buys the
progressive Weltanschauung just as much as the Guardian or New York Times.
"How many divisions do they have?" A few more than the pope but maybe that's not
the point. I recently tried to follow the twists and turns of Mrs May's negotiations with the
EU as they related to defence. I got the impression that in the matter of defence the supply
of divisions could safely be left to the Americans. It was the allocation of defence
contracts that they were all concerned about.
Residing in Europe in the late 1960's at a US joint NATO military attachment in Northern
Italy, we mused were we there to keep our eye on the Russians, or in fact keep our eyes on
the Germans. One still saw in the back rooms, AXIS memorabilia.
As an aside: the only reason Michelle Obama chose as one of her FLOTUS projects - support
of military families -- was so she could get Uncle Sam to jet her around to all those US
military bases still in Europe for tea with the commander's wife and then on to her real
purpose - shopping and having fun with friends and families she was able to drag along. On
our dime.
My last visit to Europe found there are now more Turks, than former "Europeans; except in
France where they were more Algerians, than native French. And of course UK has long been
little more than the entrenched polyglot of their vast far flung Empire.
Indeed, who is a "European" today. Birth rate demographics from the former colonies, boat
people or import of cheap labor has now taken over anything we used to call "European". Can a
resident Turk really serve up a perfect plate of raclette in Switzerland? One word answer:
no. And that is a sad loss. One must instead shift their tastes to shwarma, if one wants
European food today.
In regard to Europeans--and perhaps some Australians whom I've met--I have often felt that
they in some ways did feel a bit superior to Americans.
Their sense of superiority, however, seemed more rooted in a sense of cultural
superiority. Those on the blog who viewed the comic rendition of the Three Little Pigs that
was recently posted here might think of that and its wonderful ending about the house that
was "American made." it was a wonderful ending for that well-known tale and a great defense
of our culture's current limited and plain vocabulary in some groups.
As an English major and English teacher, so much of the great literature that we taught
did come from England. I took three Comps when I earned my Masters: English literature from
Beowulf (which I read in Old English) to Chaucer's Catterbury Tales (which I read in Middle
English) and then to Virginia Woolf.
For my comp in American literature, I read from Washington Irving to the modern American
writers at the time I was in college.
My third comp was in Modern Linguistic Theory.
Of course we taught Shakespeare and Dickens---English writers--to our junior high and high
school classes. We studied mostly American writers in regard to short stories, as short
stories are considered the American genre. Our teaching of poetry covered both English and
American poets. As far as novels go, we taught both English and American novels.
Russian and German novelists were also on our list of reading for our comps. (We read them
in English translation.)
In summary, American culture was often overshadowed by the many longer centureies of
European culture in much of my college career.
What the Europeans can't deny, though they may want to, is that the tehcology and
innovation in things like automobile production, electricity, telephones, and into space
expoloration ---many things like that--is where we can indeed be quite proud.
They can continue to feel culturally superior to us if it makes them feel better. I defy
them, however, to minimize our importance in World War II.
A European was understood, in Iran, to be a Christian. A Turk in Germany or and Algerian
in France is just that, a Turk, an Algerian, i.e. another Muslim.
There are professional and managerial middle class French Muslims in Paris and elsewhere,
but are they French? I do not know how assimilated they are.
" he will follow some Trump-era objectives, because that is what American interests
demand, thus showing that Trump was no extremist on China."
So if Biden and Trump both want something, that shows that it isn't extreme. How does that
work again?
The drive for confrontation with Russia contradicts Europe's desire to do buisness with her.
Hence the end of the Western Alliance.
"The US faces a rapidly escalating political crisis. The losing party in November will
undoubtedly go to the federal courts to claim that their opponents cheated in the
process."
They all went along with electronic voting and postal ballots. Now they're all going to
complain about the consequences.
Of course NATO should have disappeared together with the Berlin Wall, but it is alive,
kicking and ever looking for trouble, Belarus comes to mind.
The problem with propaganda is that the emitter ends up believing it, Europe does not need
any protection, we have the means to protect ourselves.
The US is an occupation force, and on top of it demands payment for it. Pick up your gear and
go home, and by the way, Europe should worry about countries armed to their teeth by the US,
I'm thinking about Morocco for instance, since I live in Spain. The beautiful line of the
Sierra that I contemplate every morning while stretching has been contaminated with a radar
station of the Aegis system, and that means we in our quite and beautiful Andalusian town are
a target for the biggies. Stop believing your propaganda, pick up your gear and let everybody
take care of themselves, the benefits will be for the US population in the first place, and
the world will rejoice.
The reason German military contribution to the "western alliance" is what it is is very
simple.
It is according to the incentives that threats that German leadership perceives.
First: Objective strategic things:
Essentially, noone is going to invade Germany. This removes one major reason to have a large
army. Secondly, Germany is not going to productively (in terms of return of investment)
invade anyone else. This removes the second major reason to have a large army. There is
something to be said to have a cadre army that can be surged into a real army if conditions
change.
Second: Incentives of German political leaders.
While the degree of German vassal stateness concerning the USA is up to a degree of debate,
that the USA has a lot of influence over Germany is in my view not. Schröder got elite
regime changed over his Iraq war opposition (it was amazing that literally all the newspaper
were against him, had a big impact on me growing up during this time).
Essentially, if you are in Nato, at some point, Uncle Sam will invite you to some adventure.
If you say yes to this adventure you commit your armed forces to some confrontation in the
middle east if you are lucky, or against Russia in Eastern Europe if you are unlucky. Your
population is not going to like this, and you may face losing elections over this. It is also
expensive in terms of life and material (although not very expensive compared to actual wars
against competent enemies).
If you say no, Uncle Sam will be displeased with you and will make this known for example by
sicking the entire "Transatlantic leadership networks" on you, which can also make you lose
the next election.
Essentially, if Uncle Sam comes asking, you lose the next election if you say yes, and you
also lose if you say no. Saying no is on balance cheaper, because you dont incurr the
financial and human costs of joing a random US adventure on top of the risk of losing the
next election.
The winning play is to get your army in such a state that Uncle Sam will not even ask.
Germany basically did create condition that enabled this.
Its a reasonably happy state for Germany to be in.
We are basically doing Brave Soldier Schweijk on the national level.
Solutions from a US pov:
1: Do less military adventures. If you do less adventures, people will fear being
shanghaied along less. This will decrease the drawbacks associated with having a reasonable
military as a Nato state.
2: Dont soft regime change governments that say no to your foreign adventures. Instead,
maybe listen to them. Had the US listend to French and German criticism regarding the wisdom
of going to war with Iraq, the US and also a lot of others would have been much better
off.
3: Make it clear that particpation in foreign adventures is actually voluntary instead of
"voluntary", make also clear that participation in defensive operations is not voluntary and
is what Nato was created for and that you expect a considerable contribution towards this.
Also, do some actual exercises. For example, if Germany claims that its military expenditure
is sufficient, stress test this premise by having a realistic exercise in which a German
divisions goes up against an American one. Yes, do some division size exercizes pretty
please. Heck, after ensuring that this exercize wont be a failfest, have some Indian be the
referee.
Now we are getting to the heart of the matter. My jest about never having met a European
was of course designed to illustrate that "Europe" is a secondary construct. Never has a
person, upon meeting me, introduced themselves as a "European".
Europe is a moveable feast and even territorial definitions are slippery. "Europeans" I
think, must be characterized by short memories, for was it not less than 25 years ago that
European NATO planes bombed their fellow Europeans in Bosnia? It can't have been an accident
either, as I understand the op. was called "Operation Deliberate Force".
If Europe is synonymous with the EU it has precisely zero divisions and though you
yourself may remain "Western", you are as a consequence of Brexit no longer "European". No, I
think you and Polish Janitor are close by identifying "European" as a progressive/liberal,
democratic (read "globalist") value system. An insufficiency of "European-ness" can thus be
used to justify NATO involvement across various geographies - from Bosnia to Afghanistan
(& shortly Belarus?).
But of course the "European" members of NATO are hardly on the same page. It looks not at
all unlikely that two of its members may go to war in the Eastern Mediterranean.
I agree with you re the Telegraph article btw. "European" smugness is well represented in
that organ.
No. They did NOT all go along with "electronic voting and postal ballots." The 50 states
each run federal elections in any way they please. The US Constitution requires that. There
are a wide variety of voting machines in use and only a few states use mailed in ballots. the
Republican Party particularly opposes mail in voting.
You should be complaining to the politicians you elect. They're the ones requesting US
military protection. Prior to Trump, our governments were quite happy to provide that
protection. He's now asking for some cost sharing.
Be careful though, before you know it Spain could become a vassal of the Chinese
communists as many countries in Africa are finding out now. Hopefully you can continue to
extract euros from the Germans and Dutch while battling the separatists in Catalonia. There's
a thin veneer between stability & strife.
Paco, with a huge cost of lives and treasure the US was twice asked to clean up Europe's
self-inflicted messes in the past century. Promise you won't call on us again, and we can
talk. I know, past is not necessarily prologue but do at least meet us half way. It is only
good manners.
Barbara Ann - Lots of Europes of course. "My" Europe may no longer be on the active list.
Traces here and there. Few green shoots that are visible to me. Many rank growths overlaying
it.
Also many "European Unions". They exist all right, in uneasy company.
So many "EU's". A ramshackle Northern European trading empire - I think that's too
unstable to be long for this world but I could be wrong. A nascent superpower, that denied by
many but for some their central aim.
A bureaucratic growth. A handy market place for all. A Holocaust memorial centre; when the
EU politicians find themselves in a tight spot they can always call on Auschwitz and all fall
back in line. I saw Mrs Merkel pull that trick at the last but one Munich Security Conference
and all there, because Mrs Merkel was at that time in a very tight spot, applauded with
relief.
A Progressive Shangri-La, all the more enticing for never being defined. Those adherents
of that "EU" do actually call themselves "EU citizens" and I see the term is becoming more
common usage. Maybe those are the self proclaimed "European citizens" you have not met.
And the producer of reams of lifeless prescription that seek to force all into the same
mould and tough on the poor devils who can't fit the model. And on their families.
Lots of "EU's". I like none of them. While we wait for that edifice of delusion to
collapse I hope the damage it does to "My" Europe is not irreparable.
@ Diana Croissant: "They can continue to feel culturally superior to us if it makes
them feel better. I defy them, however, to minimize our importance in World War II."
Jack, with all due respect, the politician who committed treason and gave away Spanish
territory for a foreign power to install bases died in 1975, nobody voted for him, general
Franco, an ally of Hitler, someone who sent over 50k troops to the siege of Leningrad, one of
the greatest crimes in the history of mankind, a million casualties, mainly civilians, dead
by hunger and disease, that fascist ally of Hitler we had to endure for 40 years, the price
to close your eyes and your nose not to smell the stench were bases, an occupying force
watching one of the strategic straights in Rota, close to Gibraltar, plus other bases inland.
I could go on, and remind you of 4H bombs dropped over Palomares after a broken arrow
incident, one of them broke and plutonium is still poisoning an area that your government is
not willing to clean. So that is what foreign occupation looks like, if something goes wrong,
well, we are protecting you . they say. History should be taught with a bit more detail in
the USA.
I'm afraid you're reading the dynamics of the European/US relationship quite incorrectly.
Bluntly, you have the facts wrong.
This site, and particularly the Colonel's committee of correspondence, is packed with
experts who have lived in this field and know their way around it. So I don't venture a
comprehensive rebuttal myself - my knowledge is partial and I do not have the background to
be sure of getting it dead right. But here -
"Essentially, if you are in Nato, at some point, Uncle Sam will invite you to some
adventure. If you say yes to this adventure you commit your armed forces to some
confrontation in the middle east if you are lucky, or against Russia in Eastern Europe if you
are unlucky."
That is transparent nonsense.
Obama has stated that it was the Europeans, including the UK, who pushed him into some
middle East interventions. I don't think he was shooting a line. The leaked Blumenthal emails
confirm that and we merely have to look at the thrust of French military actions to
understand that the French in particular push continually for intervention in the ME.
They are still doing so, and not for R2P purposes. They would see the ME and parts of
Africa as part of the EU sphere of influence and their initial reaction to Trump's abortive
attempt to withdraw from Syria shows they would be more than prepared to go it alone there if
they could.
A squalid bunch, and here I must include my own country in that verdict. Reliant on US
logistics and military strength they seek to pursue their own interests and could they but do
so they would do so unassisted. Don't pretend that it's the Americans who force them into
these genocidal adventures.
As for the Ukraine, we see from Sakwa's unflattering study of the EU adventure there that
that was building up well before 2014. The dramatic rejection of the EU deal was the prelude
to the coup. The Ashton tape shows an astonishing degree of EU intervention in Ukrainian
internal affairs before that coup. And from the Nuland tape we get a glimpse of the EU regime
change project that shows it was deeply implicated.
Pushed into the Ukrainian adventure by the US? Rubbish. The EU and its constituent members
were attempting to play their own hand and were not merely following the US lead
submissively.
We hear little of European neocon ventures. But what little has surfaced about them shows
that your picture of peace loving Europeans dragged into these conflicts by an overbearing
"Uncle Sam" is dishonest and misleading.
So I tell my German friends and relatives when they push the same line. They look at me
with disbelief and go off and hunt around the internet themselves. And then come back and do
not disagree. I suggest you do the same. The facts are all there, even for those of us
without inside knowledge or who lack the requisite background.
Oligarchy owns the USA political system and tune it to their needs. Proliferation of NGO is one such trick that favor
oligarchy.
That kind of influence over expert opinion is immense—and it yields results. In April, Gates called for a nationwide total
lockdown for 10 weeks. America didn’t quite sink to that level of draconian control, but the shutdowns we did get absolutely
crushed small businesses. Massive tech firms, however, made out like bandits. Microsoft stock is at an all-time high.
Notable quotes:
"... Non-profit activity lets super-elites broker political power tax-free, reshaping the world according to their designs. ..."
"... The American tax code makes all of this possible. It greases the skids for the wealthy to use their fortunes to augment their political power. The 501(c)(3) designation makes all donations, of whatever size, to charitable nonprofits immune from taxation. ..."
"... For the super-wealthy, political power comes tax-free. ..."
"... No one ever elected Bill Gates to anything. His wealth, and not the democratic process, is the only reason he has an outsized voice in shaping coronavirus policy. The man who couldn't keep viruses out of Windows now wants to vaccinate the planet. That isn't an unreasonable goal for a man of his wealth, either. Gates's foundation is the second largest donor to the World Health Organization, providing some 10 percent of its funds . That kind of influence over expert opinion is immense -- and it yields results. In April , Gates called for a nationwide total lockdown for 10 weeks. America didn't quite sink to that level of draconian control, but the shutdowns we did get absolutely crushed small businesses. Massive tech firms, however, made out like bandits. Microsoft stock is at an all-time high . ..."
"... Eliminating the tax exemption for charitable giving would make it simple to heavily tax the capital gains that drive the wealth of America's richest one thousand people. One could also leave the exemption in place for most Americans (those with a net worth under $100 million), while making larger gifts, especially those over a billion dollars, taxable at extremely high rates close to 100%. Bill Gates wants to give a billion dollars to his foundation? Great. But he should pay a steep fee to the American people to purchase that kind of power. ..."
"... There is nothing socialist in these or similar tax proposals. We are not making an abstract commentary on whether having a billion dollars is "moral." These are simply prudential measures to put the people back in charge of their own country. Reining in billionaires and monopolists is a conservative free market strategy. ..."
"... An America governed by Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and George Soros will be -- arguably, already is -- a disaster for the middle class and everyday Americans. Cracking down on their "selfless" philanthropy, combined with antitrust enforcement and higher progressive tax rates, is a key way for Americans to leverage the power of the ballot box against the power of the banker's vault. ..."
"... The rotting edifice that is the United States is coming down one way or another. Just accept it. ..."
"... I would end tax exempt status for organizations. When everyone pays taxes we all become better stewards of how that money is used. ..."
"... To think both Mr. Dreher and Mr. Van Buren just recently posted about the superwealthy leaving the big cities, citing as the main reasons the Covid thing on the one hand, and "excessively high" income taxes on the other. Most comments that followed were in the line of "that's what happens when you let socialists run things" and "stop giving money to the poor, then they'll work and get rich." And here we have someone proposing more and higher taxes on the wealthy to bust their political nuts. ..."
"... It's an interesting proposal, but it seems that if you're worried about super-elites brokering political power tax-free, you might focus on direct brokering of political power. For example, we could pass a law requiring full disclosure of all sources of funding for any political advertising. ..."
Non-profit activity lets super-elites broker political power tax-free, reshaping the world
according to their designs.
America's super-wealthy have too much power. A republican regime based on the consent of the
governed cannot survive when a few hands control too large a sum of money and too much human
capital. A dominion of monopolists spells ruin for the common man.
The Federal Reserve calculates that, at present, America's total household wealth equals
$104 trillion .
Of that,
$3.4 trillion belongs to America's 600 billionaires alone. Put another way, 3% of the
nation's wealth belongs to 0.0002% of the population. Those 600 names control twice as much
wealth as the least wealthy 170 million Americans combined . This is a problem. Economic
power means political power. In an era of mass media, it has never been easier to manufacture
public opinion and to manipulate the citizenry.
Look no further than the consensus view of
Fortune 500 companies as to the virtues of Black Lives Matter. That movement's incredible
cultural reach is, in large part, a function of its cachet among American elites. In 2016, the
Ford Foundation began a
Black-Led Movement Fund to funnel $100 million into racial and social justice causes.
George Soros' Open Society Foundation immediately poured in $33 million in grants.
Soros and company received a massive return on investment. The shift leftward on issues of
racial and social justice in the last four years has been nothing short of remarkable.
Net public support for BLM , at minus 5 percent in 2018, has surged to plus 28 percent in
2020. The New York Times estimates that some 15 to
26 million Americans participated in recent protests over George Floyd's death.
And the money keeps flowing. In the last three months, hundreds of millions of dollars have
poured into social and racial justice causes.
Sony Music Group , the
NFL ,
Warner Music Group , and
Comcast all have promised gifts in excess of $100 million. MacKenzie Bezos has
promised more than a billion dollars to Historically Black Colleges and Universities as
well as other racial and social justice organizations. Yet, as scholars like Heather
MacDonald have pointed out -- America's justice system is not racist. Disquieting anecdotes
and wrenching videos blasted across cyberspace are not the whole of, or even representative of,
our reality. But well-heeled media and activism campaigns can change the perception. That's
what matters.
The American tax code makes all of this possible. It greases the skids for the wealthy to
use their fortunes to augment their political power. The 501(c)(3) designation makes all
donations, of whatever size, to charitable nonprofits immune from taxation.
A man can only eat so much filet mignon in one lifetime. He can only drive so many
Lamborghinis and vacation in so many French chalets. At a certain point, the longing for
material pleasures gives way to a longing for honor and power. What a super-elite really wants
is to be remembered for "changing the world." The tax code makes the purchasing of such honors
even easier than buying fast cars and luxury homes.
For the super-wealthy, political power comes tax-free.
No one ever elected Bill Gates to anything. His wealth, and not the democratic process, is
the only reason he has an outsized voice in shaping coronavirus policy. The man who couldn't
keep viruses out of Windows now wants to vaccinate the
planet. That isn't an unreasonable goal for a man of his wealth, either. Gates's foundation
is the second largest donor to the World Health Organization,
providing some 10 percent of its funds . That kind of influence over expert opinion is
immense -- and it yields results.
In April , Gates called for a nationwide total lockdown for 10 weeks. America didn't quite
sink to that level of draconian control, but the shutdowns we did get absolutely crushed small
businesses. Massive tech firms, however, made out like bandits. Microsoft stock is at an
all-time high .
No one ever voted on those lockdowns, either. Like the mask-wearing mandates, they were
instituted by executive fiat. The experts
, many of them funded through donations given by tech billionaires like Gates , campaigned for policies that
radically altered the basic structure of society. Here lies the danger of billionaire power.
Without adequate checks and balances, the super-wealthy can skirt the normal political process,
working behind the scenes to make policies that the people never even have a chance to debate
or vote on.
A republic cannot be governed this way. America needs to bring its current crop of oligarchs
to heel. That starts with constraining their ability to commandeer their massive personal
fortunes to shape policy. Technically, the 501(c)(3) designation prevents political activities
by tax-exempt charities. Those rules apply only to political campaigning and lobbying, however.
They say nothing about funding legal battles or shaping specific policies indirectly through
research and grants. America's universities, think tanks, and advocacy organizations are nearly
universally considered tax-exempt nonprofits. Only a fool would believe they are not
political.
One solution to the nonprofit problem to simply get rid of the charitable exemption all
together. If there is no loophole, it can't be exploited by the mega-wealthy. Most Americans'
charitable giving wouldn't be affected. The average American gives between $2,000 and
$3,000 per year . That is well under the $24,800 standard tax deduction for married
couples. Ninety
percent of taxpayers have no reason to use a line-item deduction. Such a change likely
wouldn't affect wealthy givers either. In
2014 , the average high-income American (defined as making more than $200,000 per year or
having a million dollars in assets) gave an average of $68,000 to charity, and in 2018
93 percent said
their giving had nothing to do with tax breaks.
Eliminating the tax exemption for charitable giving would make it simple to heavily tax the
capital gains that drive the wealth of America's richest one thousand people. One could also
leave the exemption in place for most Americans (those with a net worth under $100 million),
while making larger gifts, especially those over a billion dollars, taxable at extremely high
rates close to 100%. Bill Gates wants to give a billion dollars to his foundation? Great. But
he should pay a steep fee to the American people to purchase that kind of power.
There is nothing socialist in these or similar tax proposals. We are not making an abstract
commentary on whether having a billion dollars is "moral." These are simply prudential measures
to put the people back in charge of their own country. Reining in billionaires and monopolists
is a conservative free market strategy.
Incentives to make more money are generally good. The libertarians are mostly right --
people are usually better judges of how to spend and use their resources than the
government.
But not always. The libertarian account does not adequately recognize man's political
nature. We need law and order. We need a regime where elections matter and the opinions of the
people actually shape policy. Contract law, borders, and taxes are all necessary to human
flourishing, but all impede the total and unrestricted movement of labor and money. At the very
top of the wealth pyramid, concentrated economic power always turns into political power. An
economic policy that doesn't recognize that fact will create an untouchable class that controls
both the market and the regime. There's nothing freeing about that outcome.
An America governed by Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and George Soros will be --
arguably, already is -- a disaster for the middle class and everyday Americans. Cracking
down on their "selfless" philanthropy, combined with antitrust enforcement and higher
progressive tax rates, is a key way for Americans to leverage the power of the ballot box
against the power of the banker's vault.
Josiah Lippincott is a former Marine officer and current Master's student at the Van
Andel School of Statesmanship at Hillsdale College.
I'd like to thank the author for actually discussing policy proposals that actually
make sense. That's a rarity on TAC. However, he needs to keep a couple of things in
mind:
1. You can't just say something isn't socialist on a conservative website.
Conservatives have been conditioned for decades to believe that anything the GOP
considers to be bad is called by the name "socialism". And taxes are bad. Therefore
socialist. To bring any nuance to that word will be devastating to long-term conservative
ability to argue points.
2. This proposal won't just hurt the ability of left-leaning tech giants, but also
right-leaning oil and defense industry barons. A double-edged sword.
This is an interesting idea that might have had a shot, big maybe, 50 plus years ago.
America is too far gone to fix with political changes, not that you could make any major
changes like this in the current political environment.
The rotting edifice that is the United States is coming down one way or another. Just
accept it.
Certainly! Just so long as the word "organizations" encompasses churches as well, I
think lots of people on all sides of the political spectrum would agree.
Complicated argument. Basically, charitable people will always give charity, even from
taxed income. However, if people give charity from taxed income, the state can no longer
control what the institutions given money do with that money as long as salaries and
surplus are taxed.
Interesting proposal. Removing tax deduction should of course throw IRS out of
monitoring charitable giving. So less power to Lois Lerner and colleagues.
To think both Mr. Dreher and Mr. Van Buren just recently posted about the superwealthy
leaving the big cities, citing as the main reasons the Covid thing on the one hand, and
"excessively high" income taxes on the other. Most comments that followed were in the
line of "that's what happens when you let socialists run things" and "stop giving money
to the poor, then they'll work and get rich." And here we have someone proposing more and
higher taxes on the wealthy to bust their political nuts.
Note that the author carefully left out any mention of conservative megadonors shaping
public policy. Must be the quiet part, to avoid tarring and feathering by his own
side.
Say you like the game of Monopoly so much that you want it to last longer than
the few hours it takes for one player to dominate and beat the others. Well, you could
replace $200 as you pass Go with progessive taxation on income, assets, or a combination
thereof. If you do it right, you can make the game last into perpetuity by ensuring that
the dominance of any one player is only temporary.
It's an interesting proposal, but it seems that if you're worried about super-elites
brokering political power tax-free, you might focus on direct brokering of political
power. For example, we could pass a law requiring full disclosure of all sources of
funding for any political advertising.
If we wanted to be aggressive, we could even pass
a constitutional amendment to specify that corporations are not people. It seems odd to
worry about the political power exercised by institutions with no direct control over
politics, and ignore the institution whose purpose is politics.
Another approach to deal with the direct influence of the super-elite would be to make
lobbying expenses no longer tax deductible. I'm sure you could find support for that.
This is the 5th TAC article since May to take something word-for-word from a Bernie
Sanders-esque Leftist platform and call it something "Conservatives" want. GTFOOH.
Mr. Lippincott: That kind of influence over expert opinion is immense -- and it yields
results. In April, Gates called for a nationwide total lockdown for 10 weeks. America
didn't quite sink to that level of draconian control, but the shutdowns we did get
absolutely crushed small businesses. Massive tech firms, however, made out like bandits.
Microsoft stock is at an all-time high.
So the argument here is that the experts were not going to call for a lockdown, but
Mr. Gates' outsized influence made them do it? The experts weren't going to do it anyway?
Did that outsized influence extend to every other country in the world which imposed
lockdowns? Was there a secret communique between Mr. Gates and the NBA so they suspended
their season in mid-March? In the US, CA, Clark Cty in NV, Illinois, Kansas City, MA, MI,
NY, OR, and WI all began lockdowns in March. Around the world, 80 countries began
lockdowns in March. No matter what Mr. Gates said, lockdowns were deemed to be
appropriate. Plus, Mr. Lippincott admits that Mr. Gates' proposal was not followed. In
terms of "massive tech firms making out like bandits" v small businesses, might that have
anything to do with their value?
I very much agree with this article and I think we need another Teddy Roosevelt
Monopoly (oligarchy) buster but much has changed in the 100 years since Teddy Roosevelt
was President. The first thing that comes to mind is that the aristocracy was mostly
protestant and the business class was mostly domestic with high tariffs keeping foreign
competitors out so we could break up these companies without a foreign country purchasing
them and possibly creating a national security risk.
Today's aristocracy is much more diverse. Its more Jewish and it has much more
minority representation from African Americans, Asians, Hispanics, etc so that creates
the first problem in breaking up a monopoly or an oligarchy which would be the accusation
of targeting minorities for discrimination. The second problem is that many of the
aristocratic class in the US consider themselves global citizens and have dual
citizenship. They can live anywhere anytime they choose so if you target them the way say
Cuomo and DiBlasio and Newsom do then they will leave. Third problem is our global
society particularly the digital / virtual society. If you break that up without
safeguards then you will only be inviting foreign ownership then you will have a national
security issue and even less influence.
The biggest problem is the NGOs, nonprofits that the rich set up to usurp the
government on various issues from immigration to gender identity to politics. These NGO
nonprofits arent your harmless community soup kitchen doing good works. The anarchy,
arson, looting, rioting in Portland, Seattle, Chicago, NYC, Baltimore these are paid for
by NGO nonprofits and they have the money to threaten local government, state government
and federal government. Trump was 100% correct when he started to tax college endowments
but he didnt go far enough. The tax laws have to be rewritten with a very strict and
narrow interpretation of what exactly constitutes the public good and is deserving on
non-profit status. If you say education then I will say you are correct but endowments
are an investment vehicle under the umbrella of an educational nonprofit. Thats like a
nonprofit hospital buying a mutual fund company or a mine or a manufacturing plan and
claiming its non-profit. For me its relatively simple unless someone has a some other
way. If you look at the non-profit community good...what are the budgets for say
hospitals, schools, orphanages, retirement homes, etc. Put monetary limits on nonprofits
which can vary depending on industry and the rest is taxed at a high rate. We simply
cannot have NGOs (nongovernmental organizations) using a nonprofit status to bring down a
country's financial system, over-throwing a country, financing civil strife and civil
war, usurping the government on things like immigration, etc.
Triffin's Paradox demands painful trade-offs to issue a reserve currency, and it demands the
issuing central bank serve two competing audiences and markets.
Judging by the headlines and pundit chatter, the U.S. dollar is about to slide directly to
zero. This sense of certitude is interesting, given that no empire prospered by devaluing its
currency. Rather, devaluing the currency is a sure path to dissolution and collapse of the
empire. This dynamic--devaluation leads to decline and collapse--is not exactly a secret.
So what all those proclaiming the death of the USD are saying is the Imperial Project is
consciously choosing suicide, all to boost the U.S. stock market which is now little more than
a signaling mechanism and a means of accelerating wealth inequality, as the billionaire class
and the billionaire wannabe's in the top .01% are the primary winners as stocks reach new
highs.
(Recall that the U.S. economy is best described as anything goes and winners take most
.)
Taking it one step further, those predicting the collapse of the U.S. dollar are predicting
that not only will the Empire choose suicide, so will the billionaires because what will their
fortunes be worth if the USD goes to zero?
The USD-is-dead crowd (and it is a crowd) present the demise as ordained by some mysterious
force, as if the Empire has no will or power to resist the inevitable slide to zero. The
helpless giant can only watch as the Federal Reserve debauches the dollar to boost stocks and
float the mountains of debt required to keep the U.S. economy from imploding.
The USD-is-dead crowd also seems to overlook the inconvenient fact that all the other
issuers of fiat currency are busy debauching their currencies, too by the same mechanisms: the
endless digital printing of new currency, distributed to already-insanely-wealthy financiers
and corporations. (Debt-serfs can "save themselves" by borrowing more, heh.)
We get it: digitally printing trillions in excess of actual productivity eventually destroys
the purchasing power of the over-issued currency. We also get the need to keep interest rates
at near-zero so governments can fund endless trillions in stimulus and other
giveaways--billions to the billionaires and a trickle of bread-and-circuses to the
debt-serfs.
But this isn't the full list of dynamics in play. The demand for currency is based on a
number of factors: yield (the interest rate paid by the issuing central bank) being one, the
amount of global debt denominated in the currency being another and the demands of global trade
being a third.
Ultimately, every currency is a derivative contract on the resilience, adaptability and
innovative capacity of its economy. Every currency is a social construct that reflects the
security of social contracts within the issuing economy, and the perceived security of the
currency in the global marketplace.
The two are related, of course; but they also conflict. This is Triffin's Paradox , which
I've discussed for years. In a nutshell, the paradox is every central bank with a global role
as well as a domestic role serves two competing audiences: the domestic economy and the global
economy.
There is no way to serve both. The domestic exporters want a weaker currency, while foreign
owners want a stronger currency.
The dollar rises for the same reason anything else goes up: scarcity and demand. If the Fed
over-issues USD, scarcity value falls. If non-domestic borrowers take loans denominated in USD,
demand rises as this debt must be serviced and eventually paid off in USD.
The Fed's mandates that are constantly repeated are all about the domestic economy:
maintaining control of inflation (Goldilocks: not too hot, not too cold) and domestic
employment (if unemployment skyrockets and wages plummet, the debt-serfs might revolt).
But the Fed's one controlling mandate is to maintain USD global supremacy. Unbelievable as
it is to the unwashed masses and the clueless punditry, the domestic economy (and the stock
market) are sideshows compared to the primacy of the mandate to maintain USD supremacy as the
one and only essential reserve currency.
To maintain global supremacy as the one essential reserve currency, the Fed must balance
scarcity and demand. The pandemic illustrated the Fed's dual role and the conflicting demands
of being America's central bank and the central bank of the global reserve currency.
To keep the domestic economy and stock market from imploding, the Fed digitally printed $3
trillion and unleashed it as flood waters, raising all boats to some degree.
As the global central bank, it opened stupendous lines of credit, repo's and currency swaps
with other central banks to exceed global demand for USD, lest a soaring USD snuff the global
stock market rally, a rally the Fed saw as the one essential signaling mechanism that the
global economy was recovering.
This over-supply of USD was calculated to suppress the dollar's value by eliminating
scarcity--it didn't affect demand which continues unabated.
Now that this one-off emergency response has done its job, the Fed has to switch back to
defending the dollar's value. The clueless punditry is absolutely certain that the Fed is going
to drive bond yields to zero or even below. The reason why this is clueless is the punditry are
only looking at the secondary mandates of the Fed and ignoring its Prime Directive: maintain
USD supremacy.
Pushing rates negative and flooding the global economy with USD is a sure way to reduce
scarcity and demand, so those are not going to happen.
Rather, U.S. yields will start rising--maybe in fits and starts, but they will start moving
up longer term. And the Fed isn't going to over-supply the global economy with dollars; they're
going to start limiting the excess issuance, not publicly but behind closed doors.
Scarcity and demand will both rise, dragging the dollar higher. Don't bother asking why or
how, just watch the yields click higher despite every financial pundit pounding the table for
zero or even negative yields. Yields may dip and weave from month to month, but watch the
trend.
Just as all currency is a social construct , trust in the liquidity and transparency of the
currency's market value is the essential ingredient in a currency's valuation. The only way to
establish a trustworthy measure of liquidity and transparency is to allow the currency to float
freely on the global FX exchange. Issuing nations who want to control the value are
intrinsically untrustworthy as no holder of the currency can be sure the value won't be
manipulated to serve the issuer's political agenda.
You can't control the global value of your currency and have a reserve currency. This is
where the punditry are again clueless. China does not seem particularly keen to relinquish
control of its currency (RMB) to market forces. Thus it maintains a peg to the USD to retain
control of the RMB's value on global exchanges.
The demand for RMB is thus limited. The RMB has about a 2% share of global trade and an
equally minimal role in global debt denominated in RMB. To increase the global role of the RMB,
China will have to end the USD peg and let the RMB and its sovereign bonds float freely and be
priced by the market.
In other words, they'll have to relinquish the direct control they currently have over the
RMB's valuation.
Triffin's Paradox demands painful trade-offs to issue a reserve currency, and it demands the
issuing central bank serve two competing audiences and markets. This is why some economists
believe the U.S. would be better served by giving up the reserve currency and thus be free to
serve only the domestic economy.
This makes very good sense, but it overlooks one little thing: America's global empire. The
Imperial Project requires USD supremacy, period. Nothing less will do, and so that is the Fed's
single Prime Directive.
If 'liberal' dogs can't bark at Jews and Deep State, they bark at Russia.
The Origins of Mass Manipulation of the Public Mind
Many years ago, the American political commentator Walter Lippmann realised that
political ideology could be completely fabricated, using the media to control both presentation
and conceptualisation, not only to create deeply-ingrained false beliefs in a population, but
also to entirely erase undesirable political ideas from the public mind. This was the beginning
of not only the American hysteria for freedom, democracy and patriotism, but of all
manufactured political opinion, a process that has been operative ever since. Lippmann created
these theories of mass persuasion of the public, using totally fabricated "facts" deeply
insinuated into the minds of a gullible public, but there is much more to this story. An
Austrian Jew named Edward Louis Bernays who was the nephew of Sigmund Freud, was one of
Lippmann's most precocious students and it was he who put Lippmann's theories into practice.
Bernays is widely known in America as the father of Public Relations, but he would be much more
accurately described as the father of American war marketing as well as the father of mass
manipulation of the public mind.
Bernays claimed "If we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind" it will be
possible "to control and regiment the masses according to our will without their knowing
about it". He called this scientific technique of opinion-molding the 'engineering of
consent', and to accomplish it he merged theories of crowd psychology with the psychoanalytical
ideas of his uncle Sigmund Freud. [10] [11]
Bernays regarded society as irrational and dangerous, with a "herd instinct", and that if the
multi-party electoral system (which evidence indicates was created by a group of European
elites as a population control mechanism) were to survive and continue to serve those elites,
massive manipulation of the public mind was necessary. These elites, "invisible people", would
have, through their influence on government and their control of the media, a monopoly on the
power to shape thoughts, values, and responses of the citizenry. His conviction was that this
group should flood the public with misinformation and emotionally-loaded propaganda to
"engineer" the acquiescence of the masses and thereby rule over them. According to Bernays,
this manufactured consent of the masses, creating conformity of opinion molded by the tool of
false propaganda, would be vital for the survival of "democracy". Bernays wrote:
"The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the
masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen
mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our
country. People are governed, their minds molded, their tastes formed, their ideas suggested,
largely by men they have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our
democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner
. In almost every act of our daily lives we are dominated by the relatively small number
of persons who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they
who pull the wires which control the public mind."[12]
In his main work titled 'Propaganda', [13] which he
wrote in 1928, Bernays argued that the manipulation of public opinion was a necessary part of
democracy because individuals were inherently dangerous (to the control and looting of the
elites) but could be harnessed and channeled by these same elites for their economic benefit.
He clearly believed that virtually total control of a population was possible, and perhaps easy
to accomplish. He wrote further that:
"No serious sociologist any longer believes that the voice of the people expresses any
wise idea. The voice of the people expresses the mind of the people, and that mind is made up
for it by those persons who understand the manipulation of public opinion. It is composed of
inherited prejudices and symbols and clichés and verbal formulas supplied to them by
the leaders. Fortunately, the politician is able, by the instrument of propaganda, to mold
and form the will of the people. So vast are the numbers of minds which can be regimented,
and so tenacious are they when regimented, that [they produce] an irresistible pressure
before which legislators, editors, and teachers are helpless. "
And it wasn't only the public masses that were 'inherently dangerous', but a nation's
leaders fit this description as well, therefore also requiring manipulation and control.
Bernays realised that if you can influence the leaders of a nation, either with or without
their conscious cooperation, you can control the government and the country, and that is
precisely where he set his sights. Bernays again:
"In some departments of our daily life, in which we imagine ourselves free agents, we are
ruled by dictators exercising great power. There are invisible rulers who control the
destinies of millions. It is not generally realized to what extent the words and actions
of our most influential public men are dictated by shrewd persons operating behind the
scenes. Nor, what is still more important, the extent to which our thoughts and habits
are modified by authorities. The invisible government tends to be concentrated in the
hands of the few because of the expense of manipulating the social machinery which
controls the opinions and habits of the masses."
And in this case, the "few" are the wealthy industrial elites, their even wealthier banker
friends, and their brethren who control the media, publishing and entertainment industries.
Until the First World War, these theories of creating an entirely false public opinion based
on misinformation, then manipulating this for population control, were still only theories, but
the astounding success of propaganda by Bernays and his group during the war laid bare the
possibilities of perpetually controlling the public mind on all matters. The "shrewd" designers
of Bernays' "invisible government" developed a standard technique for what was essentially
propaganda and mind control, or at least opinion control, and infiltrated it throughout the US
government, its departments and agencies, and its leaders and politicians. Coincident with
this, they practiced infecting the leaders of every identifiable group – fraternal,
religious, commercial, patriotic, social – and encouraging these men to likewise infect
their supporters.
Many have noted the black and white mentality that pervades America. Much of the blame must
be laid on Bernays' propaganda methods. Bernays himself asserted that propaganda could produce
rapid and strong emotional responses in the public, but that the range of these responses was
limited because the emotional loading inherent in his propaganda would create a kind of binary
mentality, eventually forcing the population into a programmed black and white world –
which is precisely what we see in the US today. This isn't difficult to understand. When
Bernays flooded the public with fabricated tales of Germans shiskababbing babies, the range of
potential responses was entirely emotional and would be limited to either abhorrence or perhaps
a blocking of the information. In a sense, our emotional switch will be forced into either
an 'on' or 'off' position , with no other reasonable choices.
The elite few, as Bernays called them, realised early on the potential for control of
governments, and in every subsequent US administration the president and his White House staff,
the politicians, the leaders of the military and intelligence agencies, all fell prey to this
same disease of shrewd manipulation. Roosevelt's "intense desire for war" in 1939 [14] [15]
[16] was the result of this same infection process and, once infected, he of course
approved of the infection of the entire American population. Walter Lippmann and Edward Bernays
succeeded beyond their wildest expectations.
Bernays – Marketing War
In the discovery of propaganda as a tool of public mind control and in its use for war
marketing, it is worthwhile to take a quick look at the historical background of Bernays' war
effort. At the time, the European Zionists had made an agreement with England to bring the US
into the war against Germany, on the side of England, a favor for which England would grant
them the possession of Palestine as a location for a new homeland. [19]
Palestine did not 'belong' to England, it was not England's to give, and England had no legal
or moral right to make such an agreement, but it was made nevertheless.
US President Wilson was desperate to fulfill his obligations to his handlers by putting the
US into the First World War as they wished, but the American population had no interest in the
European war and public sentiment was entirely against participating. To facilitate the desired
result, Wilson created the Committee on Public Information (The Creel Commission), [20] to
propagandise the war by the mass brainwashing of America, but Creel was merely the 'front' of a
group that consisted of specially hand-picked men from the media, advertising, the movie
industry, and academia, as well as specialists in psychology. The two most important members
were Walter Lippman, whom Wilson described as "the most brilliant man of his age", and Bernays
who was the group's top mind-control expert, both Jews and both aware of the stakes in this
game. Bernays planned to combine his uncle Freud's psychiatric insights with mass psychology
blended with modern advertising techniques, and apply them to the task of mass mind control. It
was Bernays' vast propaganda schemes and his influence in promoting the patently false idea
that US entry to the war was primarily aimed at "bringing democracy to all of Europe", that
proved so successful in altering public opinion about the war. Thanks to Edward Bernays,
American war marketing was born and would never die.
Note to Readers: Some portion of the immediately following content which details the
specifics of the propaganda of Lippman and Bernays for World War I is not my own work. It was
extracted some years ago from a longer document for which I cannot now locate the original
source. If a reader is able to identify this source, I would be grateful to receive that
information so I can properly credit the author for his extensive research.
"Wilson's creation of the CPI was a turning point in world history, the first truly
scientific attempt to form, manipulate and control the perceptions and beliefs of an entire
population." With Wilson's authority, these men were given almost unlimited scope to work
their magic, and in order to ensure the success of their program and guarantee the eventual
possession of Palestine, these men and their committee carried out "a program of
psychological warfare against the American people on a scale unprecedented in human history and
with a degree of success that most propagandists could only dream about".
Having received permission and broad authority from the US President and the White House to
"lead the public mind into war"[21] and,
with their success threatened by widespread anti-war sentiment among the public, these men
determined to engineer what Lippman called "the manufacture of consent" . The committee
assumed the task to "examine the different ways that information flowed to the population and
to flood these channels with pro-war material". Their effort was unparalleled in its scale and
sophistication, since the Committee had the power not only to officially censor news and
withhold information from the public, but to manufacture false news and distribute it
nationally through all channels. In a very short time, Lippman and Bernays were well enough
organised to begin flooding the US with anti-German propaganda consisting of hate literature,
movies, songs, media articles and much more.
... ... ...
Everything we have read above about the marketing of war during preparation for the two
World Wars, is from a template created by Lippman and Bernays exclusively to support the
creation of a Jewish state in Palestine and to promote the agenda of Zionism. That template
has been in constant use by the US government (as the Bankers' Private Army) since the Second
World War, 'engineering consent and ignorance' in the American and Western populations to mask
almost seven decades of atrocities, demonising innocent countries and peoples in preparation
for 60 or 70 politically-inspired color revolutions or 'wars of liberation' fought exclusively
for the financial and political benefit of a handful of European bankers using the US military
as a private army for this purpose, resulting in the deaths and miseries of hundreds of
millions of innocent civilians.
... ... ...
We can easily think of George W. Bush's demonisation of Iraq, the sordid tales of mass
slaughters, the gassing of hundreds of thousands and burial in mass graves, the nuclear weapons
ready to launch within 15 minutes, the responsibility for 9-11, the babies tossed out of
incubators, Saddam using wood shredders to eliminate political opponents and dissidents. We can
think of the tales of Libyan Viagra, all proven to have been groundless fabrications –
typical atrocity propaganda. Vietnam, Afghanistan, Syria, Iran and dozens of other wars and
invasions followed this same template to get the public mind onside for an unjustified war
launched only for political and commercial objectives.
Fast Forward to 2020
We are at the same place today, with the same people conducting the same "anger campaign"
against China in preparation for World War III. John Pilger agrees with me , evidenced in
his recent article "Another Hiroshima is coming – unless we stop it now." [43] And so
does Gordon Duff . [44] The
signs now are everywhere, and the campaign is successful. It is necessary to point out the need
for an 'anger campaign' as opposed to a 'hate campaign'. We are not moved to action from hate,
but from anger. I may thoroughly despise you, but that in itself will do nothing. It is only if
I am moved to anger that I want to punch your lights out. And this, as Lippman and Bernays so
clearly noted, requires emotionally-charged atrocity propaganda of the kind used so well
against Germany and being so well used against China today. Since we need atrocity propaganda
to start a war, there seems to be no shortage.
... ... ...
Then, Mr. Pompeo tells us, "The truth is that our policies . . . resurrected China's
failing economy, only to see Beijing bite the international hands that were feeding it."[55] Further,
that (due to COVID-19) China "caused an enormous amount of pain, loss of life," and the
"Chinese Communist Party will pay a price". [56] Of
course, we all know that "China" stole the COVID-19 virus from a lab in Winnipeg, Canada, then
released it onto the world – and Pompeo has proof [57] , and
even "A Chinese virologist has proof" that "China" engaged in a massive cover-up while
contaminating the world [58] and then
"fleeing Hong Kong" because "I know how they treat whistle-blowers." [59] And of
course, "China needs to be held accountable for Covid-19's destruction"[60] which is
why everyone in the US wants to sue "China". "Australia" demands an international criminal
investigation of China's role in COVID-19. [61] What a
surprise.
And of course we have an almost unlimited number of serious provocations , from Hong
Kong, Tibet, Xinjiang, Taiwan, the South China Seas, to Chinese consulates, media reporters,
students, researchers, visa restrictions, spying, Huawei, the trade war, all done in the hope
of making the Chinese leaders panic and over-react, the easiest way to justify a new war.
The list could continue for several hundred pages. Never in my life have I seen such a
continuous, unabating flood of hate propaganda against one nation, surely equivalent to what
was done against Germany as described above to prepare for US entry into the First World War.
And it's working, doing what it is intended to do. Canada, Australia, the UK, Germany, India,
Brazil, are buying into the war-mongering and turning against China. More will follow. The
Global Times reported "Mutual trust between Australia and China at all-time low". [62]
"Boycott China" T-shirts and caps are flooding India, Huawei is being increasingly banned
from Western nations, Chinese social media APPs like Tik-Tok are being banned, and Bryan
Adams recently slammed all Chinese as "Bat-eating, wet-market-animal-selling, virus-making,
greedy bastards".[63] [64] In
a recent poll (taken because we need to measure the success of our handiwork in the same way
Bernays and the Tavistock Institute did as noted earlier), half of all ethnic Chinese in
Canada have been threatened and harassed over COVID-19.
About 45% of Chinese in Canada said they had been " threatened or intimidated in some
way", fully 50% said they had recently been insulted in public, 30% said they had experienced
. . . "some kind of physical altercation", and 60% said the abuse was so bad "they had to
reorganise their daily routine to avoid it". One woman in her 60s said a man told her and her
daughter "Every day I pray that you people die".[65]
... ... ...
Several years ago, CNN was sued by one of their news anchors for being ordered to lie in the
newscasts. CNN won the case. They did not deny ordering the news anchor to lie. Their defense
was based simply on the position that American news media have "no obligation to tell the
truth". And RT recently reported that nearly 9 out of 10 Americans see a "medium or
high" bias in all media coverage,[65] yet, as
we can see, most of those same people, and a very large portion of the population of many
nations still succumb to the same hate propaganda.
More than anybody, #UAE is committed to making sure
#Ankara
having won the #Tripoli battle in Jun never helps
it win the #Libya war. Idea is to contain
#Turkey
& turn its presence into a quagmire that bleeds it. By promising to help #Greece , the #French navy joins
that endeavor
France to bolster Mediterranean military presence. With Macron determined to assert French
leadership in the the Mediterranean, he will have to team up w RU to take on Turkey. This
means France will work w RU in Lebanon too. At cross purposes w the US. https://
reut.rs/31O3fjY Show this thread
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has voiced his opposition to a proposed Russian rule that
would require labeling of propaganda content, saying it would burden "independent" information
work by outlets such as Voice of America.
"This decree will impose new burdensome requirements that will further inhibit RFE/RL's
and VOA's ability to operate within Russia," Pompeo said
Monday, commenting on the draft rule published by the media regulator Roskomnadzor.
Pompeo called VOA and its sister outlet Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty "vital sources
of independent news and information for the people of Russia" for "more than 70
years."
Far from independent, however, they were both established as US propaganda outlets at the
dawn of the Cold War. They are fully funded by the government, and the charter of their parent
organization – now known as US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) – mandates that they
"be consistent with the broad foreign policy objectives of the United States" and
"provide a surge capacity to support United States foreign policy objectives during crises
abroad."
The 1948 law that established these outlets outright prohibited their content from being
broadcast in the US itself, until the Obama administration amended it in 2013.
The proposed rule would require all content produced by designated "foreign agents"
in the Russian Federation to be clearly labeled. When the draft of it was made public last
month, acting RFE/RL president Daisy Sindelar protested that its purpose was to
"intimidate" her audience and make them "feel like criminals, or believe that they
are in danger when they watch or read our materials."
Yet the Russian regulation is the mirror image of the requirement imposed under the US
Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) on RT, Sputnik and China Global Television Network
(CTGN) since 2017, which only a handful of groups such as the Committee to Protect Journalists
(CPJ) condemned as
an attack on free speech. The USAGM remained conspicuously silent even as the designated
outlets were denied credentials to access government press conferences.
US-based social media companies have also bowed to political pressure and labeled Russian-
and Chinese-based outlets as "state-affiliated," while refraining from using that
descriptor for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), German outlet Deutsche Welle, the
French AFP, Turkish TRT, or any of the USAGM outlets, once again showcasing the double
standard.
jangosimba 10 August, 2020
He cheats, he lies, he murders, he steals.
Zogg jangosimba 11 August, 2020
That's a small part of CIA job description.
Harbin
William Johnson 1 hour ago
Mike reminds me that character from "Godfather" series, the old , dumb henchman ready to
follow any order...
William Binney is the former technical director of the U.S. National Security Agency who
worked at the agency for 30 years. He is a respected independent critic of how American
intelligence services abuse their powers to illegally spy on private communications of U.S.
citizens and around the globe.
Given his expert inside knowledge, it is worth paying attention to what Binney says.
In a media
interview this week, he dismissed the so-called Russiagate scandal as a "fabrication"
orchestrated by the American Central Intelligence Agency. Many other observers have come to
the same conclusion about allegations that Russia interfered in the 2016 U.S. elections with
the objective of helping Donald Trump get elected.
But what is particularly valuable about Binney's judgment is that he cites technical
analysis disproving the Russiagate narrative. That narrative remains dominant among U.S.
intelligence officials, politicians and pundits, especially those affiliated with the
Democrat party, as well as large sections of Western media. The premise of the narrative is
the allegation that a Russian state-backed cyber operation hacked into the database and
emails of the Democrat party back in 2016. The information perceived as damaging to
presidential candidate Hillary Clinton was subsequently disseminated to the Wikileaks
whistleblower site and other U.S. media outlets.
A mysterious cyber persona known as "Guccifer 2.0" claimed to be the alleged hacker. U.S.
intelligence and news media have attributed Guccifer as a front for Russian cyber
operations.
Notably, however, the Russian government has always categorically denied any involvement
in alleged hacking or other interference in the 2016 U.S. election, or elections
thereafter.
William Binney and other independent former U.S. intelligence experts say they can prove
the Russiagate narrative is bogus. The proof relies on their forensic analysis of the data
released by Guccifer. The analysis of timestamps demonstrates that the download of voluminous
data could not have been physically possible based on known standard internet speeds. These
independent experts conclude that the data from the Democrat party could not have been
hacked, as Guccifer and Russiagaters claim. It could only have been obtained by a leak from
inside the party, perhaps by a disgruntled staffer who downloaded the information on to a
disc. That is the only feasible way such a huge amount of data could have been released. That
means the "Russian hacker" claims are baseless.
Wikileaks, whose founder Julian Assange is currently imprisoned in Britain pending an
extradition trial to the U.S. to face espionage charges, has consistently maintained
that their source of files was not a hacker, nor did they collude with Russian intelligence.
As a matter of principle, Wikileaks does not disclose the identity of its sources, but the
organization has indicated it was an insider leak which provided the information on senior
Democrat party corruption.
William Binney says forensic analysis of the files released by Guccifer shows that the
mystery hacker deliberately inserted digital "fingerprints" in order to give the impression
that the files came from Russian sources. It is known from information later disclosed by
former NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden that the CIA has a secretive program – Vault 7
– which is dedicated to false incrimination of cyber attacks to other actors. It seems
that the purpose of Guccifer was to create the perception of a connection between Wikileaks
and Russian intelligence in order to beef up the Russiagate narrative.
"So that suggested [to] us all the evidence was pointing back to CIA as the originator
[of] Guccifer 2.0. And that Guccifer 2.0 was inside CIA I'm pointing to that group as the
group that was probably the originator of Guccifer 2.0 and also this fabrication of the
entire story of Russiagate," concludes Binney in his interview with Sputnik news
outlet.
This is not the first time that the Russiagate yarn has been debunked . But it is crucially important to make Binney's expert
views more widely appreciated especially as the U.S. presidential election looms on November
3. As that date approaches, U.S. intelligence and media seem to be intensifying claims about
Russian interference and cyber operations. Such wild and unsubstantiated "reports" always
refer to the alleged 2016 "hack" of the Democrat party by "Guccifer 2.0" as if it were
indisputable evidence of Russian interference and the "original sin" of supposed Kremlin
malign activity. The unsubstantiated 2016 "hack" is continually cited as the "precedent" and
"provenance" of more recent "reports" that purport to claim Russian interference.
Given the torrent of Russiagate derivatives expected in this U.S. election cycle, which is
damaging U.S.-Russia bilateral relations and recklessly winding up geopolitical tensions, it
is thus of paramount importance to listen to the conclusions of honorable experts like
William Binney.
The American public are being played by their own intelligence agencies and corporate
media with covert agendas that are deeply anti-democratic.
Well - who set up them up, converted from the OSS? The banksters.
"Wild Bill" Donovan worked for JP Morgan immediately after WWII.
"our" US intelligence agencies were set up by, and serve, the masters of high finance.
Is this in dispute?
meditate_vigorously , 11 hours ago
They have seeded enough misinformation that apparently it is. But, you are correct. It
is the Banksters.
Isisraelquaeda , 2 hours ago
Israel. The CIA was infiltrated by the Mossad long ago.
SurfingUSA , 15 hours ago
JFK was on to that truth, and would have been wise to mini-nuke Langley before his
ill-fated journey to Dallas.
Andrew G , 11 hours ago
Except when there's something exceptionally evil (like pedo/blackmail rings such as
Epstein), in which case it's Mossad / Aman
vova.2018 , 7 hours ago
Except when there's something exceptionally evil (like pedo/blackmail rings such as
Epstein), in which case it's Mossad / Aman
The CIA & MOSSAD work hand in hand in all their clandestine operations. There is not
doubt the CIA/MOSSAD are behind the creation, evolution, training, supplying weapons,
logistic-planning & financing of the terrorists & the destruction of the Middle
East. Anybody that believes the contrary has brain problems & need to have his head
examined.
CIA/MOSAD has been running illegal activities in Colombia: drug, arms, organs &
human (child-sex) trafficking. CIA/MOSAD is also giving training, logistic & arms to
Colombia paramilitary for clandestine operation against Venezuela. After Bolsonaro became
president, MOSSAD started running similar operation in Brazil. Israel & Brazil also
recognizes Guaido as the legit president of Venezuela.
CIA/MOSSAD have a long time policy of
assassinating & taking out pep who are a problem to the revisionist-zionist agenda, not
just in the M-East but in the world. The CIA/MOSSAD organizations have many connections in
other countries like the M-East, Saudi Arabia, UAE, et al but also to the UK-MI5.
The Israelis infiltrated the US to the highest levels a long time ago - Proof
Israel has & collects information (a database) of US citizens in coordination
with the CIA & the 5 eyes.
Israel works with the NSA in the liaison-loophole operations
Mossad undercover operations in WDC & all over the world
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee – AIPAC
People with 2 citizenships (US/Israel) in WDC/NYC (the real Power)
From Steve Bannon a christian-zionist: Collusion between the Trump administration and
Israel .
Funny how a number of the right wing conspiracy stories according to the MSM from a
couple years back were true from the get go. 1 indictment over 4 years in the greatest
attempted coup in this country's history. So sad that Binney and Assange were never
listened to. They can try to silence us who know of the truth, but as Winston Churchill
once said, 'Truth is incontrovertible. Panic may resent it. Ignorance may deride it. Malice
may distort it. But there it is.' KDP still censors my book on their advertising platform
as it
promotes conspiratorial theories (about the Obama led coup) and calls out BLM and Antifa
for what they are (marxists) . Yet the same platform still recommends BLM books stating
there is a pandemic of cops killing innocent blacks. F them!!!! #RIPSeth #FreeJulian
#FreeMillie
smacker , 11 hours ago
Yes, and we all know the name of the DNC leaker who downloaded and provided
WikiLeaks
with evidence of CIA and DNC corruption.
He was assassinated to prevent him from naming who Guccifer 2.0 was and where he is
located.
The Russia-gate farce itself provides solid evidence that the CIA and others are in bed
with DNC
and went to extraordinary lengths to prevent Trump being elected. When that failed, they
instigated
a program of x-gates to get him out of office any way they could. This continues to this
day.
This is treason at the highest level.
ACMeCorporations , 12 hours ago
Hacking? What Russian hacking?
In recently released testimony, the CEO of CrowdStrike admitted in congressional
testimony, under oath, that it actually has no direct evidence Russia stole the DNC
emails.
Nelbev , 9 hours ago
"The proof relies on their forensic analysis of the data released by Guccifer. The
analysis of timestamps demonstrates that the download of voluminous data could not have
been physically possible based on known standard internet speeds. ... a disgruntled
staffer who downloaded the information on to a disc. That is the only feasible way such a
huge amount of data could have been released. ... William Binney says forensic analysis
of the files released by Guccifer shows that the mystery hacker deliberately inserted
digital "fingerprints" in order to give the impression that the files came from Russian
sources. ... "
Any computer file is a bunch of 1s and 0s. Anyone can change anything with a hex editor.
E.g. I had wrong dates on some photographs once, downloaded as opposed to when taken, just
edited the time stamp. You cannot claim any time stamp is original. If true time stamps,
then the DNC files were downloaded to a thumb drive at a computer on location and not to
the internet via a phone line. However anyone can change the time stamps. Stating a
"mystery hacker deliberately inserted digital [Russian] 'fingerprints' " is a joke if
denying the file time stamps were not tampered with. The real thing is where the narrative
came from, political spin doctors, Perkins Coie law firm hired by DNC and Hillary campaign
who hired Crowdstrike [and also hired Fusion GPS before for pissgate dossier propaganda and
FISC warrants to spy on political opponents] and Perkins Coie edited Crowdstrike report
with Russian narrative. FBI never looked at DNC servers. This is like your house was broken
into. You deny police the ability to enter and look at evidence like DNC computers. You
hire a private investigator to say your neighbor you do not like did it and publicise
accusations. Take word of political consultants hired, spin doctor propaganda, Crowdstrike
narrative , no police investigation. Atlantic Council?
Vivekwhu , 8 hours ago
The Atlantic Council is another NATO fart. Nuff said!
The_American , 15 hours ago
God Damn traitor Obama!
Yen Cross , 14 hours ago
TOTUS
For the youngsters.
Teleprompter Of The United States.
Leguran , 6 hours ago
The CIA has gotten away with so much criminal behavior and crimes against the American
public that this is totally believable. Congress just lets this stuff happen and does
nothing. Which is worse - Congress or the CIA?
Congress set up the system. It is mandated to perform oversight. And it just sits on its
thumbs and wallows in it privileges.
This time Congress went further than ever before. It was behind and engaged in an
attempted coup d'état.
Know thy enemy , 10 hours ago
Link to ShadowGate (ShadowNet) documentary - which answers the question, what is the
keystone,,,,,
It's time for Assange and Wikileaks to name the person who they rec'd the info from. By
hiding behind the "we don't name names" Mantra they are helping destroy America by
polarizing its citizens. Name the damn person, get it all out there so the left can see
that they've been played by their leaders. Let's cut this crap.
freedommusic , 7 hours ago
...all the evidence was pointing back to CIA as the originator [of] Guccifer 2.0.
Yep, I knew since day one. I remember seeing Hillary Clinton talking about Guccifer . As
soon as uttered the name, I KNEW she with the CIA were the brainchild of this bogus
decoy.
They copy. They mimic. These are NOT creative individuals.
Perhaps hell is too good a place for them.
on target , 4 hours ago
This is old news but worth bringing up again. The CIA never wanted Trump in, and of
course, they want him out. Their fingerprints were all over Russiagate, The Kavanaugh
hearings, Ukrainegate, and on and on. They are just trying to cover their asses for a
string of illegal "irregularities" in their operations for years. Trump should never have
tried to be a get along type of guy. He should have purged the entire leadership of the CIA
on day one and the FBI on day 2. They can not be trusted with an "America First" agenda.
They are all New World Order types who know whats best for everyone.
fersur , 7 hours ago
Boom, Boom, Boom !
Three Reseachable Tweets thru Facebook, I cut all at once, Unedited !
"#SusanRice has as much trouble with her memory as #HillaryClinton. Rice testified in
writing that she 'does not recall' who gave her key #Benghazi talking points she used on
TV, 'does not recall' being in any meetings regarding Benghazi in five days following the
attack, and 'does not recall' communicating with anyone in Clinton's office about
Benghazi," Tom Fitton in Breitbart.
"Adam Schiff secretly subpoenaed, without court authorization, the phone records of Rudy
Giuliani and then published the phone records of innocent Americans, including
@realDonaldTrump 's lawyers, a member of Congress, and a journalist," @TomFitton .
BREAKING: Judicial Watch announced today that former #Obama National Security Advisor
and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, admitted in written responses given
under oath that she emailed with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Clinton's
non-government email account and that she received emails related to government business on
her own personal email account.
STONEHILLADY , 7 hours ago
It's not just the Democrats, the warmongering neocons of the Republican party are also
in on it, the Bush/Romney McCain/McConnell/Cheney and many more. It's called "Kick Backs"
Ever notice these so called retired Generals all end up working for all these spying
companies that span the 5eyes to Israel. It seems our POTUS has got his hands full swimming
up stream to get this stopped and actually get rid of the CIA. It's the number 1 reason he
doesn't trust these people, they all try to tell him stuff that is mis-directed.
Liars, leakers, and thieves are running not only our nation but the world, as George
Carlin said, "It's a Big Club, and we ain't in it." If you fall for this false narrative of
mail in voting and not actually go and vote on election day, you better start learning
Chinese for surely Peelosi and Schumer will have their way and mess up this election so
they can drag Trump out of office and possible do him and his family some serious harm, all
because so many of you listen to the MSM and don't research their phony claims.
Max21c , 7 hours ago
It's called "Kick Backs" Ever notice these so called retired Generals all end up
working for all these spying companies that span the 5eyes to Israel.
American Generals & Admirals are a lot more corrupt today than they were a few
generations back. Many of them are outright evil people in today's times. Many of these
people are just criminals that will steal anything they can get their banana republic
klepto-paws on. They're nothing but common criminals and thieves. No different than the
Waffen SS or any other group of brigands, bandits, and criminal gangsters.
Max21c , 7 hours ago
The CIA, FBI, NSA, Military Intelligence, Pentagon Gestapo, defense contractors are
mixed up in a lot of crimes and criminal activities on American soil against American
citizens and American civilians. They do not recognize borders or laws or rights of liberty
or property rights or ownership or intellectual property. They're all thieves and criminals
in the military secret police and secret police gangsters cabal.
BandGap , 7 hours ago
I have seen Binney's input. He is correct in my view because he
scientifically/mathematically proves his point.
The blinded masses do not care about this approach, just like wearing masks.
The truth is too difficult for many to fit into their understanding of the world.
So they repeat what they have been told, never stopping to consider the facts or how
circumstances have been manipulated.
It is frustrating to watch, difficult to navigate at times for me. Good people who will
not stop and think of what the facts show them.
otschelnik , 8 hours ago
It could have been the CIA or it could have been one of the cut-outs for plausible
deniability, and of all the usual suspects it was probably CrowdStrike.
- CGI / Global Strategy Group / Analysis Corp. - John Brennan (former CEO)
- Dynology, Wikistrat - General James L. Jones (former chairman of Atlantic Council, NSA
under Obama)
- CrowdStrike - Dmitri Alperovich and Shawn Henry (former chief of cyber forensics
FBI)
- Clearforce - Michael Hayden (former dir. NSA under Clinton, CIA under Bush) and Jim
Jones Jr. (son Gnrl James Jones)
- McChrystal Group - Stanley McChrystal (former chief of special operations DOD)
fersur , 8 hours ago
Unedited !
The Brookings Institute – a Deep State Hub Connected to the Fake Russia Collusion
and Ukraine Scandals Is Now Also Connected to China Spying In the US
The Brookings
Institute was heavily involved in the Democrat and Deep State Russia collusion hoax and
Ukraine impeachment fraud. These actions against President Trump were criminal.
This institute is influenced from foreign donations from entities who don't have an
America first agenda. New reports connect the Institute to Chinese spying.
As we reported previously, Julie Kelly at American Greatness
released a report where she addresses the connections between the Brookings Institute,
Democrats and foreign entities. She summarized her report as follows: Accepting millions
from a state sponsor of terrorism, foisting one of the biggest frauds in history on the
American people, and acting as a laundering agent of sorts for Democratic political
contributions disguised as policy grants isn't a good look for such an esteemed
institution. One would be hard-pressed to name a more influential think tank than the
Brookings Institution. The Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit routinely ranks at the top of
the list
of the best think tanks in the world; Brookings scholars produce a steady flow of reports,
symposiums, and news releases that sway the conversation on any number of issues ranging
from domestic and economic policy to foreign affairs.
Brookings is home to lots of Beltway power players: Ben
Bernanke and Janet Yellen, former chairmen of the Federal Reserve, are Brookings fellows.
Top officials from both Republican and Democrat presidential administrations lend political
heft to the organization. From 2002 until 2017, the organization's president was Strobe
Talbott. He's a longtime BFF of Bill Clinton; they met in the 1970s at Oxford University
and have been tight ever since. Talbott was a top aide to both President Bill Clinton and
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Kelly continued:
Brookings-based fellows working at Lawfare were the media's go-to legal "experts" to
legitimize the concocted crime; the outlet manipulated much of the news coverage on
collusion by pumping out primers and guidance on how to report collusion events from
Special Counsel Robert Mueller's appointment to his final report.
Now, testimony related to a defamation lawsuit against Christopher Steele, the author of
the infamous "dossier" on Donald Trump, has exposed his direct ties to Talbott in 2016 when
he was still head of Brookings. Talbott and Steele were in communication before and after
the presidential election; Steele wanted Talbott to circulate the dossier to his pals in
John Kerry's State Department, which reportedly is what Talbott
did . Steele also briefed top state department officials in October 2016 about his
work.
But this isn't the only connection between the Brookings Institute and the Russia
collusion and Ukrainian scandals. We were the first to report that the Primary Sub-Source
(PSS) in the Steele report, the main individual who supplied Steele with bogus information
in his report was Igor Danchenko.
In November 2019, the star witness for the Democrat Representative Adam Schiff's
impeachment show trial was announced. Her name was Fiona Hill.
Today we've uncovered that Hill is a close associate of the Primary Sub-Source (PSS) for
the Steele dossier – Igor Danchenko – the individual behind most all the lies
in the Steele dossier. No wonder Hill saw the Steele dossier before it was released. Her
associate created it.
Both Fiona Hill and Igor Danchenko are connected to the Brookings Institute.
They gave a presentation together as Brookings Institute representatives:
Kelly writes about the foreign funding the Brookings Institute partakes:
So who and what have been funding the anti-Trump political operation at Brookings over
the past few years? The think tank's top benefactors are a predictable mix of family
foundations, Fortune 100 corporations, and Big Tech billionaires. But one of the biggest
contributors to Brookings' $100 million-plus annual budget is the Embassy of Qatar.
According to financial reports, Qatar has donated more than $22 million to the think tank
since 2004. In fact, Brookings operates a satellite center in Doha, the
capital of Qatar. The wealthy Middle Eastern oil producer
spends billions on American institutions such as universities and other think
tanks.
Qatar also is a top state sponsor of terrorism, pouring billions into Hamas, al-Qaeda,
and the Muslim Brotherhood, to name a few. "The nation of Qatar, unfortunately, has
historically been a funder of terrorism at a very high level," President Trump said in 2017. "We
have to stop the funding of terrorism."
An email from a Qatari official, obtained by WikiLeaks, said the Brookings
Institution was as important to the country as "an aircraft carrier."
The Brookings Institution, a prominent Washington, D.C., think tank, partnered with a
Shanghai policy center that the FBI has described as a front for China's intelligence and
spy recruitment operations, according to public records and federal court documents.
The Brookings Doha Center, the think tank's hub in Qatar, signed a memorandum of
understanding with the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences in January 2018, the
institution said . The academy is a policy center funded by the Shanghai municipal
government that has raised flags within the FBI.
The partnership raises questions about potential Chinese espionage activities at the
think tank, which employs numerous former government officials and nearly two dozen
current foreign policy advisers to Joe Biden's presidential campaign.
It is really frightening that one of two major political parties in the US is tied so
closely with the Brookings Institute. It is even more frightening that foreign enemies of
the United States are connected to this entity as well.
Let it Go , 8 hours ago
One thing for sure is these guys have far to much of our money to spend promoting their
own good.
fersur , 7 hours ago
Unedited !
Mueller Indictments Tied To "ShadowNet," Former Obama National Security Advisor and
Obama's CIA Director – Not Trump
According to a report in the Daily Beast, which cited the Wall Street Journal's
reporting of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into two companies, Wikistrat
and Psy Group, "The firm's advisory council lists former CIA and National Security Agency
director Michael Hayden, former national security adviser James L. Jones."
According to numerous reporting from major news outlets like the Wall Street Journal and
Daily Beast, both Wikistrat and Psy Group represent themselves as being social media
analysts and black PSYOP organizations. Both Wikistrat and Psy Group have foreign ownership
mixed between Israeli, Saudi (Middle East) and Russian. Here is what the Wall Street
Journal, The Daily Beast and pretty much everyone else out there doesn't know (or won't
tell you).
The fact Obama's former National Security Advisor, General James Jones, and former Obama
CIA director, Gen. Michael Hayden, are both on Wikistrat's advisory board may not seem
suspicious, but both of these general's have another thing in common, and that is the
ShadowNet. The ShadowNet, and its optional companion relational database, iPsy, were both
originally developed by the small, family owned defense contracting company, Dynology. The
family that owns Dynology; Gen. James Jones. I would add Paul Manafort and Rick Davis was
Dynology's partner at the time we were making the ShadowNet and iPsy commercially
available.
After obtaining the contract in Iraq to develop social media psychological warfare
capabilities, known in military nomenclature as Interactive Internet Activities, or IIA,
Gen. Jones kept the taxpayer funded application we developed in Iraq for the 4th
Psychological Operation Group, and made it commercially available under the trademark of
the "ShadowNet" and the optional black PSYOP component, "iPsy." If you think it is
interesting that one of the companies under Mueller's indictment is named, "Psy" Group, I
did as well. In fact, literally everything both publicly described in news reports, and
even their websites, are exactly the same as the ShadowNet and iPsy I helped build, and
literally named.
The only thing different I saw as far as services offered by Wikistrat, and that of
Dynology and the ShadowNet, was described by The Daily Beast as, "It also engaged in
intelligence collection." Although iPsy was a relational database that allowed for the
dissemination of whatever the required narrative was, "intelligence collection" struck
another bell with me, and that's a company named ClearForce.
ClearForce was developed as a solution to stopping classified leaks following the Edward
Snowden debacle in 2013. Changes in NISPOM compliance requirements forced companies and
government agencies that had employees with government clearances to take preventive
measure to mitigate the potential of leaking. Although the NISPOM compliance requirement
almost certainly would have been influenced by either Hayden, Jones or both, they once
again sought to profit from it.
Using components of the ShadowNet and iPsy, the ClearForce application (which the
company, ClearForce, was named after,) was developed to provide compliance to a regulation
I strongly suspect you will find Jones and Hayden had a hand in creating. In fact, I
strongly suspect you will find General Jones had some influence in the original requirement
for our Iraq contract Dynology won to build the ShadowNet – at taxpayer expense!
Dynology worked for several years incorporating other collection sources, such as
financial, law enforcement and foreign travel, and ties them all into your social media
activity. Their relationship with Facebook and other social media giants would have been
nice questions for congress to have asked them when they testified.
Part 1 of 2 !
fersur , 7 hours ago
Part 2 of 2 !
The ClearForce application combines all of these sources together in real-time and uses
artificial intelligence to predictively determine if you are likely to steal or leak based
on the behavioral profile ClearForce creates of you. It can be used to determine if you get
a job, and even if you lose a job because a computer read your social media, credit and
other sources to determine you were likely to commit a crime. It's important for you to
stop for a moment and think about the fact it is privately controlled by the former CIA
director and Obama's National Security Advisor/NATO Supreme Allied Commander, should scare
the heck out of you.
When the ClearForce application was complete, Dynology handed it off to ClearForce, the
new company, and Michael Hayden joined the board of directors along with Gen. Jones and his
son, Jim, as the president of ClearForce. Doesn't that kind of sound like "intelligence
collection" described by the Daily Beast in Wikistrat's services?
To wrap this all up, Paul Manafort, Rick Davis, George Nader, Wikistrat and Psy Group
are all directly connected to Mueller's social media influence and election interreference
in the 2016 presidential election. In fact, I believe all are under indictment, computers
seized, some already sentenced. All of these people under indictment by Mueller have one
key thing in common, General James Jones's and Michael Hayden's social media black PSYOP
tools; the ShadowNet, iPsy and ClearForce.
A recent meeting I had with Congressman Gus Bilirakis' chief of staff, Elizabeth Hittos,
is confirmation that they are reviewing my DoD memorandum stating the work I did on the IIA
information operation in Iraq, the Dynology marketing slicks for the ShadowNet and iPsy,
along with a screenshot of Goggle's Way-Back Machine showing Paul Manafort's partnership
with Dynology in 2007 and later. After presenting to her these facts and making clear I
have much more information that requires the highest classification SCIF to discuss and
requires being read-on to the program, Elizabeth contacted the office of Congressman Devin
Nunez to request that I brief the intelligence committee on this critical information
pertaining directly to the 2010 Ukrainian elections, Michael Brown riots, 2016 election
interference and the "Russia collusion" hoax. All of that is on top of numerous
questionable ethical and potentially illegal profits from DoD contracts while servings as
NATO Commander and Obama's National Security Advisor.
We also need to know if the ShadowNet and iPsy were allowed to fall into foreign hands,
including Russia, Saudi Arabia and Israel. I'm pretty sure South America is going to have a
few questions for Jones and Obama as well? Stay tuned!
Balance-Sheet , 4 hours ago
Intelligence Agencies of all countries endlessly wage war at all times especially
'Information Warfare' (propaganda/disinformation) and the primary target has always and
will always be the domestic population of the Intelligence Agency's country.
Yes, of course the CIA does target ALL other countries but the primary target will
always be the Americans themselves.
Balance-Sheet , 4 hours ago
Intelligence Agencies of all countries endlessly wage war at all times especially
'Information Warfare' (propaganda/disinformation) and the primary target has always and
will always be the domestic population of the Intelligence Agency's country.
Yes, of course the CIA does target ALL other countries but the primary target will
always be the Americans themselves.
The neoliberals own the media, courts, academia, and BUREAUCRACY (including CIA) and
they will do anything to make sure they retain power over everyone. These control freaks
work hard to create all sorts of enemies to justify their existence.
LaugherNYC , 15 hours ago
It is sad that this information has to be repeatedly published, over and over and over,
by SCI and other Russian. outlets.
Because no legit AMERICAN news outlet will give Binney or Assange the time of day or any
credence, this all becomes Kremlin-sponsored disinformation and denials. People roll their
eyes and say "Oh God, not the whole 'Seth Rich was murdered by the CIA' crap again!! You
know, his FAMILY has asked that people stop spreading these conspiracy theories and
lies."
SCI is a garbage bin, nothing more than a dizinformatz machine for Putin, but in this
case, they are likely right. It seems preposterous that the "best hackers in the world"
would forget to use a VPN or leave a signature behind, and it makes far more sense that the
emails were leaked by someone irate at the abuses of the DNC - the squashing of Bernie, the
cheating for Hillary in the debates - behavior we saw repeated in 2020 with Bernie shoved
aside again for the pathetic Biden.
Would that SOMEONE in the US who is not on the Kremlin payroll would pick up this
thread. But all the "investigative journalists" now work indirectly for the DNC, and those
that don't are cancelled by the left.
Stone_d_agehurler , 15 hours ago
I am Guccifer and I approve this message.
Sarc/
But i do share your opinion. They are likely right this time and most of the pundits and
media in the U. S. know it. That's what makes this a sad story about how rotten the U. S.
system has become.
Democrats will sacrifice the Union for getting Trump out of office.
If elections in Nov won't go their way, Civil War II might become a real thing in
2021.
PeterLong , 4 hours ago
If " digital "fingerprints" in order to give the impression that the files came from
Russian sources" were inserted in the leak by "Guccifer", and if the leak to wikileaks came
from Seth Rich, via whatever avenue, then the "Guccifer" release came after the wikileaks
release, or after wikileaks had the files, and was a reaction to same attempting to
diminish their importance/accuracy and cast doubt on Trump. Could CIA and/or DNC have known
the files were obtained by wikileaks before wikileaks actually released them? In any case
collusion of CIA with DNC seems to be a given.
RightlyIndignent , 4 hours ago
Because Seth had already given it to Wikileaks. There is no 'Fancy Bear'. There is no
'Cozy Bear'. Those were made up by CrowdStrike, and they tried the same crap on Ukraine,
and Ukraine told them to pound sand. When push came to shove, and CrowdStrike was forced to
say what they really had under oath, they said: "We have nothing."
novictim , 4 hours ago
You are leaving out Crowd Strike. Seth Rich was tasked by people at the DNC to copy data
off the servers. He made a backup copy and gave a copy to people who then got it to Wiki
leaks. He used highspeed file transfers to local drives to do his task.
Meanwhile, it was the Ukrainian company Crowd Strike that claimed the data was stolen
over the internet and that the thieves were in Russia. That 'proof" was never verified by
US Intelligence but was taken on its word as being true despite crowd strike falsifying
Russian hacks and being caught for it in the past.
Joebloinvestor , 5 hours ago
The "five eyes" are convinced they run the world and try to.
That is what Brennan counted on for these agencies to help get President Trump.
As I said, it is time for the UK and the US to have a serious conversation about their
current and ex-spies being involved in US elections.
Southern_Boy , 5 hours ago
It wasn't the CIA. It was John Brennan and Clapper. The CIA, NSA FBI, DOJ and the
Ukrainian Intelligence Service just went along working together and followed orders from
Brennan who got them from Hillary and Obama.
Oh, and don't forget the GOP Globalist RINOs who also participated in the coup attempt:
McCain, Romney, Kasich, Boehner, Lee and Richard Burr.
With Kasich now performing as a puppy dog for Biden at the Democrat Convention as a
Democrat DNC executive, the re-alignment is almost complete: Globalist Nationalist
Socialist Bolshevism versus American Populism, i.e. Elites versus Deplorables or Academics
versus Smelly Wal-Mart people.
on target , 5 hours ago
No way. CIA up to their eyeballs in this as well as the State Department. Impossible for
Russiagate or Ukrainegate without direct CIA and State involvement.
RightlyIndignent , 4 hours ago
Following Orders? How did that argument go at Nuremberg? (hint: not very well)
LeadPipeDreams , 6 hours ago
LOL - the CIA's main mission - despite their "official" charter, has always been to
destabilize the US and its citizens via psyops, false flags, etc.
Covid-1984 is their latest and it appears most successful project yet.
Iconoclast27 , 5 hours ago
The CIA received a $200 million initial investment from the Rockefeller and Carnegie
foundations when it was first established, that should tell you everything you need to know
how who they truly work for.
A_Huxley , 6 hours ago
CIA, MI6, 5 eye nations.
All wanted to sway the USA their own way.
Let it Go , 8 hours ago
Almost as frightening as the concentrated power held by companies such as Facebook and
Google is the fact Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon and the world's richest man, is the person who
owns and controls the Washington Post. It is silly to think Jeff Bezos purchased the
Washington Post in 2013 because he expected newspapers to make a lucrative resurgence.
It is more likely he purchased the long-trusted U.S. newspaper for the power it would
ensure him in Washington when wielded as a propaganda mouthpiece to extend his ability to
both shape and control public opinion. More on this subject in the article below.
How it is the Democrats, the Deep State, and the legacy media are still able to cling to
the remnants of these long discredited narratives is a mystery.
avoiceofliberty , 6 hours ago
At the official level, you have a point.
However, even before Mueller was appointed, a review of the materials in the extant
public record of both the DNC "hack" and the history of Crowdstrike showed the narrative
simply did not make sense. A detailed investigation of materials not made public was not
necessary to shoot down the entire narrative.
Indeed, one of the great scandals of the Mueller probe is the way it did not bring
prudential skepticism to the question of the DNC "hack". When building a case, either for
public debate or for public trial, a dose of skepticism is healthy; it leads to a careful
vetting of facts and reasoning.
Alice-the-dog , 6 hours ago
The CIA has been an agency wholly independent of the US government almost since its
inception. It is not under any significant control by the government, and has its own
agenda which may occasionally coincide with that of the government, but only
coincidentally. It has its own view of how the world should look, and will not balk at any
means necessary to achieve such. Including the murder of dis-favorable members of
government.
snodgrass , 6 hours ago
It's the CIA and the FBI, Obama and people in his administration who cooked up
Russiagate.
Floki_Ragnarsson , 7 hours ago
The CIA whacked JFK because he was going to slow the roll to Vietnam AND disband the CIA
and reform it.
It is broken and needs to be disbanded and reformed along lines that actually WORK! The
CIA missed the fall of the USSR, 9/11, etc. HTF does THAT happen?
DeportThemAll , 6 hours ago
The CIA didn't "miss" 9/11... they participated in it.
Let it Go , 8 hours ago
The CIA is a tool that when improperly used can do great damage.
Anyone who doesn't believe that countries use psychological warfare and propaganda to
sway the opinions of people both in and outside of their country should be considered
naive. Too many people America is more than a little hypocritical when they criticize other
countries for trying to gain influence considering our history of meddling in the affairs
of other countries.
Americans have every reason to be concerned and worried considering revelations of just
how big the government intelligence agencies have grown since 9-11 and how unlimited their
spying and surveillance operations have become. The article below explores this growth and
questions whether we have lost control.
The idea of Binney and Jason Sullivan privately working to 'secure the vote' is
something that I actually consider to be very eyebrow raising and alarming.
Son of Captain Nemo , 8 hours ago
Bill Binney under "B" in the only "yellow pages" that show a conscience and a
soul!...
This is the dumbest article ever. Russiagate is a total fabrication of the FBI as per
Clinesmith, CIA provided information that would have nipped it at the bud. Read the real
news.
bringonthebigone , 9 hours ago
Wrong. this article is one small piece of the puzzle. Clinesmith is one small piece of
the puzzle. The Flynn entrapment is one small piece of the puzzle. The Halper entrapment
was one small piece of the puzzle.
Because Clinesmith at the FBI covered up the information saying Page was a CIA source
does not mean it was a total FBI fabrication and does not mean the CIA was not involved and
does not mean the DNC server hack is irrelevant.
Sundance does a better job pulling it all together.
PKKA , 14 hours ago
Relations have already soured between Russia and the United States, and sanctions have
been announced. Tensions have grown on the NATO-Russia border. The meat has already been
rolled into the minced meat and it will not be possible to roll the minced meat back into
the meat. The CIA got it. But the Russian people now absolutely understand that the United
States will always be the enemy of Russia, no matter whether socialist or capitalist. But I
like it even more than the feigned hypocritical "friendship". Russia has never reached such
heights as during the good old Cold War. All Russians have a huge incentive, long live the
new Cold War!
smacker , 12 hours ago
More and more people have worked out that the fabricated tensions between the US and
Russia
and US and China have little to do with those two countries posing any sort of threat to
world peace.
It is all about the US trying to remain in No.1 position as uni-polar top dog via the
Anglo American Empire.
We see examples of this every day in the M/E, South China Sea, Taiwan, Libya all over
Eastern Europe,
Ukraine, Iran and now Belaruse. HK was added along the way.
Both Russia and China openly want a multi-polar world order. But the US will never
accept that.
Hence the prospect of war. The only unknown today is what and where the trigger will
be.
smacker , 12 hours ago
More and more people have worked out that the fabricated tensions between the US and
Russia
and US and China have little to do with those two countries posing any sort of threat to
world peace.
It is all about the US trying to remain in No.1 position as uni-polar top dog via the
Anglo American Empire.
We see examples of this every day in the M/E, South China Sea, Taiwan, Libya all over
Eastern Europe,
Ukraine, Iran and now Belaruse. HK was added along the way.
Both Russia and China openly want a multi-polar world order. But the US will never
accept that.
Hence the prospect of war. The only unknown today is what and where the trigger will
be.
hang_the_banksters , 31 minutes ago
the best proof thAt Guccifer 2 was CIA hacking themselves to frame Wikileaks is
this:
Guccifer has not yet been identified, indicted and arrested.
you'd think CIAFBINSA would be turning over every stone to the ends of the earth to bust
Guccifer. we just had to endure 4 years of hysterical propaganda that Russia had hacked our
election and that Trump was their secret agent. so Guccifer should be the Most Wanted Man
on the planet. meanwhile, it's crickets from FBI. they arent even looking for him. because
Guccifer is over at Langley. maybe someone outta ask Brennan where G2 is now.
remember when DOJ indicted all those GRU cybersoldiers? the evidence listed in the
indictment was so stunning that i dont believe it. NSA so thoroughly hacked back into GRU
that NSA was watching GRU through their own webcams and recording them doing Google
searches to translate words which were written in Guccifer's blog posts about the DNC email
leaks. NSA and DOJ must think we are all stupid, that we will believe NSA is so powerful to
do that, yet they cant identify Guccifer.
i say i dont believe that for a second because no way Russian GRU are so stupid to even
have webcams on the computers they use to hack, and it is absurd to think GRU soldiers on a
Russian military base would be using Google instead of Yandex to translate words into
English.
lay_arrow
ConanTheContrarian1 , 1 hour ago
As a confirmed conspiracy theorist since I came back from 'Nam, here's mine: The
European nobility recognized with the American and French revolutions that they needed a
better approach. They borrowed from the Tudors (who had to deal with Parliament) and began
to rule by controlling the facade of representative government. This was enhanced by
funding banks to control through currency, as well as blackmail and murder, and morphed
into a complete propaganda machine like no other in history. The CIA, MI6 and Mossad, the
mainstream media, deep plants in bureaucracy and "democratic" bodies all obey their
dictates to create narratives that control our minds. Trump seems to offer hope, but
remember, he could be their latest narrative.
greatdisconformity , 1 hour ago
A Democracy cannot function on a higher level than the general electorate.
The intelligence and education of the general electorate has been sliding for
generations, because both political parties can play this to their advantage.
It is no accident that most of the messages coming from politicians are targeted to
imbeciles.
The NGO community has reacted angrily to the exposure, labelling Greyzone a Kremlin and
Beijing linked disinfo site, even as the story was confirmed by South China Morning Post. The
SCMP was then labelled "pro-communist". Facts are wholly partisan, since 2014.
The New York Timesreports on the
resignation of Brian Hook, who will be replaced by none other than Elliott Abrams:
Mr. Hook will be succeeded by Elliott Abrams, a conservative foreign policy veteran and
Iran hard-liner who is currently the State Department's special representative for
Venezuela.
As the administration's special envoy, Hook had no success in gaining support from other
governments for the "maximum pressure" campaign against Iran. His brief stint as a negotiator
with our European allies yielded nothing, and when he was trying to negotiate with them Trump
famously had no idea who
he was . He mostly served as one of the administration's leading
propagandists .
Last year he came under fire from the State Department's Inspector General for his role in
the
mistreatment of Sahar Nowrouzzadeh , who was the target of political retaliation at the
department on account of her support for the JCPOA and at least partly because of her Iranian
heritage.
Hook is described in the Times ' report as a "survivor," but they neglect to
mention that the reason he has survived so long in the Trump administration is his cowardice
.
Perhaps the most bizarre thing about the coverage of Hook·s resignation is that it
is framed as somehow undermining the chances of diplomacy with Iran.
America's actions have already caused Beijing and Moscow to put aside historic enmity and
increase its partnership on economic issues and increasingly frequent joint
military drills . China and Iran recently completed the basics of an energy and military
cooperation agreement. Moreover, President Xi Jinping has become increasingly effective at
deepening ties with European, African, and Latin American states.
Today, Washington is saturated with China hawks. Unfortunately, andy voices that champion
keeping America strong by avoiding conflict with China are reflexively smeared as
"appeasement." I fear America may one day find out to its harm that rejecting sober diplomatic
engagement, which could have extended its security and prosperity well into the future, was
dismissed in favor of an unnecessary military-first tactic of coercing China.
Daniel L. Davis is a Senior Fellow for Defense Priorities and a former lieutenant
colonel in the U.S. Army who retired in 2015 after twenty-one years, including four combat
deployments. Follow him @DanielLDavis1.
From MoA
: "Russiagate, the deep state campaign to disenfranchise President Donald Trump, is further
unraveling. The Spies Who Hijacked America
is a first-person account that convincingly documents an MI6-linked conspiracy by former director
Richard Dearlove, former agent Christopher Steele and FBI informant Stefan Halper to frame Carter
Page that led to the FBI launching of "Crossfire Hurricane". The long read is very interesting
but it still does not account for who or what instigated the British spies into launching their
campaign against Trump. My hunch is that then CIA director John Brennan was the central person
behind it."
"A top Republican defended his committee releasing the declassified FBI interview with a
top source for British ex-spy Christopher Steele and said a forthcoming document would show
the bureau misled Congress about the reliability of his anti-Trump dossier.
South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee,
criticized the former MI6 agent, said Steele's dossier was compromised by Russian
disinformation, and argued
newly public FBI notes from a January 2017 discussion with Steele's "primary subsource"
demonstrated the FBI knew the dossier was unreliable but continued to use it anyway. During his
interview
with Maria Bartiromo on Sunday Morning Futures on Fox News, he also previewed new
bureau records to be released in the upcoming week he said would show the FBI misled not just
the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court about the Steele dossier, but also lawmakers.
"We also now have found, and this will come out next week, that Congress got suspicious
about the Russian subsource and reliability of the Steele Dossier, and that members of Congress
asked to be briefed about it," Graham said. "Here is what I think I'm going to be able to show
to the public: not only did the FBI lie to the court about the reliability about the Steele
dossier, they also lied to the Congress. And that is a separate crime. "" Washington
Examiner
-------------
The first thing to do is fire Christopher Wray, the present Director of the FBI, for
malfeasance and neglect of duty in this whole matter.
The second thing to do is to seriously consider dissolution of the FBI and its replacement
with a new federal police force severely limited to criminal investigations of violations of
federal law.
There should also be a separate domestic internal security investigative body modeled on the
UK's MI-5 (the Security Service). Whether or not such a service should have the power of arrest
is an open question. If arrests become necessary after their investigations the agents of some
other federal police force could be used to make them after examination of the security
service's case.
The rest of the USIC should be examined with an eye to re-organization in light of the
partisan role they played in the 2016 election.
How can any of the law enforcement and IC be re-organized when everyone in DC from the
politicians in both parties to the media and the top honchos in government are all part of
the same social and professional circle? They just keep rotating around.
Elliott Abrams epitomizes this. He's a convicted felon in the Iran-Contra affair in the
Reagan administration. Get's pardoned by Bush pere. Pushed hard for the disastrous Iraq
invasion in the George W. Bush administration. Then in charge of the Venezuela coup attempt
in the Trump administration. Fails at that. And then now gets appointed to head the Iran desk
to create more trouble.
DC is incestuous and corrupt beyond redemption.
As far is Wray is concerned why hasn't he been fired sometime back? Why did Trump hire him
and Rosenstein in the first place?
@LindseyGrahamSC saying today the 2018 SSCI had doubts about Steele's primary sub source,
and pointing fingers at the 2018 FBI for misinformation, carries an identical motive to
Sally Yates testimony last week.
It's all CYA in DC Central. Graham protecting SSCI.
It appears the Republicans in the Senate were in on the Russia Collusion hoax and now
throwing the FBI under the bus. DC is a cesspool of corruption. Only voters can reform this
club by voting both parties out.
Writing on Substack, Steven Schrage for the first time tells the story of how he worked
alongside "FBI Informant" Stefan Halper at Cambridge during the "Russiagate" period:
We are nearly at the end of Trump's term yet his administration hasn't provided a full
accounting of the election interference and framing of Trump and some of his team by the
previous Obama administration and his own administration.
Sen. Graham thinks [or at least says] Russia hacked the Democrats; and thinks [or at least
says] Igor Dancheko represent "Russian disinformation."
"The sub-source [Danchenko] was a senior Russian researcher at the Brookings Institution
and an employee of Christopher Steele living in the United States. He calls up a bunch of
people in Russia. Who do you think this information came from? It came from the Russian
intelligence service. They played this guy like a fiddle," Graham has recently said.
Unctuous Graham himself continues maliciously to spread lies.
The first words out of his mouth at last week's hearing with the unctuous Sally Yates was
Russia hacked the Democrats.
In other words, he was pretending -- and in his thus lying, creating a "predicate" for all
of the Russia Hoax nonsense that continues and which he helps to continue, by lying.
So is this liar going to get to the bottom of it, or instead create and continue to create
alternate reality from which more propaganda be disseminated and spun onto American
public?
He, and those pushing these lies, our congressional leaders -- and think we are not aware
of their vile and moral turpitude.
Not only did the FBI and Sally Yates and Rosenstein lie to the court about the reliability
about the Steele dossier.
And not only does Graham continue to lie to the American people.
Who is assisting Graham to run his ongoing and continuing cover up?
The FBI? The DOJ? The CIA? Senator Warner? etc. . . .
Why does the Senate list Mark Warner, a Democrat, as "Vice Chair of the Senate
Intelligence Committee"?
When the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence was formed in 1976, via Senate Resolution
400 of the 94th Congress, this is what they decided:
[[[(b) At the beginning of each Congress, the Majority Leader of the Senate shall select a
chairman of the select Committee and the Minority Leader shall select a vice chairman for the
select Committee. The vice chairman shall act in the place and stead of the chairman in the
absence of the chairman. Neither the chairman nor the vice chairman of the select committee
shall at the same time serve as chairman or ranking minority member of any other
committee]]]
PS
Fire Wray, dissolve FBI, excellent suggestions.
In its place, a new federal police force severely limited to criminal investigations of
violations of federal law, also a step in the right direction.
Should the nation's federal police chief report to the AG directly, or directly to the
president?
Should this job be subject to advise and consent of senate, or, as is case with National
Security Advisor, not subject to advise and consent of senate?
And feel free to criticize, but someone like . . . Attorney Michael Bernard Mukasey,
former federal judge and 81st Attorney General of the United States --- he, be named acting
FBI, right now, forthwith?
-30-
It appears that SSCI with Burr and Warner are in on the coup attempt. They likely had
Wolfe leak the Carter Page FISA application which was marked by a FBI special agent to his
squeeze who took it with her to the NY Times. Mueller then takes over that investigation and
buries it including lying to FISC. Wolfe gets away with a slap on the wrist. They are all
implicated in the coup attempt - Republicans & Democrats in Congress, the FBI, DOJ, DNI,
CIA, Obama, Biden, the media!
In a functioning constitutional republic this would be considered outrageous no matter
one's opinion of Trump. The fact that the Trump administration itself is playing a huge role
in obfuscating this subversion of the constitution by those entrusted to protect and defend
it is telling. I'm old and my creator beckons. It pains me to no end what legacy we are
leaving behind to our grandchildren and their children. My grandpa would be so dismayed!
Who compromised this trio of senior senate leadership? Feinstein had a Chinese spy on her
staff for a decade, apparently oblivious to that the whole time. Of course Russia is all we
hear about, then and now.
Jack,
Just to clarify, the link you posted above is about Steven Schrage, not by him. It was
written by Matt Taibbi at his personal internet perch. I agree it's definitely worth the time
to read.
The FBI is indeed fighting for its survival, as I suspect are elements of the DOJ and
other elements of the I C . If Trump is re elected, he will have a mandate for reform, that
is why they will stop at nothing to prevent it.
I think, as someone else here at SST has suggested, the swamp is going to use the 20th
Amendment to install Pelosi or similar. The chosen vehicle will be corruption of a mail in
ballot process. As my first boss told me as we watche ounance manager being marched away by
the police: "when someone is going to steal from you, the first thing they do is mess up the
paperwork". That maxim proved true a number of times in my career.
DC District of Corruption is beyond redemption.
The 17 "intelligence" agencies are rotten to the core as well.
I love my country but have a growing dislike of my federal government.
More like feral government.
Doubt the newly found corona super powers are going away anytime soon.
Grandparents were Irish immigrants.Learned early to keep a well stocked cellar and as much
savings as possible.
Hard times are coming.
It seems that Steven Schrage coming forward NOW with a recording of Halper stating that
Flynn's gonna be f*ked 2 days before the leak to David Ignatius is a new shiny object to
distract. Similar to Ms. Lindsey's faux outrage NOW that the FBI lied to SSCI. Of course he
knew and so did Burr & Warner back in 2018. They kept quiet all this time. The big
question is what did Senators Burr & Warner know and when and what role did they play in
the coverup? And of course the same goes for Ms. Lindsey and the rest of the coterie in
Congress?
Col. Lang,
What do your expert senses detect when both Rosenstein & Sally Yates have the best
Captain Renault impersonation? They knew nuttin!! They just sign FISA applications and keep
seats warm.
For years,the Feebs have been flat-footed keystone cops in the counterintelligence
area.
Want more evidence?
Peter Strzok - a mediocrity with no sense of op security rose to number 2 in the FBI CI
division.
Look at the bumbling mess these dolts made out of their attempted "coup."
Spy catching is not police work;it's "intelligence" work.
I think that what other posters may be seeing and commenting upon is trenchently conveyed
in this quote from Carroll Quigley's Tragedy and Hope:
"The argument that the two parties should represent opposed ideals and policies, one,
perhaps, of the Right and the other of the Left, is a foolish idea acceptable only to
doctrinaire and academic thinkers. Instead, the two parties should be almost identical, so
that the American people can 'throw the rascals out' at any election without leading to any
profound or extensive shifts in policy."
This understanding adequately accounts for the behavior of The Borg toward President Trump's
stated aims, and the defenestration of General Flynn. They don't want anything to change, and
will go to any lengths to prevent it from happening. I guess we'll have to see if this will,
indeed, be how it plays out. In my heart of hearts I certainly hope not.
Wolfe was only indicted for lying to the FBI. He was never indicted for the big stuff of
leaking the classified Carter Page FISA application provided by the FBI to SSCI to his
"mistress" Ali Watkins. She moved to the NY Times and then began writing exposes that sold a
certain now proven false narrative.
Was Wolfe ordered to leak it by Burr & Warner? Why was the leak investigation taken
over by Mueller? What role did SSCI have in the coverup? What was Warner doing as some of his
text messages to Steele's attorney Adam Waldman was released by Mueller?
Was SSCI a co-conspirator in the framing of a duly elected President?
"Just to clarify, the link you posted above is about Steven Schrage, not by him"
Hi Ex-PFC Chuck - the piece was definitely written by Schrage. Its a first-person account
of his work under Halper, with a ton of observations about his character and past.
For what its worth I sensed a little bit of CYA in the piece, like Schrage is trying to
cleave himself from the rest of the group. His account of how and why Carter Page got to his
symposium doesn't really add up - did he make a similar effort to get a member of the Clinton
campaign? Appears not.
title - The Spies Who Hijacked America
As a doctoral candidate at Cambridge working under "FBI Informant" Stefan Halper, I had a
front-row seat for Russiagate
"Was SSCI a co-conspirator in the framing of a duly elected President?"
Good questions. I would go back a couple decades and see how much money in donations those
members got from people who could have corrupted them, such as Jeffery Epstein and those
connected to him, and see if they have any other foreign financial entanglements.
Have to wonder at the re-emergence of Russiagate. Seems a major reason for its emergence
is to shame voters into voting for Biden. If you do not vote for Biden, you are Putin's
useful idiot. In particular aimed at African Americans. Recently a NYT reporter claimed that
it was Russian mean tweets, etc that caused a very dramatic drop in African American turn out
in 2016. See screen shot by Aron Mate as the NYT reporter deleted the tweets.
Looks like the DNC may be very nervous about Black turnout after Biden's many racial
gaffes. Imagine Black turnout if he chooses Susan Rice as his VP. The DNC may have to go to
Putin to ask for his help.
Were you aware that the Steele dossier had a significant other?
"Rep Devin Nunes:
"You may remember that the State Department was involved and there were additional
dossiers that weren't the Steele dossier- except that they mirrored the Steele dossier.
And we think there is a connection between the [former] president of Brookings
and those dossiers that were given to the State Department."
"
...
Also from article:
"
The "additional dossiers that weren't the Steele dossier" addressed by Nunes
is a reference to a lesser known dodgy dossier produced by Brookings-affiliated
journalist Cody Shearer (brother-in-law of Strobe Talbott) which was crafted
explicitly to validate the wildly unsupported claims found in Steele's dossier.
"
I know it sounds wacky to those of you who still put some store in MSM nonsense,
but I still believe that what we know as "Russiagate" was a carefully planned operation
to:
initiate a new anti-Russia McCarthyism -
after Trump's election, MSM repeated Russigate accusations about Russian meddling
every night for months;
elect MAGA Nationalist (Trump, not Hillary!) -
as Kissinger had called for in his Aug 2014 WSJ Op-Ed;
discredit Wikileaks/Assange;
lead to a vindictive settling of scores with Assange, Flynn, Manafort.
Also: It's likely that Skripal was the true "primary sub-source" and that he was drugged
because he planned to flee back to Russia because he realised that he knew too much. He knew
that the "dirty dossier" was meant to be untrue and easily debunked. It would never actually
tarnish Trump - only Russia. Not surprisingly, Trump's MAGA Nationalism has been
strengthened by Russiagate allegations while the anti-Russia sentiment remains.
The first and the most important fact that there will no elections in November -- both candidates represent the same oligarchy,
just slightly different factions of it.
Look like NYT is controlled by Bolton faction of CIA. They really want to overturn the
results of 2020 elections and using Russia as a bogeyman is a perfect opportunity to achieve this
goal.
Neocons understand very well that it is MIC who better their bread, so amplifying rumors the simplify getting additional budget
money for intelligence agencies (which are a part of MIC) is always the most desirable goal.
Notable quotes:
"... But a new assessment says China would prefer to see the president defeated, though it is not clear Beijing is doing much to meddle in the 2020 campaign to help Joseph R. Biden Jr. ..."
"... The statement then claims: "Ahead of the 2020 U.S. elections, foreign states will continue to use covert and overt influence measures in their attempts to sway U.S. voters' preferences and perspectives, shift U.S. policies, increase discord in the United States, and undermine the American people's confidence in our democratic process." ..."
"... But how do the 'intelligence' agencies know that foreign states want to "sway preferences", "increase discord" or "undermine confidence" in elections? ..."
"... But ascribing motive and intent is a tricky business, because perceived impact is often mistaken for true intent. [...] Where is the evidence that Russia actually wants to bring down the liberal world order and watch the United States burn? ..."
"... Well there is none. And that is why the 'intelligence' agencies do not present any evidence. ..."
"... Is there a secret policy paper by the Russian government that says it should "increase discord" in the United States? Is there some Chinese think tank report which says that undermining U.S. people's confidence in their democratic process would be good for China? ..."
"... If the 'intelligence' people have copies of those papers why not publish them? ..."
"... Let me guess. The 'intelligence' agencies have nothing, zero, nada. They are just making wild-ass guesses about 'intentions' of perceived enemies to impress the people who sign off their budget. ..."
"... Nowadays that seems to be their main purpose. ..."
But when one reads the piece itself one finds no fact that would support the 'Russia
Continues Interfering' statement:
Russia is using a range of techniques to denigrate Joseph R. Biden Jr., American intelligence
officials said Friday in their first public assessment that Moscow continues to try to
interfere in the 2020 campaign to help President Trump.
At the same time, the officials said China preferred that Mr. Trump be defeated in
November and was weighing whether to take more aggressive action in the election.
But officials briefed on the intelligence said that Russia was the far graver, and more
immediate, threat. While China seeks to gain influence in American politics, its leaders have
not yet decided to wade directly into the presidential contest, however much they may dislike
Mr. Trump, the officials said.
The assessment, included in a
statement released by William R. Evanina, the director of the National
Counterintelligence and Security Center, suggested the intelligence community was treading
carefully, reflecting the political heat generated by previous findings.
The authors emphasize the scaremongering hearsay from "officials briefed on the
intelligence" - i.e. Democratic congress members - about Russia but have nothing to back it
up.
When one reads the
statement by Evanina one finds nothing in it about Russian attempts to interfere in the
U.S. elections. Here is the only 'evidence' that is noted:
For example, pro-Russia Ukrainian parliamentarian Andriy Derkach is spreading claims about
corruption – including through publicizing leaked phone calls – to undermine
former Vice President Biden's candidacy and the Democratic Party. Some Kremlin-linked actors
are also seeking to boost President Trump's candidacy on social media and Russian television.
After a request from Rudy Giuliani, President Trump's personal attorney, a Ukrainian
parliamentarian published Ukrainian
evidence of Biden's very real interference in the Ukraine. Also: Some guest of a Russian TV
show had an opinion. How is either of those two items 'evidence' of Russian interference in
U.S. elections?
The statement then claims: "Ahead of the 2020 U.S. elections, foreign states will continue to use covert and overt
influence measures in their attempts to sway U.S. voters' preferences and perspectives, shift
U.S. policies, increase discord in the United States, and undermine the American people's
confidence in our democratic process."
But how do the 'intelligence' agencies know that foreign states want to "sway preferences",
"increase discord" or "undermine confidence" in elections?
The mainstream view in the U.S. media and government holds that the Kremlin is waging a
long-haul campaign to undermine and destabilize American democracy. Putin wants to see the
United States burn, and contentious elections offer a ready-made opportunity to fan the
flames.
But ascribing motive and intent is a tricky business, because perceived impact is often
mistaken for true intent. [...] Where is the evidence that Russia actually wants to bring
down the liberal world order and watch the United States burn?
Well there is none. And that is why the 'intelligence' agencies do not present any
evidence.
Even the NYT writers have to
admit that there is nothing there:
The release on Friday was short on specifics, ...
and
Intelligence agencies focus their work on the intentions of foreign governments, and steer
clear of assessing if those efforts have had an effect on American voters.
How do 'intelligence' agencies know Russian, Chinese or Iranian 'intentions'. Is there a
secret policy paper by the Russian government that says it should "increase discord" in the
United States? Is there some Chinese think tank report which says that undermining U.S.
people's confidence in their democratic process would be good for China?
If the 'intelligence' people have copies of those papers why not publish them?
Let me guess. The 'intelligence' agencies have nothing, zero, nada. They are just making
wild-ass guesses about 'intentions' of perceived enemies to impress the people who sign off
their budget.
Nowadays that seems to be their main purpose.
Posted by b on August 8, 2020 at 18:08 UTC |
Permalink
"There's no difference between John Bolton, Brian Hook or Elliott Abrams," Iranian Foreign
Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said in
a tweet with the hashtag #BankruptUSPolicy on Friday.
"When U.S. policy concerns Iran, American officials have been biting off more than they can
chew. This applies to Mike Pompeo, Donald Trump and their successors," Mousavi added.
Indeed in perhaps one of the greatest symbols or representations of the contradictions and
absurdity inherent in US foreign policy of the past few decades, and a supreme irony that can't
be emphasized enough: the new US envoy to Iran who will oversee Pompeo's 'maximum pressure'
campaign remains the most publicly visible face of the 1980's Iran-Contra affair .
Elliott Abrams has been named to the position after Brian Hook stepping down. This means the
man who will continue to push for the extension of a UN arms embargo against Iran once himself
was deeply involved in illegally selling weapons to Iran and covering it up .
Most famously, or we should say infamously, Abrams pleaded guilty to lying to Congress in
1991 following years of the Iran-Contra scandal engulfing the Reagan administration; however,
he was also pardoned by outgoing president George H.W. Bush at around the same time.
"Pardoned by George H.W. Bush in 1992, Abrams was a pivotal figure in the foreign-policy
scandal that shook the Reagan administration, lying to Congress about his knowledge of the plot
to covertly sell weapons to the Khomeini government and use the proceeds to illegally fund the
right-wing Contras rebel group in Nicaragua ,"
NY Mag reviews.
Some are noting this heightens the chances that Washington could get dragged into a war
involving Israel and Iran.
Recall too that Abrams has been Trump's point man for ousting Maduro from Venezuela, and it
appears he'll remain in the post of special envoy for Venezuela as well.
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The Grayzone journalist, Anya Parampil, who has frequently reported from Venezuela, alleged
this week that Abrams will "try and destroy Venezuela and Iran at the same time".
https://www.dianomi.com/smartads.epl?id=4879&num_ads=18&cf=1258.5.zerohedge%20190919&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.zerohedge.com%2Fmarkets%2Fno-difference-between-john-bolton-brian-hook-or-elliott-abrams-iran-fm Wild Bill Steamcock , 14 hours ago
Abrams is a disgrace. This Administration should be dying in it's own shame bringing this
swine back into government.
He's a leach. He's about lining his own pockets. He can't even own a .22 single shot, yet
he's shaping international policy.
This country is dead. And the fact Trump has democrat and zionist Kushner as advisor,
bringing in guys like Bolton and Abrams, Reince Priebus, H.R. McMaster and that Ukranian pet
goblin of his, in not firing Comey et. al day 1 means he's not the answer. Face it.
And to be fair, it doesn't matter anymore who is POTUS. It hasn't really mattered in quite
some time. The Plan rolls along.
Kinskian , 15 hours ago
Trump is a clumsy and transparent Zionist stooge.
PT , 14 hours ago
Gotta admit, if you're going to have a Zionist stooge then you are better off having a
clumsy and transparent one.
Dank fur Kopf , 14 hours ago
Elliott Abrams is a moron. He's been running the exact same stupid coup strategy for
decades, and can't conceive of a world where the enemy has worked out how to defeat that.
Venezuela was set to be US foreign policies most embarrassing failure--but maybe Iran will
be worse.
Dank fur Kopf , 14 hours ago
Let's predict what Abrams will attempt:
Running out of the US/UK embassies, Abrams will attempt to identify a potential
alternative leader who is corrupt and controllable. They'll throw political support behind
this false leader, and try and find enough military to support him. Then, protests in the
streets, and the small faction of the military--supported by foreign forces--will attempt to
establish control.
Counter: China and Russia will import anti-coup specialists. Individuals in the Iranian
military will pretend to be on board claiming to have thousands at call, and when the false
leader gives the call, they won't answer. All the conspirators will be caught out on the
street, and have to flee to embassies for political asylum. Like what happened in Venezuela
recently, and Turkey in 2016. This will allow Iran to do a purge of all the real threats
(remembering that Iran has the death penalty for sedition), and give them enough
justification to end diplomatic missions in the country that are being used as launch
pads.
Plunder, me hearties! Plunder! Yo Ho Ho and a barrel of oil!
"President Trump wants it known that -- despite his recent decision to pull back the U.S.
militarily back from previously Kurdish-held territory in Syria -- he plans on "
keeping the oil " in Syria and using American troops to do it.
If he follows through, he'll set a dangerous precedent -- and might commit a war crime.
Keeping Syria's oil could well constitute pillage -- theft during war -- which is banned in
Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention and the 1907 Hague Laws and
Customs of War on Land, which states, "The pillage of a town or place, even when taken by
assault, is prohibited." The prohibition has a solid grounding in the laws of war and
international criminal justice , and the U.S. federal code , including as a
sanction for the illegal exploitation of natural resources such as oil from war zones.'
washpo
"Trump's more grave rationale is his conception of oil as remuneration for U.S. military
investment in the Middle East. In a speech Oct. 29, he said: "We want to keep the oil. $45
million a month? Keep the oil." It mirrors a sentiment he expressed to ABC News in 2011 about
Iraqi oil, saying
, "You win the war and you take it. You're not stealing anything. We're taking back $1.5
trillion to reimburse ourselves. " That argument goes well beyond the notion of securing the
oil -- it suggests trying to profit from it -- and therefore risks triggering responsibility
for pillage. Contrary to Trump's characterization, pillage is a form of stealing.
None of this is a new line of thinking for Trump: As a private citizen in 2011, in an
interview with the Wall Street Journal, commenting on U.S. military involvement in Libya,
he said : "I'm only interested in Libya if we take the oil. If we don't take the oil, I'm
not interested." Regarding Iraq, he
said : "I always heard that when we went into Iraq, we went in for the oil. I said, 'Ah,
that sounds smart.' " Indeed, he sounded disappointed during his televised announcement last
week of the killing of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, when he returned to the
subject of oil and
lamented : "I always used to say 'If they're going into Iraq, keep the oil.' They never
did. They never did."" washpo "Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said during the committee
hearing that SDF General Commander Mazloum Abdi informed him that a deal had been signed with
an American company to "modernize the oil fields in northeastern Syria", and asked Pompeo
whether the administration was supportive of it.
"We are," Pompeo responded during the hearing streamed live by PBS. "The deal took a little
longer ... than we had hoped, and now we're in implementation."" Reuters -------------- Barry
McCaffery has commented on Twitter that if we do this we are becoming pirates. As he says, the
oil belongs to Syria. I agree. pl
We're watching civil war unfold in the US and these pompous asses are busy trying to
sponge up Syrian oil, the trivial amount of stuff that is land-locked hundreds of miles from
any territory we control or is friendly to the US? God help us who is advising the tweeter in
chief? Can't Trump read an oil price chart any better than Fauci can read a Covid infection
rate? Did his son-in-law tell him what a great idea that would be? Are the warrior generals
who wouldn't defend this nation's capital against antifa, with the tacit consent at sedition
by Esper, in agreement with this line of strategic wisdom too? Maybe Senator Graham, who just
yesterday finally cornered Sally Yates into admitting under oath that the FISA warrant on
Carter Page was a fraud, is covering his bases in case the left's "resistance" to the
November election results in antifa marching into D.C. to bring Biden's secret choice as V.P.
into power? We have less reason to be in Syria than we do to still be defending Germany and
the rest of Europe from the USSR.
Well, with avarice as the guiding principle of the Trump administration's foreign policy,
at least there's no hypocrisy. Just pure, unadulterated greed. The honesty is almost
admirable. But I don't know how our Iranian policy fits into the avarice doctrine.
As far as Trump's pirate name goes, I do like the sound of "Bonespurs." I can see the flag
flying from the mainmast... a skeleton foot of or on a field of sable.
As an army of occupation the US military could requisition the oil, but according to the
Hague Regulations it can do so only for its own needs. It can not do so for the fun and
profits of the foreign state that sent that army in.
If you really, really, really squint hard then perhaps there is wriggle room under Article
55 i.e. Trump can claim that he is the usufructuary of the territory, and therefore can
benefit from the pumping.
But arguing that would be a hopeless brief.
So, yeah, Trump as a medieval warlord. Perhaps he'll also reintroduce the practice of
prima nocta.
I would accept the idea of Trump's inability to distinguish between government and
business, but people like Jeffries and the Pomp are neocon ideologues through and through.
Nothing more.
"... "When I analyze the current situation, I understand that this is a rehearsal for biological warfare," ..."
"... "I am not saying that this virus was created by humans... but this is a test of the health system's strength, including the country's biological defense." ..."
"... More sinophobic drivel and propaganda. Is it coming from Bannon, Navarro,Fox News, and the other similar warmongering outfits ? This type of propaganda is irrational but certainly purposeful to whip declining exceptionals into war frenzy. They are correct in one aspect - China is outpacing the US and will eventually in 10-20 years surpass it as #1 in Economic power (already the case) and Technology ..."
"... China is a missile-based military deploying hypersonics. This means the US Navy has to standoff 1000 km from the Chinese naval forces or missiles from mainland will decimate the carrier task forces within that range. ..."
"... More sinophobic drivel and propaganda. Is it coming from Bannon, Navarro,Fox News, and the other similar warmongering outfits ? This type of propaganda is irrational but certainly purposeful to whip declining exceptionals into war frenzy. They are correct in one aspect - China is outpacing the US and will eventually in 10-20 years surpass it as #1 in Economic power (already the case) and Technology ..."
"... China is a missile-based military deploying hypersonics. This means the US Navy has to standoff 1000 km from the Chinese naval forces or missiles from mainland will decimate the carrier task forces within that range. ..."
"... Of course having moved much of our manufacturing base into China and then allowing their students to take up most of the hard engineering class space and lab assistantships while diverting our students to 'studies' programs has been a resounding success. ..."
"... "There are few viable military options for warmongering chickenhawks advising..." Bush, Obama, Biden, a Triumverate of peacemakers. Remind me who is ordering troops out of Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria. ..."
"... Of course having moved much of our manufacturing base into China and then allowing their students to take up most of the hard engineering class space and lab assistantships while diverting our students to 'studies' programs has been a resounding success. ..."
"... "There are few viable military options for warmongering chickenhawks advising..." Bush, Obama, Biden, a Triumverate of peacemakers. Remind me who is ordering troops out of Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria. ..."
The rattling of sabres between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the U.S. is becoming
louder, and causing many to ponder if World War III is not far off. There are those in the
international community increasingly alarmed given the COVID situation, the South China Sea
imbroglio, and China's growing threat that they intend to invade and absorb Taiwan into
Communist China within a year. These items have led to the belief that World War III is on the
horizon.
Just recently, Dr.Leonid Roshal, a noted Moscow physician, hostage negotiator, and advisor
to the WHO remarked that the COVID pandemic is a dry run for World War III, and that COVID-19
is practice for future biological warfare. Covid-19 pandemic has functioned as a "rehearsal for
biological warfare," Dr. Roshal also believes that the rapidly-spreading virus was a test for
the world's healthcare systems.
In an interview with Forbes, Professor Roshal, President of the Research Institute of
Emergency Pediatric Surgery and Traumatology, explained that not all nations were ready for a
mass influx of patients, and their lack of preparation has been exposed by the pandemic.
"When I analyze the current situation, I understand that this is a rehearsal for
biological warfare," he explained. "I am not saying that this virus was created by
humans... but this is a test of the health system's strength, including the country's
biological defense."
In addition, Hong Kong-based virologist Yan Li-Meng, currently in hiding at an undisclosed
location, claims that the COVID-19 coronavirus came from a People's Liberation Army lab, and
not from a Wuhan wet market as Beijing has claimed. Speaking on a live stream interview on
Taiwan's News Agency Lude Press, she said, "At that time, I clearly assessed that the virus
came from a Chinese Communist Party military lab. The Wuhan wet market was just used as a
decoy." Yan has been in hiding in the U.S. after fleeing Hong Kong in April.
Chinese PLA Senior Colonel Ren Guoqiang stated recently that TAIWAN WILL be reunified with
the rest of China - and any attempt by the United States to interfere is futile and dangerous.
Senior Colonel Guoqiang is Deputy Director of the Ministry of Defense's Information Office, and
Chinese Defense Ministry Spokesman. J
entrybody comment-odd comment-has-avatar">
Well, this is certainly a depressing and frightening post. I can't say, however, that I
have been thinking along the same lines. However, since I am basically a nobody, I have tried
to assure myself that I am being paranoid. So, it's not helping that some people who are much
more knowledgeable have expressed in print some of the fears I have been feeling over these
months dealing with the pandemic.
All I can do is pray and hold fast to my faith in God. Perhaps He will lift up the people
who can deter us from the predictions of this post. (But are we worthy of being saved?)
Well, this is certainly a depressing and frightening post. I can't say, however, that I
have been thinking along the same lines. However, since I am basically a nobody, I have tried
to assure myself that I am being paranoid. So, it's not helping that some people who are much
more knowledgeable have expressed in print some of the fears I have been feeling over these
months dealing with the pandemic.
All I can do is pray and hold fast to my faith in God. Perhaps He will lift up the people
who can deter us from the predictions of this post. (But are we worthy of being saved?)
I don't believe there will be any direct military conflict. However, we can expect some
saber rattling from both sides.
Sec.Azhar is leading a US delegation to Taiwan. On another note Taiwan ain't HK. They
have an independent government. While they will eventually be overwhelmed in any military
conflict with China if no other country intervenes on Taiwan's side, they definitely have the
capability to inflict a black eye.
The CCP has been emboldened precisely because the US government has actively abetted
their rapaciousness for many decades under both parties. From Clinton's MFN designation to Bush
& Obama administrations actively supporting the shuttering of US manufacturing.
Trump is making the first course correction albeit in a limited manner with tariffs. He
has however changed the tone in an important manner by no longer just kowtowing to whatever the
CCP wants.
This story of ARM China exemplifies CCP long-term policy of requiring JVs to access the
Chinese market and once technology and know-how have been successfully transferred, then
expropriating it. The west in general and the US in particular have turned a blind eye. Huawei
got going by stealing cisco source code and design. https://www.businessinsider.com/arm-conflict-china-complicates-acquisition-prospects-2020-8
It is high time for the US to make the totalitarian Chinese communists pay a price and
directly take the fight to them economically and financially. The CCP must be doing their best
to insure a Biden win to return to the status quo or wait another Trump term and hope an
establishment Democrat or Republican wins after. They have bought and paid the establishment
politicians, entire think-tanks, many in academia and the media.
I don't believe there will be any direct military conflict. However, we can expect some
saber rattling from both sides.
Sec.Azhar is leading a US delegation to Taiwan. On another note Taiwan ain't HK. They have
an independent government. While they will eventually be overwhelmed in any military conflict
with China if no other country intervenes on Taiwan's side, they definitely have the
capability to inflict a black eye.
The CCP has been emboldened precisely because the US government has actively abetted their
rapaciousness for many decades under both parties. From Clinton's MFN designation to Bush
& Obama administrations actively supporting the shuttering of US manufacturing.
Trump is making the first course correction albeit in a limited manner with tariffs. He
has however changed the tone in an important manner by no longer just kowtowing to whatever
the CCP wants.
This story of ARM China exemplifies CCP long-term policy of requiring JVs to access the
Chinese market and once technology and know-how have been successfully transferred, then
expropriating it. The west in general and the US in particular have turned a blind eye.
Huawei got going by stealing cisco source code and design.
https://www.businessinsider.com/arm-conflict-china-complicates-acquisition-prospects-2020-8
It is high time for the US to make the totalitarian Chinese communists pay a price and
directly take the fight to them economically and financially. The CCP must be doing their
best to insure a Biden win to return to the status quo or wait another Trump term and hope an
establishment Democrat or Republican wins after. They have bought and paid the establishment
politicians, entire think-tanks, many in academia and the media.
More sinophobic drivel and propaganda. Is it coming from Bannon, Navarro,Fox News,
and the other similar warmongering outfits ? This type of propaganda is irrational but
certainly purposeful to whip declining exceptionals into war frenzy. They are correct in one
aspect - China is outpacing the US and will eventually in 10-20 years surpass it as #1 in
Economic power (already the case) and Technology .
There are few viable military options for warmongering chickenhawks advising Trump.
Certainly, US Naval Intel and PACCOM (now INDOPACCOM) brass who would love a grand Coral Sea
2.0 battle to destroy PLAN vessel on the seas. However, no one, except few Marine 4 stars want
any land war. The Marines think they can defeat the PLA on some islands. That kind of warfare
is for hollywood movies. China is a missile-based military deploying hypersonics. This
means the US Navy has to standoff 1000 km from the Chinese naval forces or missiles from
mainland will decimate the carrier task forces within that range.
There won't be any war in SE Asia or East Asia. This area now has a circuit breaker,
Russia. Russia is building a naval presence, expanding it's aerospace arm, has basing rights in
the zone in Vietnam and has long range radars that cover a lot of the zones, and submarines the
US is having issues tracking.
The signals from China and Russia to the US military is very clear. You can walk and talk
like the Hegemon but the days of regional hegemony are over. ASEAN nations will not accepting
accept a return to gunboat diplomacy and colonization. All these nations want prosperity and
progress, not western hegemony and military destruction.
This is why the hybrid war of sanctions, trade war, Infowars, cyberwar, proxies in
Central Asia (ISIS and AQ), color revolution attempts in Hong Kong, hysterics about Tibet and
Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia (Bannon front) are on the front burner. Military action is a losing
proposition for the US. They simply cannot win anything anywhere in the Asia Pacific, western
Asia or even against near peer powers proxies like Venezuela.
China simply has to do what Russia does and tell the US to pound sand.
More sinophobic drivel and propaganda. Is it coming from Bannon, Navarro,Fox News, and
the other similar warmongering outfits ? This type of propaganda is irrational but certainly
purposeful to whip declining exceptionals into war frenzy. They are correct in one aspect -
China is outpacing the US and will eventually in 10-20 years surpass it as #1 in Economic
power (already the case) and Technology .
There are few viable military options for warmongering chickenhawks advising Trump.
Certainly, US Naval Intel and PACCOM (now INDOPACCOM) brass who would love a grand Coral Sea
2.0 battle to destroy PLAN vessel on the seas. However, no one, except few Marine 4 stars
want any land war. The Marines think they can defeat the PLA on some islands. That kind of
warfare is for hollywood movies. China is a missile-based military deploying hypersonics.
This means the US Navy has to standoff 1000 km from the Chinese naval forces or missiles from
mainland will decimate the carrier task forces within that range.
There won't be any war in SE Asia or East Asia. This area now has a circuit breaker,
Russia. Russia is building a naval presence, expanding it's aerospace arm, has basing rights
in the zone in Vietnam and has long range radars that cover a lot of the zones, and
submarines the US is having issues tracking.
The signals from China and Russia to the US military is very clear. You can walk and talk
like the Hegemon but the days of regional hegemony are over. ASEAN nations will not accepting
accept a return to gunboat diplomacy and colonization. All these nations want prosperity and
progress, not western hegemony and military destruction.
This is why the hybrid war of sanctions, trade war, Infowars, cyberwar, proxies in Central
Asia (ISIS and AQ), color revolution attempts in Hong Kong, hysterics about Tibet and
Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia (Bannon front) are on the front burner. Military action is a
losing proposition for the US. They simply cannot win anything anywhere in the Asia Pacific,
western Asia or even against near peer powers proxies like Venezuela.
China simply has to do what Russia does and tell the US to pound sand.
We've been in a war with China for a few decades now, and losing. Of course having
moved much of our manufacturing base into China and then allowing their students to take up
most of the hard engineering class space and lab assistantships while diverting our students to
'studies' programs has been a resounding success.
Horatio,
"There are few viable military options for warmongering chickenhawks advising..."
Bush, Obama, Biden, a Triumverate of peacemakers. Remind me who is ordering troops out of Iraq,
Afghanistan and Syria.
We've been in a war with China for a few decades now, and losing. Of course having
moved much of our manufacturing base into China and then allowing their students to take up
most of the hard engineering class space and lab assistantships while diverting our students
to 'studies' programs has been a resounding success.
Horatio,
"There are few viable military options for warmongering chickenhawks advising..."
Bush, Obama, Biden, a Triumverate of peacemakers. Remind me who is ordering troops out of
Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria.
The rattling. of sabres between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the
U.S.
That line as introduction gives away the article as plain and unsofisticated propaganda.
Nobody refers to the USA as the Republican Party, the red scare is a momified bogey..
The rattling. of sabres between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the U.S.
That line as introduction gives away the article as plain and unsofisticated propaganda.
Nobody refers to the USA as the Republican Party, the red scare is a momified bogey..
Hillary is a co-founder of Onward
Together , a Democratic Party front group that is affiliated to other activist
organizations. In a recent e-mail she played the race card in a bid to solidify the black vote
behind the Democratic Party, writing "Friend, George Floyd's life mattered. Ahmaud Arbery and
Breonna Taylor's lives mattered. Black lives matter. Against a backdrop of a pandemic that has
disproportionately ravaged communities of color, we are being painfully reminded right now that
we are long overdue for honest reckoning and meaningful action to dismantle systemic
racism."
It is, of course, a not-so-subtle bid to buy votes using the currently popular code words
"systemic racism" as a pledge that the Democrats will take steps to materially benefit blacks
if the party wins the White House and a majority in the Senate. She ends her e-mail with an odd
commitment, "I promise to keep fighting alongside all of you to make the United States a place
where all men and all women are treated as equals, just as we are and just as we deserve to
be." The comment is odd because she is on one hand promising to promote the interests of one
group based on skin color while also stating that everyone should be "treated as equals."
Someone should tip her off to the fact that employment and educational racial preferences and
reparations are not the hallmarks of a government that treats everyone the same.
But if one really wants to dig into the depths of the Democratic Party soul, or lack
thereof, there is no one who is better than former U.N. Ambassador and Secretary of State under
Bill Clinton, the estimable Madeleine Albright. She too has written an e-mail that recently
went out to Democratic Party supporters, saying:
"I'm deeply concerned. Donald Trump poses an existential threat to our standing in the world
and continues to threaten the decades of diplomatic progress we had made. It is easy to forget
from the comfort of our homes that for many people, America is a beacon of hope and
opportunity. We're known as a country that keeps our promises and upholds justice and
democracy, and that didn't just happen overnight. We've spent decades building our
nation's reputation on the world stage through careful, strategic diplomacy -- but in just
under four years, Trump has done unspeakable damage to those relationships and has insulted
even our closest allies."
Albright, who is perhaps most famous for having stated that she thought that the deaths of
500,000 Iraqi children due to U.S. imposed sanctions was "worth it," is living in a fantasy
bubble that many politicians and high government officials seem to inhabit. She embraces the
America the "Essential Nation" concept because it makes her and her former boss Bill Clinton
look like great statesmen. She once enthused
nonsensically that "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."
Madeleine Albright's view that "America is a beacon of hope and opportunity known as a
country that keeps our promises and upholds justice and democracy" is also, of course,
completely delusional, as opinion polls regularly indicate that nearly the entire world
considers the U.S. to be extremely dangerous and virtually a rogue state in its blind pursuit
of narrow self-interest combined with an unwillingness to uphold international law. And that
has been true under both Democratic and Republican recent presidents, including Clinton. It is
not just Trump.
Albright is clearly on a roll and has also submitted to a New York Times
interview , further enlightening that paper's readership on why the Trump administration is
failing in its job of protecting the American people. The questions and answers are singularly,
perhaps deliberately, unexciting and are largely focused on coronavirus and the new world order
that it is shaping. Albright faults Trump for not promoting an international effort to defeat
the virus, which is perhaps a bridge too far for most Americans who are not even very receptive
to a nationally mandated pandemic response, let alone one requiring cooperation with
"foreigners."
Albright's persistence as a go-to media "expert" on international relations is befuddling
given her own history as an integral part of the inept foreign policy promoted by the Clinton
Administration. She and Bill Clinton became cheerleaders for an unnecessary Balkan war that
still resonates and were responsible for what was possibly the greatest foreign policy blunder
(with the possible exception of the Iraq War) since the Second World War. That consisted of
ignoring the commitment to post-Soviet Russia to not take advantage of the 1991 end of
Communism by expanding U.S. or NATO military presence into Eastern Europe. Clinton/Albright
reneged on that understanding and opened the door for many of the former Soviet allied states
to enter NATO, thereby introducing a hostile military presence right up to Russia's border.
Simultaneously, the U.S. enabled the election as Russian president of the hapless drunk
Boris Yeltsin, who, guided by advisers sent by the White House, oversaw the western looting of
his country's natural resources. The bad decision-making under the Clintons led inevitably to
the rise of Vladimir Putin as a corrective, which, exacerbated by Hillary Clinton as Secretary
of State and a maladroit Donald Trump, has in turn produced the poisoned bilateral relationship
between Washington and Moscow that currently prevails.
So, one might reasonably suggest to Joe Biden that if he really wants to get elected in
November it would be a good idea to keep the Clintons, Albright and maybe even Obama carefully
hidden away somewhere. Albright's interview characteristically concludes with her plan for an
"Avengers style dream team" to "fix the world right now." She said that "Well, it certainly
would be a female team. Without naming names, I would really try to look for women who are in
office, both in the executive and legislative branch. I would try to have a female C.E.O., but
also somebody who heads up a nongovernmental organization. You don't want everybody that's
exactly the same. Oh, and I'm about to do a program for the National Democratic Institute with
Angelina Jolie, and she made the most amazing movie about what was going on in Bosnia, so I
would want her on my team."
No men allowed and a Hollywood actress who is regarded as somewhat odd? Right.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest,
a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a
more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is
<a://councilforthenationalinterest.org%2C/"
title="https://councilforthenationalinterest.org%2C/"
href="https://councilforthenationalinterest.org%2C/">https://councilforthenationalinterest.org,
address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is
<a:[email protected]" title="mailto:[email protected]"
href="mailto:[email protected]">[email protected].
Hillary and Barack were also complicit in unnecessary wars against Libya and Syria that
have devastated both countries.
Most Americans remain unaware of their destruction of Libya, Africa's most prosperous
nation, which claimed 40,000 black lives. Thousands more were killed as they destroyed
Somalia and Sudan as part of the neocon plan from the Bush era to destroy "seven countries in
five years" as General Wesley Clark told the world. Thousands more died as they attempted to
destroy Syria. Here is a short summary of their destruction of Libya:
Take a close look at the visage of Mad Albright. What do you see beyond the simple ravages
of the aging process on a life misspent? Check out those eyes, unmasked by the rouge. Take a
close look. What do you see? Can you discern the sociopathic evidence, the haunting by the
scores of thousands of Iraqi children who starved to death under the tender mercies of United
$tates of America Corporation's foreign policy on behalf of the agenda of the elite crime
clans of highest international finance.
Maddie is a minion, a minion for genocide and for a total lack of elementary human
empathy. She is an ambulatory exemplar of Kali Yuga, the age of devolution, which in polar
opposition to the Celestial Kingdom which reigned in China as recently as the Ming Dynasty.
During that era where administrative positions were based as much as possible on merit, the
contrast is vivid versus the current reality in our ruptured republic where instead of the
cream, the scum rises to the top.
Remove that pic of know nothing old owl from this site – some children might see
it!
We need updates on Biden's mega corruption in Ukraine investigation. Trump was impeached
for talking to Ukraine president about Biden's corruption and that lifetime taxpayers leech
is Democrats front runner for the highest office – pathetic.
During the days of her power and glory (Yeltsin years) Albright had made nine maps of the
countries that would be created by the dissolution of Russia. Somebody walked in the poker
game room and said "Let's play a different game". Enter the Putin era.
The democrats are just snake skins laying on the asphalt. The new sheriff in town (Syria,
Libya) is laying out a different plan. Good by NWO , halo multipolar world.
Trump declared on many occasions " we are there because we want the oil"; crude? Yes but
honest at least. For those who prefer smooth talkers like the Clintons and the Obamas, I
state that the legacy of those two administrations has done more harm to the foreign
perception of US power In the Middle East and Eastern Europe than any vulgar language
pronounced by Trump who, so far, can be credited with not having started any foreign
wars.
At least Trump tried to withdraw American troops from Syria only to be kept in check by
the reality of the American Deep state power structure. Had he succeeded in his endeavour, US
Russia relations would have better than they are today.
Three months to the election and what is on the main menu? Two old white men, neither fit
to serve the office of the Presidency. The nation is a tired old whore, spent from all those
wars for Zion, and it seems to me the crazy cat lady from the Simpsons is better than Trump
or Biden. Both candidates are loony tune, both are completely unacceptable. We are looking at
Weimar in the mirror. The nation has run it's course, the Republic is dead.
(Weimar Germany, of course, collapsed. Weimar is also the prelude democratic state before
the rise of the authoritarian state. All those who thought Trump was a new Hitler are fools,
Trump is the slavish whore of the Jews, not the opposing force, not the charismatic leader
who restores sanity to the nation wrecked by Jews. What Trump is, is the final wrecking ball,
not the savior.)
Gone are the glory days of imperial dreams, Amerika is not longer fit to wage another big
war in the Middle East for Israel. So what is Bibi to do, Israel is in corona crazy lockdown,
and his influence on Amerikan politics seems to me slipping badly. How much longer will AIPAC
be allowed to influence our politicians if we go into a hyper deflationary crash? It seems to
me the Greater Israel project is about to get the rug pulled out, because if the USA crashes
and burns no one will tolerate one more cent going to that god forsaken shithole.
"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."
Whom the gods would destroy they first make Madeleine.
The main difference between the reps and dems is their party names. Both represent the
same oligarch interests. Most of the dem objections to trump are psywar manipulations for
public consumption, not serious policy differences. Pretty much all fluff. The reps also do
the same about influencial dems, they endlessly talk nonsense about inconsequential things
about them.
The drama queenery is to manipulate the public into thinking their votes for either party
actually matter in some way. As of late, that psywar has been failing since most people don't
see much difference between the two and believe both parties don't represent them and are
lying scum. Trying to neutralize this view by the people is part of the reason the psywar
critters have ramped up the hysterics.
Barack's mother, Madeleine's father and Chelsea's husband all have one thing in common and
that something is without which sleepy Joe can't be elected so the author's advice to keep
Obamas, Clintons and Albright at bay is moot at best!
Her statement about Iraqi children should not come as a surprise to any. She was is from
that part of Europe which is famous for being racist.
I came across with an interesting story during Balkan "peace" negotiations in a Paris in
90s. The Bosnian and Serbian delegates were negotiating in Paris hotel where American
delegate was staying. One time, at 4 O'clock in the morning out curiosity sMadeline went and
knocked on the negotiators door. One of them opened the door and failed to recognize her and
thought her to be the cleaning lady. Told her to come back later.
That role suits her perfectly.
Set everything else aside and consider the relationship of each POTUS to the
sovereign.
The terminology I use is that they fall somewhere on the spectrum from figurehead to real
POTUS.
Obama and Trump are opposites in this respect. Obama took office having gifted the
national security state a globally appealing front-man. While he had campaigned and started
his presidency looking like he wanted to use his power to move the needle in the right
direction, he was quickly snapped like a butter bean, retreating into the presidential safe
space offered, at least up until that point, to a POTUS that accepted the constrained role to
which the American presidency had been consigned in the modern era.
There were signs almost immediately with Obama. After decisively winning election and
becoming our first black president, he was house-trained early on over a single comment
defending his Harvard professor friend after a silly arrest.
Does anyone other than me even remember this incident? Or how it completely emasculated
the new POTUS, with him retreating behind a teleprompter for everything other than occasional
unscripted remarks that, if unwittingly notable or problematic, were quickly corrected by
some handler.
Now consider Trump. Both as candidate and POTUS he's Obama's opposite. Where Obama had the
establishment wind at his back, writ large those same forces tried to destroy Trump's
candidacy and presidency.
Rather than belabor any particulars I'll just note that the psychological driver for the
ruling and governing classes, regardless of their ideological and programmatic preferences,
is boundless resentment toward him.
After all, it isn't an overstatement to note that more than any other president, Trump got
there on his own, with a near complete array of establishment forces, domestic and foreign,
against him, including his own party.
Who would have thought such a thing possible before Trump did it?
Little has changed since 2016. We're in our current moment because destroying Trump
remains as close to a dues ex machina as any of us have or will see in our lifetimes. There
are real, monumental interests at stake but when you get right down to it most personalities
in the ruling and governing classes -- who to a one grew up with mama telling them they
should be POTUS someday, need him gone so they can go back to feeling better about
themselves.
@RoatanBill pointees he has to placate some truly awful people, such as Mitt Romney. Some
personnel selections that appear to be made by the President are actually part of package
deals where key Senators get to pick their names. That is why certain parts of the
administration are out of touch with Trump's agenda.
Trump has been 100% successful preventing NeoConDemocrats from starting new wars.
Unwinding the messes he inherited from prior administrations is much more complicated.
Hopefully Trump's now inevitable second term will include a friendlier Senate. That will
help him get more done than his first term which was impeded by the ObamaGate deception.
I don't care about all the political backstabbing and massaging. If he had any balls he'd
use the same New York English I grew up with and tell the entire Congress, the Supreme Court
and the intel agencies to go F themselves and do so on national TV. The silent majority in
the country would back up his play.
But he doesn't do that because he's a bought and paid for politico just like the rest of
them. The deep state probably has dirt on him like everyone else in the District of Criminals
and they tell him how to behave. He backs off and allows more deaths to occur to save his
sorry ass from some exposure.
@RoatanBill asking the wrong question . Let me Fix That For You.
As Impeachment Jury, the Senate has final say on whether Trump stays in
office.
Is that true or isn't it? Yes or no?
Are you leading a movement to:
-- Jettison the Constitution
-- Dissolve Congress and the Supreme Court
-- Proclaim Trump as God Emperor of the Golden Throne
When you finish this task, I will back your position that Trump can act unilaterally with
regard to foreign troop deployments.
Until then, I strongly recommend a more realistic and nuanced view on what a President can
accomplish.
complicit in unnecessary wars against Libya and Syria
That's putting it in polite terms. In reality it's massive war criminality, wars of
aggression that killed, maimed and uprooted millions of people in other countries. Not that
it caused as much of a stir domestically as the death of Floyd but there you have it, the
order of priorities of the American people and their supposed leaders. During the Vietnam war
a common chant was "Hey hey, LBJ, how many kids you kill today?". This is true for the
Clintons, Obama, Albright and all the rest of them yet somehow they still have their fans.
They're past their expiration dates yet are still kicking around since the Dem party is
sclerotic with no new blood, no new ideas, just the same old parasites. Their presidential
candidate is way past retirement age and has been obviously faltering in public. This is
their champion, a lifelong mediocrity who is entering senility? US no longer has any wind in
its sails.
O think out move in the Balkans was essentially correct. Even Russia scolded their allies
for their behavior as over the top in brutality. If Russia your closest ally says you are
over the top -- then there's a good chance the genocide claim has merit.
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- –
But I see no reason for Dr. Giraldo to be tepid here. somalia is the a complete
embarssment. The admin took a feed and water operation and turned into a "warloard" hunt
without any clue began interfering into the internal affairs of a complex former colonized
region left bankrupt to reconfigure itself and began a failed bid to set aright -- ohhh that
should sound familiar.
1. They turned a mess into a "warlord" victory for the leader they thought most
dangerous(and I hate that word and its connotations -- a civil conflict) and then to top it
off
2. ran away with their tail between their legs -- it was in my mind the second sign of US
vulnerability to asymmetric warefare
counter balance that against not intervening in the genocide in Africa's Rwanda. The deep
level hypocrisy here or complete bankrupt moral efficacy -- intervening in Bosnia-Herzegovina
but completely ignoring the a worse case in Africa.
All of which occurred under the foreign policy headship of Mrs Albright. Ahhh they are
women hear them roar . . . Let's get it straight.
Women wanted us in
Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Syria, Ukraine, Libya, they want to intervene . . . in the name
of humanity for any host of issues, in a bid to appear tough they will on occasion say the
incedulous -- but the bottom lie
female leadership has demonstrated to be no more effective, astute, or beneficial than
that of the men.
And allow me to get this out of the way before it starts though start it will,
In fact, it appears that not even white skin is not road to effective political leadership
or governance as all of the key players have been predominately and by that I mean near all
white. But here the test cases about femininity alone being a key qualifier just does not pan
out. And no personal offense Dr. Giraldi neither is an elite education.
@A123 ght as the dollar keeps declining in importance and the whole world is sick of the
sanctions and bullying.
So, Yes, I'm in favor of ending the Constitution as it has shown to be a useless piece of
paper except to deceive those that think it's worth something. Yes, I'm in favor of getting
rid of the criminals in DC including the asshat president, all of congress and the absolutely
useless supreme court. I'm in favor of 50 new countries once the empire expires offering 50
experiments on how to govern and let the best idea win.
Your more nuanced approach is exactly what Trump is doing – exactly nothing. He's
the most do nothing president in decades.
If a primary principle, supposedly justifying the Nuremburg Trials, that initiating wars
of aggression is a criminal act against humanity, then the Clintons, Bush II, Albright,
essentially all the USA's senior foreign policy and military bureaucrats over the last thirty
years, and all the Zionist/neocons urging them on and aiding and abetting their criminal
acts, would end their lives in Spandau Prison or dangling at the end of a rope.
In the following years I've been shocked again and again to observe Trump's ignorance of
government and politics and, even more disturbing, his apparent unwillingness to recover and
learn from his mistakes. I'm not sure whether this is due to stupidity, laziness, or
sociopathic levels of grandiosity. Whatever the cause, the result has been an inability on
the part of Trump to fill many campaign promises. (A less sympathetic interpretation of
events might be that Trump's campaign promises were deliberate lies.)
@A123 ng out of the country. The Chinese were eager to comply to get access to the
processes involved. The Chinese didn't have to steal anything, as the US corporations
voluntarily gave them the tech as part of the deal to be in China. The reason to move out of
the US is due to the high labor rate and regulations costs. Those costs are high because the
Fed Gov that you apparently like is sucking the life out of the population with high taxes,
an oversize and out of control military and intelligence services, a financial sector that
repeatedly rapes the country and gets away with it, etc, etc, etc.
@A123 a rel="nofollow"
href="https://energyeducation.ca/encyclopedia/Law_of_conservation_of_energy">
https://energyeducation.ca/encyclopedia/Law_of_conservation_of_energy
In other words, the Democrats and their Allied Media's malefactions against Trump
forestalled them suffering what Republicans did post-Watergate in the House and Senate
midterms in 1974, but all of that negative energy didn't go away.
Either they will get their comeuppance in 2020, or it will remain and grow, biting them in
ass soon enough.
We Americans are kinda attached to our constitutional republic thingie, including our
right to choose the POTUS.
It really is stunning that the dimo crats have learned nothing from their decades of
disaster after disaster after disaster!
From regime change to financial debacles to the looting of the break up of the Soviet
Union: the cretins are now once again being trotted out as part of the biden farcial
"campaign."
A case in point is the odious Larry Summers: This article goes far in summarizing this
pending disaster with the prominent placement of summers:
@Joe Levantine could be behind the lines calling the shots) and the other, representing
the Marianas Trench of the Deep $tate (CIA) and also the Rushdoony loonies of the
Dispensationalist "Great Rupture" Christian-Zionist ambulatory oxymorons are THEIR reeking
heinies.
Trump is merely a girlie-lusting ram compared with those two prowling lobos, sporting
images of blood in their eyes and hatred in their hearts. Suburban soccer-moms detest the
Dumpster, mainly because he exacerbates their emotional radar-screens. They totally overlook
the deep danger lurking beneath the surface in the likes of Bolton and Pomposity, because
they are adroit at masking their totally psychopathic sociopathy.
No men allowed and a Hollywood actress who is regarded as somewhat odd? Right.
Almost 40 years ago my late aunt (in her mid 70s) opined that more women leaders were
needed to stop all of the wars. I asked her if she thought Golda Meir, Sirimavo Bandaranaike,
and Margaret Thatcher were really women, and if so, how were they any different than the
men?
In a Foreword to Christopher Bollyn's book, "The War on Terror; The Plot to Rule the
Middle East," USMC vet, Alan Sabrosky wrote:
"The book provides a way for even informed readers to better appreciate the origins,
evolution, and extent to which Israel has driven a process by which the United States and
other countries have systematically destroyed Israel's enemies, at no cost to itself. As we
have torn up or assailed a long list of countries -- only Iran has not yet been openly
attacked."
A less known fact is how the US is undergoing systematic Israel attack, and I suggest that
the best outcome is our being "Balkanized," as described by vagabond, Linh Dinh, who now
describes the resilient life in Serbia.
The Process continues even if Trumpstein does or does not consent to leave the Blue &
White House.
Thank you, Friends.
The Cato article in May on her "new book" gives her the right treatment. Even if you are a
long way from libertarian, well worth a read. The first paragraph:
"Madeleine Albright is back with a new book to sell. Interviewed in by the New York
Times magazine, she reminds us how she continues to live in the past. Unfortunately, that's
what made her advice as UN ambassador and secretary of state so uniformly bad."
@BL culate faceman which the shotcallers running the Deep $tate tend to prefer as their
podium images.
The failure of the Wicked Witch of the West to achieve her 2017 coronation was a total
shock to the system for the DNC, FBI, CIA, Chew Pork Slymes and other major institutional
minions for the ruling plutocratic oligarchy. Even before Trump's Inauguration, they set out
to destroy his presidency. After all, it had been decreed from on high that our ruptured
republic would be blessed by our first female (more or less) chief executive and that she
would be totally on-message and not some small (d) Democrat the likes of Tulsi
Gabbard–an irrepressible anti-imperialist.
President issues executive order at 4 PM. Liberals electronically file for a court order
at 5 PM. 8AM next day some judge, county, state or federal, issues an injunction forbidding
carrying out the executive order. The executive order is tied up in the courts for
months.
Last President to successfully defy the courts was Lincoln. The judiciary overturns laws
passed by legislators and referendums. The judiciary's orders create new laws.
@Ray Caruso who looks cross eyed at terrorist states Israel or Saudi Arabia , it takes
some pretty rancid balls to call those defending their nations from an illegal
aggressor, 'terrorists'.
What, if not massive and collective terror, is the murder by drone of villagers and
leaders? When their children look at the sky, they don't see wonder and beauty, but terror of
an arbitrary death.
The only thing we Americans should be feeling these days, is an excruciating shame for the
mass-murder and nation destructions our government has perpetrated in our name.
'The exceptional people'. If only we understood just how true that is.
Dr. Phil is sound on this issue. Democrat nomenklatura must impute some cultic authority
to the quivering rhytides of their living-dead mummies.
A gerontocracy is the appropriate government for this degenerate state. The interview
excerpt is priceless with Albright's senile brain fart: "let's hire Angelina Jolie, she made
an amazing movie!" about how those crispies fucked the Balkans up for shits & grins. You
can just see her masticating bon-bons in her slow-motion catapult chair, watching the
genocide she caused like it's Star Wars, feeling transient stirrings in her crepey loins at
the more romantic rape scenes. Just give that rank old downer cow the bolt gun.
One cavil on the rhetorical devices of the piece: even in jest it makes no sense to
suggest ideas to Vegetable-in-Chief Joe Biden. CIA is going to hook him up to a teleprompter
or some brain electrodes or whatever and make him talk and nod and gesture like
audio-animatronic Lincoln at Disneyland. He's gonna say we have to blow shit up. And MBNA
needs privatized debtors' prisons. It's pointless to offer friendly advice to the captive
parties of this failed state. It's like telling NAMBLA they should fuck adults. Wipe out this
roach motel of a party. The Greens have signed on to BAP's demilitarization pledge. Or write
in your Grammy's moldering corpse. Or that big wet floater dump you took this morning. Fuck
the USA and its fake democracy.
OK, now to be serious. This article and most of the responses to it thus far, however
erudite and with good intention seem to have fallen into a trap before they realized it was a
trap namely that everything depends on the result of Dems vs Repubs version 2020. Will Mr.
Giraldi write an article to show how it makes even in the slightest way a difference who is
the President at this late stage ( or any stage) of decay in the US? I know he knows better
to especially on this site. So has he really shed his roots?
I have recently entered into cash bets with almost all of my friends of all dispositions
and mental acuity on the prospect of Trump being re-elected. They think that I am crazy. I
may be but not on this topic. They are all infected with a mental disease called "normiesm".
It is immensely frustrating for me to put any kind of 'out of the box' thinking into
conversations regarding Trump because they react like women going through hormonal flushes.
All verbal reactions seemingly in lockstep.
So with the monetary challenges shoved in their faces they all seemed to pause briefly to
wonder if it was decent to take money from a fool such as I. After a few profanities and
insults as to their inter-cranial pressure from me they gladly accepted to a one and some
doubled down.
Taking their money, as I will, is the only way that they can be brought to bear to hear me
out about my logic. Funny, but it always seems to come down to money.
Now lookie here. What have we had since the Trump inauguration? Four years of 24/7/365
vilification, right versus left, grabbing P ***** , Putin, Stormy Daniels, impeachment (a 24
hour respite when he sent 77 missiles into Syria) and then back to 24/7 of Trump foibles.
Do you see what is/was happening? TDS was the precursor of Covid. And like a charm it
worked and still works. Divide and conquer, bread and circuses rolled onto one tasty bagel.
Look around you. Would you recognize main-street 4 months ago? I would not. Why would the PTB
want to remove Trump? He is a major cog in their satanic wheel whether he knows it or
not.
So with the powerful combination of TDS, COVID, BLM and antifa backed by MSM effectively
scaring the normies from even uttering a peep , I would say that things are going swimmingly
in some power's interests.
Mr Giraldi, "New Dummies, Same Ventriloquist" should be your next article for the sake of
your own credibility not digging up another corpse (living or not) like that of of Madeleine
Halfbright.
Your use of the ad hominem 'hopium addict' slur shows your frustration. You can't come up
with an actual retort, so you lash out.
I notice that you intentionally came out against me personally, because you are unable to
defeat my ideas. Your sad & pathetic attempt to paint you submission to Biden as a virtue
has failed. And, your personal attacks are simply shameless.
@Alden ferson's administration. But as Leo the Lip Durocher insisted, "nice guys finish
last."
Jefferson should have had his fellow Virginian arrested and imprisoned for overstepping
his constitutional powers. Didn't happen. Marshall (the darling of the Kavanaugh-cloned
Federalist Society of statist lawyers) had set a bad precedent, much to the dismay of the
president and all freedom-loving elements of WE THE PEOPLE. The very root concept of small
(r) republicanism, that of popular sovereignty ,was promptly derailed by that closet
monarchist.
Well, at least his fellow Federalist (and London bankster tool) Alexander Hamilton got his
just desserts.
Simultaneously, the U.S. enabled the election as Russian president of the hapless drunk
Boris Yeltsin, who, guided by advisers sent by the White House, oversaw the western looting
of his country's natural resources.
False. But Giraldi knows most readers won't know the truth. It wasn't "western looting,"
it was looting by a group inside Russia, "the oligarchs". Eight out of the twelve were Jews,
among them the top oligarch, Berezovsky.
Philip Giraldi also doesn't mention that Madeleine Albright is a Jew. It's as if her lust
for war springs from being pro-American to a fault. Right? Except it's all about destroying
Israel's targets, the few Middle Eastern and Central Asian nations that support the
Palestinians. And Russia, for giving some support to pro-Palestinian Iran and Syria. The
Israeli Lobby always gets what it wants.
Both in Russia and in the Middle East it's about race, not "the West". Of course, ask a
communist like "Eric Striker" who writes for Unz Review, and he'll do everything he can to
make you believe it's "the Right," "capitalists," "the West" who are behind it all, while
conveniently forgetting the Left's domination of media, universities and politics. The lies
flow freely.
'Steal of the Century' (Part 2), filmed in occupied #Palestine is now out! (The first part
is being censored on Youtube.) Find out what Donald Trump's plan has paved the way for and
what's happening right now in Palestine. •Premiered Aug 2, 2020
'Steal Of The Century': Trump's Palestine-Israel Catastrophe (Documentary) | Episode
2/2
"... Greenwald went on, after that, to discuss other key appointees by Nancy Pelosi who are almost as important as Adam Smith is, in shaping the Government's military budget. They're all corrupt. ..."
"... Numerous polls (for examples, this and this ) show that American voters, except for the minority of them that are Republican, want "bipartisan" government; but the reality in America is that this country actually already does have that: the U.S. Government is actually bipartisanly corrupt, and bipartisan evil. In fact, it's almost unanimous, it is so bipartisan, in reality. ..."
"... That's the way America's Government actually functions, especially in the congressional votes that the 'news'-media don't publicize. However, since it lies so much, and its media (controlled also by its billionaires) do likewise, and since they cover-up instead of expose the deepest rot, the public don't even know this. They don't know the reality. They don't know how corrupt and evil their Government actually is. They just vote and pay taxes. That's the extent to which they actually 'participate' in 'their' Government. They tragically don't know the reality. It's hidden from them. It is censored-out, by the editors, producers, and other management, of the billionaires' 'news'-media. These are the truths that can't pass through those executives' filters. These are the truths that get filtered-out, instead of reported. No democracy can function this way -- and, of course, none does. ..."
"... The very word secrecy is repugnant in a free and open society , and we are as a people, inherently and historically, opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths, and to secret proceedings . ..."
"... But we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding it's fear of influence, on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections , on intimidation instead of free choice, on guerrillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific, and political operations. It's preparations are concealed, not published. It's mistakes are buried, not headlined. It's dissenters are silenced, not praised. No expenditure is questioned. No rumor is printed. No secret is revealed. It conducts the Cold War in short with a wartime discipline, no democracy would ever hope or wish to match. ..."
The great investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald gave an hour-long lecture on how
America's billionaires control the U.S. Government, and here is an edited summary of its
opening twenty minutes, with key quotations and assertions from its opening -- and then its
broader context will be discussed briefly:
2:45 : There is "this huge cleavage between how members of Congress present themselves,
their imagery and rhetoric and branding, what they present to the voters, on the one hand, and
the reality of what they do in the bowels of Congress and the underbelly of Congressional
proceedings, on the other. Most of the constituents back in their home districts have no idea
what it is that the people they've voted for have been doing, and this gap between belief and
reality is enormous."
Four crucial military-budget amendments were debated in the House just now, as follows:
to block Trump from withdrawing troops from Afghanistan.
to block Trump from withdrawing 10,000 troops from Germany
to limit U.S. assistance to the Sauds' bombing of Yemen
to require Trump to explain why he wants to withdraw from the Intermediate Nuclear
Forces Treaty
On all four issues, the pro-imperialist position prevailed in nearly unanimous votes -
overwhelming in both Parties. Dick Cheney's daughter, Republican Liz Cheney, dominated the
debates, though the House of Representatives is now led by Democrats, not Republicans.
Greenwald (citing other investigators) documents that the U.S. news-media are in the
business of deceiving the voters to believe that there are fundamental differences between the
Parties. "The extent to which they clash is wildly exaggerated" by the press (in order to pump
up the percentages of Americans who vote, so as to maintain, both domestically and
internationally, the lie that America is a democracy -- actually represents the interests of
the voters).
16:00 : The Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee -- which writes the nearly $750B
annual Pentagon budget -- is the veteran (23 years) House Democrat Adam Smith of Boeing's
Washington State.
"The majority of his district are people of color." He's "clearly a pro-war hawk" a
consistent neoconservative, voted to invade Iraq and all the rest.
"This is whom Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats have chosen to head the House Armed
Services Committee -- someone with this record."
He is "the single most influential member of Congress when it comes to shaping military
spending."
He was primaried by a progressive Democrat, and the "defense industry opened up their
coffers" and enabled Adam Smith to defeat the challenger.
That's the opening.
Greenwald went on, after that, to discuss other key appointees by Nancy Pelosi who are
almost as important as Adam Smith is, in shaping the Government's military budget. They're all
corrupt. And then he went, at further length, to describe the methods of deceiving the voters,
such as how these very same Democrats who are actually agents of the billionaires who own the
'defense' contractors and the 'news' media etc., campaign for Democrats' votes by emphasizing
how evil the Republican Party is on the issues that Democratic Party voters care far more about
than they do about America's destructions of Iraq and Syria and Libya and Honduras and Ukraine,
and imposing crushing economic blockades (sanctions) against the residents in Iran, Venezuela
and many other lands. Democratic Party voters care lots about the injustices and the sufferings
of American Blacks and other minorities, and of poor American women, etc., but are satisfied to
vote for Senators and Representatives who actually represent 'defense' contractors and other
profoundly corrupt corporations, instead of represent their own voters. This is how the most
corrupt people in politics become re-elected, time and again -- by deceived voters. And -- as
those nearly unanimous committee votes display -- almost every member of the U.S. Congress is
profoundly corrupt.
Furthermore: Adam Smith's opponent in the 2018 Democratic Party primary was Sarah Smith (no
relation) and she tried to argue against Adam Smith's neoconservative voting-record, but
the press-coverage she received in her congressional district ignored that, in order to
keep those voters in the dark about the key reality. Whereas Sarah Smith received some coverage
from Greenwald and other reporters at The Intercept who mentioned that "Sarah Smith
mounted her challenge largely in opposition to what she cast as his hawkish foreign policy
approach," and that she "routinely brought up his hawkish foreign policy views and campaign
donations from defense contractors as central issues in the campaign," only very few of the
voters in that district followed such national news-media, far less knew that Adam Smith was in
the pocket of 'defense' billionaires. And, so, the Pentagon's big weapons-making firms defeated
a progressive who would, if elected, have helped to re-orient federal spending away from
selling bombs to be used by the Sauds to destroy Yemen, and instead toward providing better
education and employment-prospects to Black, brown and other people, and to the poor, and
everybody, in that congressional district, and all others. Moreover, since Adam Smith had a
fairly good voting-record on the types of issues that Blacks and other minorities consider more
important and more relevant than such things as his having voted for Bush to invade Iraq, Sarah
Smith really had no other practical option than to criticize him regarding his hawkish
voting-record, which that district's voters barely even cared about. The billionaires actually
had Sarah Smith trapped (just like, on a national level, they had Bernie Sanders trapped).
Of course, Greenwald's audience is clearly Democratic Party voters, in order to inform them
of how deceitful their Party is. However, the Republican Party operates in exactly the same
way, though using different deceptions, because Republican Party voters have very different
priorities than Democratic Party voters do, and so they ignore other types of deceptions and
atrocities.
Numerous polls (for examples,
this and
this ) show that American voters, except for the minority of them that are Republican, want
"bipartisan" government; but the reality in America is that this country actually already does
have that: the U.S. Government is actually bipartisanly corrupt, and bipartisan evil. In
fact, it's almost unanimous, it is so bipartisan, in reality.
That's the way America's
Government actually functions, especially in the congressional votes that the 'news'-media
don't publicize. However, since it lies so much, and its media (controlled also by its
billionaires) do likewise, and since they cover-up instead of expose the deepest rot, the
public don't even know this. They don't know the reality. They don't know how corrupt and evil
their Government actually is. They just vote and pay taxes. That's the extent to which they
actually 'participate' in 'their' Government. They tragically don't know the reality. It's
hidden from them. It is censored-out, by the editors, producers, and other management, of the
billionaires' 'news'-media. These are the truths that can't pass through those executives'
filters. These are the truths that get filtered-out, instead of reported. No democracy can
function this way -- and, of course, none does.
Patmos , 8 hours ago
Eisenhower originally called it the Military Industrial Congressional Complex.
Was probably still when Congress maybe had a few slivers of integrity though.
As McCain's wife said, they all knew about Epstein.
Alice-the-dog , 2 hours ago
And now we suffer the Medical Industrial Complex on top of it.
Question_Mark , 1 hour ago
Klaus Schwab, UN/World Economic Forum - power plant "cyberattack" (advance video to 6:42
to skip intro):
please watch video at least from minute 6:42 at least for a few minutes to get context,
consider its contents, and comment:
Vot3 for trump but don't waste too much energy on the elections. All Trump can do is buy
us time.
Their plan has been in the works for over a century.
1) financial collapse with central banking.
2) social collapse with cultural marxism
3) government collapse with corrupt pedophile politicians.
EndOfDayExit , 7 hours ago
"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." -Thomas Jefferson
Humans are just not wired for eternal vigilance. Sheeple want to graze and don't want to
think.
JGResearch , 8 hours ago
Money is just the tool, it goes much deeper:
The Truth, when you finally chase it down, is almost always far
worse than your darkest visions and fears.'
– Hunter S. Thompson, Kingdom of Fear
'The world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are
not behind the scenes' *
- Benjamin Disraeli, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
This information helps understand the shift to the bias we are witnessing at The PBS
Newshour and the MSM. PBS has always taken their marching orders from the Council on Foreign
Relations.
Judy Woodruff, and Jim
Lehrer (journalist, former anchor for PBS ) is a member of the
Council on Foreign Relations. John McCain (United States Republican Senator
from Arizona , 2008
Republican Party nominee for the Presidency), William F. Buckley, Jr
(commentator, publisher, founder of the National Review ), Jeffery E Epstein
(financier)
The Council on Foreign Relations has historical control both the Democratic establishment
and the Republican establishment until President Trump came along.
Until then they did not care who won the presidency because they control both parties at
the top.
FYI: Hardly one person in 1000 ever heard of the Council on Foreign Relations ( CFR ).
Until Trump both Republicans and Democrats control by the Eastern Establishment.There
operational front was the Council on Foreign Relations. Historically they did not care who
one the election since they controlled both parties from the top.
The CFR has only 3000 members yet they control over three-quarters of the nation's wealth.
The CFR runs the State Department and the CIA. The CFR has placed 100 CFR members in every
Presidential Administration and cabinet since Woodrow Wilson. They work together to misinform
the President to act in the best interest of the CFR not the best interest of the American
People.
At least five Presidents (Eisenhower, Ford, Carter, Bush, and Clinton) have been members
of the CFR. The CFR has packed every Supreme court with CFR insiders.
Three CFR members (Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, and Sandra Day O'Connor) sit on
the supreme court. The CFR's British Counterpart is the Royal Institute of International
Affairs. The members of these groups profit by creating tension and hate. Their targets
include British and American citizens.
The CFR/RIIA method of operation is simple -- they control public opinion. They keep the
identity of their group secret. They learn the likes and dislikes of influential people. They
surround and manipulate them into acting in the best interest of the CFR/RIIA.
KuriousKat , 8 hours ago
there are 550 of them in the US..just boggles the mind they have us at each others throat
instead of theirs.
jmNZ , 3 hours ago
This is why America's only hope is to vote for Ron Paul.
x_Maurizio , 2 hours ago
Let me understand how a system, which is already proven being disfunctional, should
suddenly produce a positive result. That's craziness: to repeate the same action, with the
conviction it will give a different result.
If you would say: "The only hope is NOT TO TAKE PART TO THE FARCE" (so not to vote) I'd
understand.
But vot for that, instead of this.... what didn't you understand?
Voice-of-Reason , 6 hours ago
The very fact that we have billionaires who amass so much wealth that they can own our
Republic is the problem.
Eastern Whale , 8 hours ago
all the names mentioned in this article is rotten to the core
MartinG , 5 hours ago
Tell me again how democracy is the greatest form of government. What other profession lets
clueless idiots decide who runs the business.
Xena fobe , 4 hours ago
It isn't the fault of democracy. It's more the fault of voters.
quikwit , 3 hours ago
I'd pick the "clueless idiots" over an iron-fisted evil genius every time.
_triplesix_ , 8 hours ago
Am I the only one who noticed that Eric Zuesse capitalized the word "black" every time he
used it?
F**k you, Eric, you Marxist trash.
BTCtroll , 7 hours ago
Confirmed. Blacks are apparently a proper noun despite being referred to as simply a
color. In reality, no one cares. Ask anyone, they don't care expert black lies matter.
freedommusic , 4 hours ago
The very word secrecy is repugnant in a free and open society , and we are as a people,
inherently and historically, opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths, and to secret
proceedings .
And there is very grave danger that an announced need for increased security will be
seized upon by those anxious to expand its meaning to the very limits of official
censorship and concealment.
Our way of life is under attack.
But we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies
primarily on covert means for expanding it's fear of influence, on infiltration instead of
invasion, on subversion instead of elections , on intimidation instead of free choice, on
guerrillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted vast
human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine
that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific, and political
operations. It's preparations are concealed, not published. It's mistakes are buried, not
headlined. It's dissenters are silenced, not praised. No expenditure is questioned. No
rumor is printed. No secret is revealed. It conducts the Cold War in short with a wartime
discipline, no democracy would ever hope or wish to match.
...I am asking the members of the newspaper profession and the industry in this country
to re-examine their own responsibilities, to consider the degree and the nature of the
present danger, and to heed the duty of self restraint, which that danger imposes upon us
all.
It is the unprecedented nature of this challenge that also gives rise to your second
obligation and obligation which I share, and that is our obligation to inform and alert the
American people, to make certain that they possess all the facts that they need and
understand them as well, the perils, the prospects, the purposes of our program, and the
choices that we face.
I am not asking your newspapers to support an administration, but I am asking your help
in the tremendous task of informing and alerting the American people, for I have complete
confidence in the response and dedication of our citizens, whenever they are fully
informed.
... that is why our press was protected by the First Amendment. The only business in
America specifically protected by the constitution, not primarily to amuse and entertain,
not to emphasize the trivial and the sentimental, not to simply give the public what it
wants, but to inform, to arouse, to reflect, to state our dangers and our opportunities, to
indicate our crises, and our choices, to lead, mold, educate, and sometimes even anger,
public opinion.
"... A striking example of philosophical messiness and confusion is that the conservative movement even incorporated clearly anti-conservative ideas, specifically, the anti-historicism advanced by Leo Strauss and his followers. Strauss championed what he called "natural right," which he saw as sharply opposed to tradition. He called the latter "the ancestral" or "convention." To look to them for guidance was to be guilty of the great offense of "historicism," by which he meant moral relativism or nihilism. History, Strauss insisted, is irrelevant to understanding what is right. Only ahistorical, purely abstract reason is normative. ..."
"... The Jaffaite notion that America rejected the past and was founded on revolutionary, abstract, universal ideas contributed to what this writer has termed "the new Jacobinism." According to this ideology, America is "exceptional" by virtue of its founding principles. Since these principles belong to all humanity, America must help remake societies around the world. "Moral clarity" demands uncompromising adherence to the principles. The forces of good must defeat the forces of evil. Inherently monopolistic and imperial, American principles justify foreign policy hawkishness and interventionism. ..."
"... These contrasting views of America entail wholly different nationalisms. The moralistic universalism of American exceptionalism, with its demand that all respect its dictates runs counter to the American constitutional spirit of compromise, deliberation, and respect for minorities. Exceptionalism does not defuse or restrain the will to power, but feeds it, justifying arrogance, assertiveness, and even belligerence. ..."
"... In a speech in the spring of 2019, Pompeo declared that America is "exceptional." America is, he said, "a place and history apart from normal human experience." It has a mission to oppose evil in the world. America is entitled to "respect." It should dictate terms to "rogue" powers like Iran and confront countries like China and Russia that are "intent on eroding American power." This speech was given and loudly cheered at the 40th anniversary gala of the Claremont Institute in California, whose intellectual founder was -- Harry Jaffa. ..."
"... American exceptionalism is in important ways the opposite of a conservatism or a nationalism that defends the moral and cultural heritage that generated American constitutionalism. Exceptionalism fans imperial designs. ..."
"... the phony opposition between nationalism and American exceptionalism on the one hand, and globalism. Any nationalism is only one step removed from globalism, but the nationalism of small countries is usually fairly harmless because the countries themselves are weak. But American nationalism and exceptionalism is in practice indistinguishable from globalism. It simply makes explicit from which location the globe will be ruled. ..."
"... The original idea behind American Exceptionalism is that we are the "Shining City on the Hill". In other words, we were a good example to others. There was nothing in there about the residents of that Shining City going out and invading its neighbors to force them to follow its good example. ..."
"... Sociopaths respect no limits on their power. ..."
"... Actually, according to Kurt Vonnegut, it was neither nationalism nor liberty - but piracy! One group of pirates trying to break away from another. Then again, perhaps that is what you mean by the heralded "liberty"? ..."
A child waves the United States flag from the crown of Liberty Enlightening the World, less formally known as The Statue of Liberty,
on Liberty Island in New York Harbor. | Detail of: 'Statue of Liberty' by Frederic Auguste Bartholdi.
Reactions to globalization, the Trump presidency, and the coronavirus pandemic have turned discussions of American conservatism
increasingly into discussions of "nationalism." Regrettably, terminological confusion is rampant. Both "conservatism" and "nationalism"
are words of many and even contradictory meanings.
The strengths of post-World War II American intellectual conservatism have been widely heralded. As for its weaknesses, one trait
stands out that has greatly impeded intellectual stringency: a deep-seated impatience with the supposedly "finer points" of philosophy.
Making do with loosely defined terms has made conservatism susceptible to intellectual flabbiness, contradiction, and manipulation.
This deficiency is connected to a virtual obsession with electoral politics. William F. Buckley's path-breaking National Review
was an intellectual magazine, but its primary purpose was to prepare the ground for political victories, most of all for capturing
the presidency. The desire to forge a political alliance among diverse groups pushed deep intellectual fissures into the background.
Having a rather narrowly political understanding of what shapes the future, most conservatives thought that the election and presidency
of Ronald Reagan signified the "triumph" of conservatism; but the triumph was hollow. The reason is that in the long run politicians
have less power than those who shape our view of reality, our innermost hopes and fears, and our deeper sensibilities. A crucial
role is here played by "the culture" -- universities, schools, churches, the arts, media, book publishing, advertising, Hollywood,
and the rest of the entertainment industry -- which is why America kept moving leftward.
For post-war so-called "movement" conservatives, conservatism meant chiefly limited government, a free market, anti-communism,
and a strong defense. These tenets were all focused on politics, and vastly different motives hid behind each of them. Why were these
tenets called "conservatism"? Rather than point to a few policy preferences, should that term not refer to a general attitude to
life, a wish to conserve something, the best of a heritage? One thinks of the moral and cultural sources of American liberty
and constitutionalism. But, outside of ceremonial occasions, most movement conservatives placed their emphasis elsewhere.
A striking example of philosophical messiness and confusion is that the conservative movement even incorporated clearly anti-conservative
ideas, specifically, the anti-historicism advanced by Leo Strauss and his followers. Strauss championed what he called "natural right,"
which he saw as sharply opposed to tradition. He called the latter "the ancestral" or "convention." To look to them for guidance
was to be guilty of the great offense of "historicism," by which he meant moral relativism or nihilism. History, Strauss insisted,
is irrelevant to understanding what is right. Only ahistorical, purely abstract reason is normative.
Hampered by a lack of philosophical education, many Straussians have been oblivious to the far-reaching and harmful ramifications
of this anti-historicism. By blithely combining it with ideas of very different origin, they have concealed, even from themselves,
its animosity to tradition.
One of Strauss's most influential disciples, Harry Jaffa, made the radical implications of Straussian anti-historicism explicit.
In his view, America's Founders did not build on a heritage. They deliberately turned their backs on the past. Jaffa wrote:
"To celebrate the American Founding is to celebrate revolution." America's revolution belonged among the other modern revolutions.
It is mild "as compared with subsequent revolutions in France, Russia, China, Cuba, or elsewhere," he wrote, but "it nonetheless
embodied the greatest attempt at innovation that human history had recorded." The U.S. Constitution did not grow out of the achievements
of ancestors. On the contrary, radical innovators gave America a fresh start. What is distinctive and noble about America is that,
in the name of ahistorical, abstract, universal principles, it broke with the past.
This view flies in the face of overwhelming historical evidence. The reason the Founders were upset with the British government
is that it was acting in a radical, arbitrary manner that violated the old British constitution. John Adams spoke of "grievous
innovation." John Dickinson protested "dreadful novelty." What the colonists wanted, Adams wrote, was "nothing new," but respect
for traditional rights and the common law. The Constitution of the Framers reaffirmed and creatively developed an ancient heritage.
The Jaffaite notion that America rejected the past and was founded on revolutionary, abstract, universal ideas contributed
to what this writer has termed "the new Jacobinism." According to this ideology, America is "exceptional" by virtue of its founding
principles. Since these principles belong to all humanity, America must help remake societies around the world. "Moral clarity" demands
uncompromising adherence to the principles. The forces of good must defeat the forces of evil. Inherently monopolistic and imperial,
American principles justify foreign policy hawkishness and interventionism.
Compare this notion of America to what is implied in Benjamin Franklin's famous phrase about what the Constitutional Convention
had produced -- "a republic, if you can keep it." To sustain the Constitution, Americans would have to cultivate the moral and cultural
traits that had given rise to it in the first place. To be an American is to defend an historically evolved inheritance, to live
up to what may be called the "constitutional personality." Only such people are capable of the kind of conduct that the Constitution
values and requires. Americans must, first of all, be able to control the will to power, beginning with self. They must respect the
law, rise above the passions of the moment, take the long view, deliberate, compromise, and respect minorities. Whether applied to
domestic or foreign affairs, the temperament of American constitutionalism is modesty and restraint. There is no place for unilateral
dictates.
These contrasting views of America entail wholly different nationalisms. The moralistic universalism of American exceptionalism,
with its demand that all respect its dictates runs counter to the American constitutional spirit of compromise, deliberation, and
respect for minorities. Exceptionalism does not defuse or restrain the will to power, but feeds it, justifying arrogance, assertiveness,
and even belligerence.
During the presidency of Donald Trump many proponents of American exceptionalism who want preferment have recast their anti-historical
universalism as "nationalism," showing that the term can mean almost anything. It is now "nationalist" to demand that American principles
be everywhere respected. For example, Mike Pompeo, a person of strong appetites and great ambition, has put this belief behind his
campaign of assertiveness and "maximum pressure."
In a speech in the spring of 2019, Pompeo declared that America is "exceptional." America is, he said, "a place and history
apart from normal human experience." It has a mission to oppose evil in the world. America is entitled to "respect." It should dictate
terms to "rogue" powers like Iran and confront countries like China and Russia that are "intent on eroding American power." This
speech was given and loudly cheered at the 40th anniversary gala of the Claremont Institute in California, whose intellectual founder
was -- Harry Jaffa.
What may seem to political practitioners and political intellectuals to be hair-splitting philosophical distinctions can, on the
contrary, have enormous practical significance. American exceptionalism is in important ways the opposite of a conservatism or
a nationalism that defends the moral and cultural heritage that generated American constitutionalism. Exceptionalism fans imperial
designs. The culture of constitutionalism opposes them.
Claes G. Ryn is professor of politics and founding director of the new Center for the Study of Statesmanship at The Catholic
University of America. His many books include America the Virtuous and A Common Human Ground , now in a new paperback edition.
Americans must, first of all, be able to control the will to power, beginning with self. They must respect the law, rise above
the passions of the moment, take the long view, deliberate, compromise, and respect minorities.
All lovely ideas. Too bad our "conservative" president is capable of none of these.
Great essay by Professor Ryn in exposing again, as he has done so often before, the phony opposition between nationalism
and American exceptionalism on the one hand, and globalism. Any nationalism is only one step removed from globalism, but the nationalism
of small countries is usually fairly harmless because the countries themselves are weak. But American nationalism and exceptionalism
is in practice indistinguishable from globalism. It simply makes explicit from which location the globe will be ruled.
All true, every word, but the problem with American exceptionalism isn't a matter of semantics or clever arguments but a matter
of power.
This is why the definition of exceptionalism keeps shifting, because as a practical matter it means "whatever is in the interests
of empire" at this particular moment in this particular case.
The original idea behind American Exceptionalism is that we are the "Shining City on the Hill". In other words, we were
a good example to others. There was nothing in there about the residents of that Shining City going out and invading its neighbors
to force them to follow its good example.
These days we are trying to force others to follow good ideals and high standards that we are ourselves following less and
less.
Exactly. The author twists words and creates strawmen and red herrings and argues with dead men.
Washington and Hamilton set forth an idea of country separate from all others and different. Yes, America is and was exceptional.
Friend to all, ally to none, an example to all the world, based in English heritage and culture. It was founded by conservative
revolutionaries, who attempted to claw back freedoms taken away by those in London, who were becoming overlords of an empire.
There was "year zero", and early America could draw on all of English history, plus the Enlightenment, the Renaissance, ancient
Greece and Rome, as well as religious traditions going back to antiquity.
It was always the Jeffersonian impulse towards revolution that was different. Jefferson loved the Year Zero France. But Jefferson
at his core was an idealist.
The problem was that idealists like Jefferson gradually gained power a little over a hundred years ago. Their idealism was
used by those who wanted to exploit America's power to further their own goals contrary to the ideals of American exceptionalism
and American tradition. Greed and idealism went together and America used the cover of American exceptionalism to create an empire.
As to Buckley, his goal seems more like controlled opposition than anything else. He was a gatekeeper for the powerful, defining
acceptable conservatism, keeping conservatism on the plantation. Conservativism Inc continues to try to do so.
Trump is a return to classic American traditionalism and exceptionalism. He is attempting to reshape the world along nationalistic
lines, which is why AMLO in Mexico praised him so much. Globalists don't want to lose their power. Oligarchs don't want to give
up their exploitation and extraction systems. Pundits don't want to give up their money train and status. Bureaucrats don't want
actual democracy.
On Wikipedia's list of the 50 cities with the world's highest homicide rates (per 100,000 population), the US has 4, South
Africa has 4 and the rest are in Latin America. It hardly makes us the shining city on a hill or exceptional, unless you think
a high crime rate is good.
Mark Twain said, "The radical invents the views. When he has worn them out the conservative adopts them." Today I would modify
Twain a bit; when conservatives adopt some radical idea, the radicals respond by declaring that idea worn out. Exhibit A would
be the idea of "American exceptionalism."
The historical fact is that American exceptionalism is a Communist concept, devised by Stalin in 1929 to describe --
and to dismiss -- what his American agents told him about the huge differences between American society and European societies,
both of which Soviet-sponsored parties were trying to control. These differences included far lesser class distinctions, greater
racial animosities, a labor movement much more concerned with economic bargaining than fielding political candidates, vastly weaker
political parties, much more ethnic and religious diversity, and more hostility to centralized government. Today, we would have
to add far more imprisonment of criminals, more approval of the death penalty, and a jealous passion for the right to have guns,
although those differences weren't nearly as wide in 1929 as now. American exceptionalism exists. You can argue about whether
it is good or bad, and certainly some of the differences between America and Europe are better or worse than others, but it's
pure pretense to claim that America is an ordinary, unexceptional Western country. And no one on the left made any such pretense,
until people on the right started talking about and glorifying (or at least not denigrating) "American exceptionalism," which
had previously been solely a term of contempt. The radicals invented the views, then declared them worn out when the conservatives
adopted them.
The truth that America is an exceptional country does not, of course, mean that its foreign policy has always been wise, and
certainly it does not mean that America's catastrophic blundering in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq were either morally right
or good for Americans. It merely means that we can't correct those mistakes by pretending that the country we're trying to rescue
is unexceptional, that it is no different from other societies, and thus that foreign policies accepted by European or Asian voters
will necessarily be winners here too.
I don't know why you think any of this is even relevant to my point: that American exceptionalism is real, and that desperately
needed foreign policy reforms won't work if we ignore that fact. Worse, the points you raise all distort the real nature of America's
differences from other Western countries.
American and European laws on abortion are very little different; in most of Europe, as in America, abortion is legal and accepted,
Poland being one of the very few exceptions. We're probably closest to Ireland, where abortion has been recently legalized but
remains socially frowned on. Again, whether you or I think that's a good thing or a bad thing doesn't matter; it's simply not
one of the major points of difference between America and Europe.
Explaining the difference in imprisonment between Europe and America solely by America's greater black and Hispanic population
is wrong in so many ways I hardly know where to begin. First, the difference in imprisonment is very recent, starting in the early
1990s and largely devised by a centrist Democratic US president; America's black and Hispanic population has always been much
larger than Europe's, so it can't explain the difference in imprisonment. Second, America imprisons whites as well as blacks much
more than Europe does. Third, poor blacks and Hispanics commit crimes at the same rate as poor whites of the same economic status;
poor people of whatever race or color choose to commit crimes more often, because they have more incentive to make that choice.
The higher black and Hispanic crime rate simply reflects the fact that far more of them are poor. As long ago as the 19th century,
the British poor were called by the upper class "the criminal classes," and that reflected the undeniable truth that the British
poor, like poor people everywhere, committed more crime than anyone else.
I thank you for the BBC link; I had long suspected that Europe's ban on the death penalty often didn't reflect popular opinion
at first, but I didn't have the data proving it. But that doesn't in any way change the fact that considerably more Americans
than Europeans support the death penalty, and long have, which is why European elites were able to get away with banning it without
losing elections, and American elites have not.
Again, I'm not saying anything about whether any of these differences between America and the rest of the West are good or
bad.. My point is that they exist, and it's no good pretending that they don't merely because America's foreign policy isn't working
very well.
I'll say it over and over, but GOP is Right Wing Lockean (Maritime Imperialist) "Anything Goes" Liberalism. DNC is Left Wing
Lockean (Maritime Imperialist) "Anything Goes" Liberalism. We use these words wrong in our USA. Traditionalist Conservatives have
NEVER enjoyed political party representation here. We are to-date completely a-historical and delusionally racist "Novum Organum"
conquistadors with English accents. Good News? Better futures lie ahead of us. Start with agrarianism, potable water, and arable
land. North America is underpopulated. I worked for State Dept. I witnessed the World Bank's destruction of Ukraine. Ask me a
real question. I'll answer honestly. We suffer post-WW2 legacy Daddy and Mommy Warbucks here, writing checks to their own kids.
We can, must and will do better. Those without pasts are without futures. To Survive is to Sur Vivre, Live Above. Hold tight.
Have faith.
There is the wish for what definitions should do in political and religious discussion, and then there is the reality of what
they actually do. The wish is that, by using the word "definition," I am referring to something like the definition of a mathematical
concept. We can define precisely what addition means. The problem is, we cannot do that with terms like conservatism. Ryn's argument
illustrates the failure of that attempt: we have "wholly different nationalisms"; we have something that calls itself conservatism
but it's wrong, because Ryn says so.
Definitionism leads to abstruse dispute, as scholars tussle over what is really nationalistic or conservative. The rest
of us look on askance. Most people are not interested in a discussion filled with labels, like, "I'm a cisgender vegetarian transsexual
white socialistic vegetarian Capricorn with subclinical mental disabilities." For most people, that sort of definition-oriented
declaration comes across as hostile to discussion. Like, "I'm here in my castle. I dare you to try to penetrate it." The intrepid
soul who attempts to start an actual friendly conversation, in response to that sort of statement, is likely to move away from
definitionism. Not "You cannot be white: your skin is brown," but rather, "Really! My sister is a Capricorn!"
Definitionism (in some ways a/k/a labeling) is more likely to destroy dialogue than to create it. "Oh, you're a [fill in the
blank]: you can't be good." It is possible to be a Nazi, a Bolshevik, or anything in between -- and still, in various regards,
to be smart, friendly, successful, etc. Political dialogue is like dipping a ladle into a soup kettle: you may pull out some beans,
some meat, some corn -- but possibly no one knows what else lurks in there. The attempt to define is is not merely a lost cause
-- it basically misses the point.
Ah but the revolution was not based at all on nationalism. It was for liberty. The Articles, as the war, were not based on
ideas of nationalism but more libertarian than not. Lest we forget, the convention was called to improve the Articles. That the
federalists (nationalists) hijacked the convention required quashing liberty in favor of a cleverly designed campaign masking
the future.
Patrick Henry was on to it early:
"When the American spirit was in its youth, the language of America was different: liberty, sir, was then the primary object
.But now, sir, the American spirit, assisted by the ropes and chains of consolidation, is about to convert this country into a
powerful and mighty empire .Such a government is incompatible with the genius of republicanism. There will be no checks, no real
balances, in this government..."
In the end the anti federalists have been proven right.
Actually, according to Kurt Vonnegut, it was neither nationalism nor liberty - but piracy! One group of pirates trying to break
away from another. Then again, perhaps that is what you mean by the heralded "liberty"?
"Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."
(John Adams, October 11, 1798.).
Are we still "a moral and religious people"? Well, are we?
Mayhap we are in deep trouble? Well, are we?
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free . . . it expects what never was and never will be"
(Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Colonel Charles Yancey, January 6, 1816.)
No comment.
"I am only one, but I am one. I can't do everything, but I can do something. What I can do, that I ought to do. And what I
ought to do, By the grace of God, I shall do."
Six HK secessionists fled, now wanted in HK. The countries they're hiding had earlier
declared withdraw extradition treaties with HK. These six wanted persons and more as time
progress believe they are safe wherever countries sheltering them. HK and China members of
Interpol...
Let me share with MoA. I watch the old method regimes' changes. Many are uninformed, how
the Singapore regime backed by Americunt wiped completely Singapore's oppositions. Do a
search Tan Wah Piow and Operation Coldstore. The code name for a covert security operation
carried out in Singapore on 2 February 1963. Led to the arrest of 113 people, who were
detained without trial under the Preservation of Public Service Security Ordinance (PSSO).
The oppositions were never members of Marxism nor commie or CPM (Communist Party of Malaya)
more likely the forerunner of Socialism with Chinese Characteristic
The worlds longest detain prisoner was not Nelson Mandela but an unknown Singaporean Dr.
Chia Thye Poh detained without trial by Lee Kuan Yew's regime for 32 years, longer than
Nelson Mandela SA. Therefore the six secessionists need to rethink what life ahead. China
isn't going anywhere and will continue to grow and servicing its citizen. Socialism with
Chinese Characteristic.
Nathan Law Kwun-chung 26, living London
Wayne Chan Ka-ku, fled to the Netherlands
Honcques Laus UK to political asylum June. Germany fake reporter
Samuel Chu American citizen & have been for 25 years. Pastor son
Simon Cheng Man-kit (Zheng Wenjie) British consulate, 28, solicit prostitute in Shenzhen and
arrested. fled to UK
Ray Wong Toi-yeung 15Sept 93 HEC Higher Education Certificate. Fled asylum Germany in
2018
The "no-fly zone" issue is covered in a second video suggested when this one almost
ends...It is also told that Obama opposed at first the destruction of Lybia, along with the
important participation of some NATO superpowers on basis of geopolitical interests and, of
course, looting of always...It was a coalition of the willing with assorted goals...althoughm
ainly benefitted the US in its cursade on the ME...
All these wars have happened to destroy kinda powerful nations ( competing
economic/military powers...), like Lybia in Africa and Yugoslavia in Europe on behalf of
others´hegemony...
Great video that everyone should see (especially clueless Americans) but it should've
included Obama's illegally turning a "no fly" Zone into a bombing campaign.
The UN had only authorized a "no fly" zone and Obama never sought authorization from
Congress for war.
Okay, I'll bite, Jackrabbit - sorry if I haven't followed your line of thinking on CIA and
Hillary ...wanting to elect Trump??? That really doesn't make sense to me. That would mean
everything about the really outrageous campaign against Trump's presidency has been
orchestrated so we chumps wouldn't guess they really were secretly rejoicing?
Sorry, I just don't buy it. But of course, I could be wrong. Who knows what dark deeds are
being secretly devised behind all these curtains of lies? (A good reason to suppose there is
a God who sees and who will someday reveal to us mortals what has really been going on. I
can't wait to find out.)
USA's shift to the Western Pacific (Australia) is taking shape. This withdrawal of
American troops and personnel from Germany points to the direction of European long-term
decline in importance, as it seems the USA is opting for a more aggressive, less in-depth
model against the Russian Federation. Either it believes the Russian Federation will fall
soon (after Putin's death) or it is giving up Europe altogether. Both scenarios imply in
Germany's (the EU) decline.
For months the US has been in a full court diplomatic press on fellow UN Security Council
members in an attempt to ensure that a UN arms embargo against Iran does not expire.
The embargo on selling conventional weapons to Iran is set to end October 18, and is
ironically enough part of the 2015 nuclear deal brokered under Obama, which the Trump
administration in May 2018 pulled out of.
But now Pompeo vows
the US will "take necessary action" -- no doubt meaning more sanctions at the very least,
and likely military action at worst. He told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee this week
that "in the near future... we hope will be met with approval from other members of the
P5."
"In the event it's not, we're going to take the action necessary to ensure that this arms
embargo does not expire," he said.
"We have the capacity to execute snapback and we're going to use it in a way that protects
and defends America," Pompeo told the committee further.
Speaking to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo continued
to call on the world to accept extending the UN arms embargo against Iran. The embargo is
scheduled to expire on October 18.
But it's clear at this point that the UN is not intent on extending the embargo . Russia for
one has promised as much. Both Russia and China also have recent weapons deals in the works
with the Islamic Republic.
LibertarianMenace , 55 minutes ago
"protects and defends America"
Nothing is farther from the truth, fat man. We know (((who))) it is we're
"protecting".
bumboo , 37 minutes ago
Is this fat guy being blackmailed to saying stupid things all the time
monty42 , 35 minutes ago
He works for the Council on Foreign Relations who have been bankrupting the States with
perpetual war since they fomented WW2.
LibertarianMenace , 30 minutes ago
Yes, him and the rest of the USG. When you can assassinate a U.S. President in broad
daylight and get away with it, you can get away with more extravagant illusions, like 09/11,
or if people are finally catching on, throw in just a smidgen of reality like CV-19. Sky is
the limit.
This is Trump's redeeming value: he's showing all, including the densest among us
(((who))) it is that runs the country. Whether he does it intentionally or not, as in
kowtowing to (((them))), is ultimately irrelevant. (((They))) have to be a bit uncomfortable
from the unaccustomed exposure. The censoring just proves it.
Tag 'em And Bag 'em , 36 minutes ago
This pneumatic bull frog is a deep state sock puppet with a Zionist hand way up his
***.
When his lips move, Satanyahoo's voice comes out
This has zero to do with the interests of real Americans.
**building 7 didn't kill itself**
Tag 'em And Bag 'em , 23 minutes ago
TRUMP: "Larry Silverstein is a great guy, he's a good guy, he's a friend of mine."
The reason that the US government are trying to get Iran is because Epstein/Mossad has
blackmailed them all into doing their bidding.
Why don't you cover that in the news, huh?
El Chapo Read , 31 minutes ago
"Necessary Action" = Call Israel and ask what they want him to do.
jaser , 43 minutes ago
Protect America? Protect corrupt Netanyahu more like it. Your nation is about to implode
and you just cut off the $600 welfare payment to your citizens hey but let's ban TikTok and
protect America from Iran.
malMono , 39 minutes ago
This why Biden might win...idiots like pompeo are a turnoff.
Grouchy-Bear , 34 minutes ago
Sometimes it looks like Pompeo is actually in charge. Okay, most of the time he is in
charge. Why go through the election process at all? Pompeo is running the country and was
never elected...
malMono , 39 minutes ago
This why Biden might win...idiots like pompeo are a turnoff.
Grouchy-Bear , 34 minutes ago
Sometimes it looks like Pompeo is actually in charge. Okay, most of the time he is in
charge. Why go through the election process at all? Pompeo is running the country and was
never elected...
rwe2late , 43 minutes ago
Embargo Iran to make them as desperate as possible.
Then accuse them of being "aggressive" while one attacks and bombs Iran's near neighbors
(Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen).
Sounds like a plan of aggressive war if done by any but an "exceptional" nation.
If Russia and China want to trade with Iran, how in the world is it the US Government's
right to tell them not to? If we want to put sanctions on Iran, go for it. But at this point,
the dollar is collapsing as world reserve currency. Iran should well be able to buy anything
they need, from China/Russia and the rest of the world which doesn't respect US sanctions, or
so I would think.
My point - there's really getting nothing that the US even can do about Iran. So
maybe...we should just stop and give it a rest.
Einstein101 , 13 minutes ago
Iran should well be able to buy anything they need, from China/Russia
Fact is Russia and China sell almost nothing to Iran, fearing US sanctions.
Cassandra.Hermes , 2 minutes ago
Don't forget Turkey, Azerbaijan and Europe! Turkish stream is not only bypassing Ukrain
but it is connected to Azeri pipeline that is 10km from Iranians border.
monty42 , 15 minutes ago
"Obviously the Iranian army has a bunch of non thinkers..."
Hypocrisy much? The US regime employs paid mercenaries who swore to uphold and defend the
Constitution, yet lie and unthinkingly "just follow orders" and believe that absolves them of
their oathbreaking and actions.
"Dude, I am FREE. I have firearms that are deadly." Heh, only a very limited arsenal
permitted by the Central Committee in D.C., to maintain firepower supremacy in the empire's
favor. Your firearms may be deadly, but the empire mercenary can take you out without you
ever seeing their face.
Clearly having firearms and ammo alone do not prevent tyranny, the States under the D.C.
regime prove that.
vipervenom , 17 minutes ago
pompass the fat boy coward sending our troops to die while he hides behind his own extra
large rear end.
Tucker Carlson described former President Obama as "one of the sleaziest and most dishonest
figures in the history of American politics" after his eulogy at the funeral of civil rights
icon Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) on Thursday.
Carlson, who also described the former president as "a greasy politician" for calling on
Congress to pass a new Voting Rights Act and to eliminate the filibuster, which Obama described
as a relic of the Jim Crow era that disenfranchised Black Americans, in order to do so.
"Barack Obama, one of the sleaziest and most dishonest figures in the history of American
politics, used George Floyd's death at a funeral to attack the police," Carlson said before
showing a segment of Obama's remarks.
Ambassador John Bolton hinted that he doesn't like being called a hawk, since foreign policy labels are simplistic.
But first of all, he labeled libertarian Sen. Rand Paul an isolationist, rather than say, a non- interventionist. And after
nearly 500 pages (all but the epilogue), what you will absorb is absolutely the worldview of a geopolitical hawk. He is not technically
a neoconservative (like, say, Paul Wolfowitz) because the latter were more focused on nation building and spreading democracy.
Bolton sees what he's promoting as defense, but it requires a constant offense.
Bolton is very bright, as Jim Baker noted decades ago, and very well-read, even endorsing his fellow Baltimorean and my teacher
Steve Vicchio's book on Lincoln's faith. But his intelligence is all put into an ideological reading of situations. As Aristotle
would put it, the problem is not lack of theoretical wisdom, but the deficiency in practical wisdom and prudential judgment. Certainly
there are bad actors in the world, and vigilance is required. But when is aggressive action called for, and when is it better
to go with diplomacy? In this book, I find few cases of such restraint. For Bolton, it seems that the goal of peace and security
requires the constant threat of war and presence on every continent. All this intervention around the world requires troops, soldiers,
real men and women and their lives and those of their families, requiring lots of sacrifice. At times, his theorizing seems distant
from these realities on the ground.
So Bolton is critical of the "axis of adults" in the Trump administration, the "generals", but not Kelly and not much on his
predecessor McMaster, much less the eccentric Flynn. So his beef is with Mattis, another fine student of history. Bolton says
he went by the rules, as James Baker had said that Bush 41 was "the one who got the votes". He tried to influence Trump within
the rules, while Mattis, Tillerson and Haley pursued their own foreign policy. I'm sure that Mattis was sometimes right and sometimes
wrong, but I would trust his prudential judgment above that of the equally bright Bolton, because of his life experience, being
the one on the ground and knowing what war is like.
When Bolton was considered for secretary state right after the 2016 election, I said, well I don't care for the guy, but at
least I've heard of him and we know what we're dealing with. His opponent in GOP foreign policy is the libertarian and non-interventionist
Sen. Rand Paul. What does Bolton say about the big players in the Trump administration? Nikki Haley is dismissed as a lightweight
who was posing for her political future. Well, that's basically what Trump, "the one that got the votes", put her there for. But
it's interesting that Bolton is so anti-Haley, when she was for Rubio and the more hawkish platform.
Tillerson's successor Mike Pompeo had sort of a love-hate relationship with Bolton.
Steve Mnuchin is the epitome of the globalist establishment, along with Javanka. Jared Kushner is dismissed as no Kissinger,
but when it comes to China, his soft stance is blamed on Kissinger! While Bolton didn't testify in the impeachment, Fiona Hill
is mentioned only with respect in this book.
Everybody's flaw, from Bolton's point of view, is being less belligerent than Bolton. (Even in the Bush administration, the
only name I can think of would be Michael Ledeen). He even defends the concept of Middle Eastern "endless wars" on the grounds
that we didn't start them and can't dictate when they end. Obama was a dove, but in 2016 the GOP marked a shift, with Trump, Paul,
Ben Carson and even Ted Cruz opposing the "invade every country on earth" philosophy that this book promotes. It's true that Trump
is not an ideologue and thinks in terms of individual transactions. But the movement I see is a dialectic of alternating between
aggression and diplomacy, or as he sees it, friendly relationship among leaders.
Bolton is a superhawk on North Korea and Iran throughout, while China and Russia are our hostile rivals. Other matters are
Syria, Iraq and ISIS, Venezuela, Afghanistan and finally Ukraine, which by the end of the book I had almost forgotten. If Bolton
is dovish anywhere, it's on the Saudis, the rivals with Iran in the Sunni-Shiite dispute chronicled recently in the book "Black
Wave".
You can learn a lot from this book, but just keep in mind that it's filtered through the mind of a strong ideologue, so other
people's faults are seen through that lens. But he has great knowledge of the details of policy. Bolton would like to be an inter-generational
guru like Henry Kissinger or Dean Acheson, but both parties have turned away from the "endless wars" philosophy.
If you are looking for anti-Trump material, I don't really see the point of investing this time and intellectual effort. The
more sensational parts have been reported-the exchanges involving Xi Jinping and Kim Jong Un, and to a lesser extent Erdogan.
As most reviewers have said, it's about 100 pages too long, but Bolton is looking for a scholarly work like Kissinger's Diplomacy
or World Order, and this is the one that he hopes people will read.
John Bolton, on some fundamental level, is a brilliant, dedicated conservative intent on improving the future of the country
he and I love. THAT similarity is probably the only point we share.
I wanted to love this book, because I knew it would be jam-packed with juicy tidbits that justify me derision of the biggest
failure ever to assume the office of POTUS. Instead, quite early on, I realized the reason Trump became President was the enormous
ineptitude of those otherwise brilliant people who, in short, simply felt that somebody opposing those the person they despise,
on principle, was better for America than the other guy or gal.
Throughout this book, Bolton reminds us of Trump's inability to focus attention on the information provided by his handlers.
Yes, Trump is naive and intellectually lazy. Yes, so, too, are many of those aiding and abetting Mr. Trump. But, yes, Mr. Bolton
also suffers from gross naïveté, and, is just plain foolish. His ego led him to join the Trump Administration, as he admits in
"The Room Where It Happened."
Bolton's greatest error, however, was in refusing to tell the country what he chose to sell to the public through this book.
The writing is, mechanically, quite good. But, Bolton comes across as thinking he is the only person of intelligence. That
becomes clear by page two, and never changes, except for his insight that he was wrong about Trump.
Unfortunately, Bolton also was wrong about Bolton.
Whoa. Hold on. Just about everyone in both political parties is no better than Bolton. A few exceptions would be Former governor
John Kasick and Utah Senator Mitt Romney. Oh, and former Vice President Joe Biden, I believe. Yet, to be honest, I need to see
him prove me right. I would hate to make the same mistake regarding Biden as Bolton did regarding Trump.
Americans need to take a good, hard look at how we are governed and at those whom we support.
BOTTOM LINE
Writing quality, passable. But don't expect to gain a great deal of new knowledge.
"... Pompeo is a disgusting man. The US Oligarchic Regime is projecting a lot. It is this Regime that does not recognize any other order than its own, and always puts a messianic spin on its discourse. ..."
"... Mike Pompous can be counted upon to do everything possible to torpedo legitimate US interests below the waterline, and then nuke any survivors. ..."
Mike Pompeo declared the start of a new Cold War with China last week.
...Pompeo's speech was an expression of this unreasonable and unrealistic view, and it is likely to leave most U.S. allies in
East Asia and elsewhere cold. Our allies do not wish for deepening antagonism and strife between the U.S. and China, and if push
comes to shove Washington may find itself without much support in the region. Calling for a "new alliance" to oppose China when Trump
and Pompeo have done such an abysmal job of managing existing alliances in the region just drives home how divorced from reality
the speech was.
... ... ...
The Secretary also relied on a familiar mix of simplistic analysis and threat inflation that he has used so often when talking
about Iran: "It's this ideology, it's this ideology that informs his decades-long desire for global hegemony of Chinese communism."
Pompeo is falling back on two of the stalest talking points from the Cold War. He interprets the behavior of another state primarily
in terms of its official ideology rather than its concrete interests, and he attributes to them a goal of "global hegemony" that
they are not pursuing to make them seem more dangerous and powerful than they are. China does seek to be the leading state in its
own part of the world, but there is no evidence that they aspire to the global domination that Pompeo claims. A hard-line ideologue
and hegemonist himself, Pompeo wrongly assumes that the things that motivate him must also drive the actions of others.
... ... ...
Most of the people on the receiving end of this "engagement" and "empowerment" will likely resent the condescension and interference
from a foreign government in their country's affairs. Even if we assume that the vast majority of people in China might wish for
a radically different government, they are liable to reject U.S. meddling in what they naturally consider to be their business. But,
of course, Pompeo isn't serious about "empowering" the Chinese people, just as he isn't serious about supporting the people of Iran
or Venezuela or any of the other countries on Washington's list of official foes. We can see from the economic wars that the U.S.
has waged on Iran and Venezuela that the administration is only too happy to impoverish and strangle the people they claim to help.
Hard-liners feign concern for the people that they then set out to harm in order to make their aggressive and destructive policies
look better to a Western audience, but they aren't fooling anyone these days.
Pompeo's bombastic, caustic style and his personal lack of credibility make him an unusually poor messenger, and the Trump administration
is uniquely ill-suited to rally a group of states in common cause. But the main problem with the policy Pompeo promotes is that an
intensifying rivalry with China is not in the American interest. The U.S. has found that it is virtually impossible to change the
behavior of adversaries when that behavior concerns what they believe to be their core security interests. ...
I was reading the words that Nixon wrote about China that Pompeo quoted and it occurred to me that if you took out the word
"China" and replaced it with the "United States" then that statement would be completely accurate in describing how America acts
in the world. In OTW, it's "the Pot calling the Kettle black".
I wouldn't enjoin the American people with our out-of-touch, out-of-control and (In the cases of Hillary, Waters, Biden and
Pelosi..) out of their minds government.
We're so conditioned to global conflicts now, it's merely a matter of the U.S. population learning how to spell the names of
foreign leaders and their capitals marked for "Regime Changes", while crossing our fingers in hopes that our buildings will not
again be subjected to airliner collisions and collapses in the wake of this aggression.
It would behoove Americans to start pulling on the reins of our bellicose administrations to confine their authority and actions
to benefit our citizens.
Your comment that we have coexisted with China for 70 years is not quite accurate. There was this little dust-up called the
Korean Conflict as I recall...
The communist Chinese can control our movie, sports, news and entertainment industries by denying them access to China if they
don't show China in a positive light or if they show China in a negative life...
You define with accuracy the core tenets of Socialists. Once a government expands to the proportions needed to implement that
form of socioeconomic leadership, the character of those leaders becomes tyrannical, while they target segments of their populations
for reeducation or elimination. (Abortions would fit that scenario nicely..) Obama was just such a leader, and had he somehow
been able to ignore term limits, his administration would have resembled those of any Socialist State.
All of the policies you mention above would achieve absolutely nothing while inflaming conflict - thus increasingly the problems
you outline. These hawkish responses prove the point...the issue isn't that there are or aren't issues, but that the US has lost
the ability to have real discussions of these issues with world players and allies.
Much of that is because Trump patently hasn't the temperament, sophistication, or intelligence for discussion and diplomacy
- this was proven again and again in the zero sum ineptitude of his private ventures.
The rot of that malignant ineptitude flows down from the head and into every aspect of government, both domestic and foreign.
Thus we see his response to every domestic crisis is to inflame division. And the same in the foreign theater. He cannot be gotten
rid of soon enough.
I don't believe our government is so foolish as to contemplate a shooting war with the Chinese. They have nuclear warheads.
Their populations are fanatics when it comes to conflicts against them...
Men will not fight another war nor will women leave their jobs when the men return from war as they did with WWII. There will
be no war in Europe simply because Europe (including Russia) is depopulating at such a rapid rate they cant afford a losing more
of their population through conflict. I dont see a shooting war with China either. I think that is the purpose of the tariffs
and detachment of economies. US intelligence says that China does not want war with the US either. I don't think there is any
country that would jump to a pre-emptive nuclear attack in case of a hot war. They dont have the air force superiority or the
Navy or superiority in space yet.
Its not the Chinese way. The Chinese wait until they have superiority then they act otherwise they like to fly below the radar
and get away with as much espionage and intimidation as possible. The opium wars came about because of the Chinese culture of
trade exporting much but importing little thus creating a trade imbalance and indebting their trading partners.
Chinese culture has many forms of achieving superiority without restoring to conflict. The think tanks and experts are predicting
that Xi may be pushed out of power by his competitors in the politburo which could defuse the situation. I don't think it will
change detaching the economies. After COVID, countries are shifting focus from lowest cost possible to lowest cost and lowest
risk possible.
That's why medical instruments, pharmaceuticals, etc are either moving out of China or moving part of their production to the
US or they can win against a declining, an indebted power, an over stretched power, etc. Take a lesson with Russia and the US.
Russia did not confront the US directly. It used proxies elsewhere around the world. Russia did not want a war with NATO or with
the US. That balance kept the peace. If you want peace with China then there is going to have to be some sort of parity or superiority
of China's neighbors via an alliance and/or superiority in trade/technology/economy. If you want war then you pacify and try to
avoid war leaving a strategic space where your competitor thinks they can win. To avoid war, you need parity or superiority.
Pompeo is a disgusting man. The US Oligarchic Regime is projecting a lot. It is this Regime that does not recognize any
other order than its own, and always puts a messianic spin on its discourse.
The US itself is not a democracy, but as B. Franklin put it from the beginning, is a Republic, which from the birth was
design to promote and preserve the haves, the existing Oligarchy. While they looked for a balance of power in order to prevent
the rise of an autocrat (the other bugbear of Oligarchy), the main fear of the framers was democracy and the threat of the mob
voting for re-distribution...
The success of the socialist state of China is an indication of what might have happened if the socialist block in ensemble
wouldn't have suffered the containment enforced by the US. Given the ability to engage in normal economic intercourse with the
world, China developed and lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty. Vietnam is another example. But look what is happening
with Cuba or North Korea or Venezuela. It is not the socialist system per se, but the blockade of those countries and the crushing
economic war that ruins them.
Fortunately, Russia has learned from the mistakes of the past.
It is good that the cards are on the table to see that US Oligarchy wants to rule everything, because it is a corrupting way
of life and mind. Because of this, the march for more open societies, with more, no less democracy, and people representation
and input is halted.
And of course, in this new Cold War, a lot of civil liberties and freedom of speech will be curtailed. In my neck of the woods
we have already experienced individuals assaulting people of Chinese ethnicity. Way to go America!
Mike Pompous can be counted upon to do everything possible to torpedo legitimate US interests below the waterline, and
then nuke any survivors. He, along with Barr, Graham, and the rest of the Trump circus, are a cautionary tale for what happens
to governments that let ideologues deliberately divorced from reality run a country. They've turned what was once the United States
from a superpower to a failed state in an absurdly short period of time. History will be far less kind to these political Bernie
Madoffs than to the original financial exemplar.
Wars ain't nothing to bandy about among administration subordinates. Pompeo is not supposed to be declaring wars--hot or cold.
Wars cost big money, lives and property. Only the most grave threats against our country should prompt our leaders to even consider
conflicts, much less initiate them. The American people cannot just sit back and absorb such profound adjustments to our national
security posture and defense expenditures being unilaterally decided by Washington. It is also a condition of conflicts that our
civil rights will be under increased constraints. I chuckled a little when China was listed as our 'new' foe. We won't fight the
Chinese because we'll have another Vietnam War on our hands. Our troops aren't used to our enemies fighting back. They've been
deployed into banana wars against poorly trained and ill equipped armies of Middle East camel holes. The U.S. Armed Forces' new
culture, consisting of socially-engineered, politically-corrected soldiers-of-tolerance have yet to confront true fanatics. These
facts were known waaaaay back during our Korean War Adventure.
I've always said that if the Chinese are good at anything, it's making more Chinese.
New Cold War? Bring it on. Competition is good. A strong rival is desired. Instead of a struggle over Ideology, this will be
a Civilizational struggle, Western Civilization VS Central Civilization, liberal democracy VS Confucian/Legalist authoritarianism,
Euro-America VS the Han Chinese. But this time, is America up to the tast?
During the Cold War we were led by 'Greatest Generation' who lived through the Great Depression and fought in World War II,
is today's America of Facebook, Twitter, conspiracy theories, selfies, BLM, safe spaces, Diversity, mass immigration and Woke
political correctness run amok up to the task?
While China is a predator, homogeneous, nationalist, revanchist and bent on returning to the glory it thinks it deserves. All
I can say is, thank god for nuclear weapons and the Chinese Communist Party for keeping a short leash on the patriotic passions
of the Han Chinese.
We had "an alliance of democracies" in the TPP which was developed to counter China. Of course, it handed much of our domestic
sovereignty over to multinational corporations, but that's what you can expect from a corporatist like Obama. Still, might have
been better than this.
I wonder if the Nixon family knew in advance that Pompeo was going to trash Richard Nixon's greatest legacy?
A war between China and the U.S. would not simply be costly for the US - it could end in the destruction of the world as we
know it if it turns nuclear. Trump and Pompeo are sociopathic madman. I would not put it past Trump to use Nukes against China.
He is just that stupid and evil.
President Nixon's détente with China had an important geopolitical consideration, leverage on Russia. "We're using the China
thaw to get the Russians shook", he is quoted to have said. There is much talk among hawks these days of a "new Cold War", with
that the confidence it will end like the first one: victory for the west and no nuclear annihilation. But this is a danger illusion:
today America is in a hegemonic struggle with China for global dominance. It seems neither side can back down. The present crisis
is like the Cold War in one crucial sense – world war must be avoided at all costs. The powers are not heeding the warning of
history.
https://www.ghostsofhistory...
"... Color Revolution is the term used to describe a series of remarkably effective CIA-led regime change operations using techniques developed by the RAND Corporation, "democracy" NGOs and other groups since the 1980's. They were used in crude form to bring down the Polish communist regime in the late 1980s. From there the techniques were refined and used, along with heavy bribes, to topple the Gorbachev regime in the Soviet Union. For anyone who has studied those models closely, it is clear that the protests against police violence led by amorphous organizations with names like Black Lives Matter or Antifa are more than purely spontaneous moral outrage. Hundreds of thousands of young Americans are being used as a battering ram to not only topple a US President, but in the process, the very structures of the US Constitutional order. ..."
"... Alicia Garza of BLM is also a board member or executive of five different Freedom Road front groups including 2011 Board chair of Right to the City Alliance, Board member of School of Unity and Liberation (SOUL), of People Organized to Win Employment Rights (POWER), Forward Together and Special Projects director of National Domestic Workers Alliance. ..."
"... The Right to the City Alliance got $6.5 million between 2011 and 2014 from a number of very established tax-exempt foundations including the Ford Foundation ($1.9 million), from both of George Soros's major tax-exempts–Open Society Foundations, and the Foundation to Promote Open Society for $1.3 million. Also the cornflake-tied Kellogg Foundation $250,000, and curiously , Ben & Jerry's Foundation (ice cream) for $30,000. ..."
"... That front since 2009 received $1.3 million from the Ford Foundation, as well as $600,000 from the Soros foundations and again, Ben & Jerry's ($50,000). ..."
"... And Garza's SOUL, which claimed to have trained 712 "organizers" in 2014, when she co-founded Black Lives Matter, got $210,000 from the Rockefeller Foundation and another $255,000 from the Heinz Foundation (ketchup and John Kerry family) among others. ..."
"... Nigeria-born BLM co-founder Opal Tometi likewise comes from the network of FRSO. Tometi headed the FRSO's Black Alliance for Just Immigration. Curiously with a "staff" of two it got money from major foundations including the Kellogg Foundation for $75,000 and Soros foundations for $100,000, and, again, Ben & Jerry's ($10,000). Tometi got $60,000 in 2014 to direct the group . ..."
"... The BLMF identified itself as being created by top foundations including in addition to the Ford Foundation, the Kellogg Foundation and the Soros Open Society Foundations. They described their role: "The BLMF provides grants, movement building resources, and technical assistance to organizations working advance the leadership and vision of young, Black, queer, feminists and immigrant leaders who are shaping and leading a national conversation about criminalization, policing and race in America." ..."
"... Notably, when we click on the website of M4BL, under their donate button we learn that the donations will go to something called ActBlue Charities. ActBlue facilitates donations to "democrats and progressives." As of May 21, ActBlue had given $119 million to the campaign of Joe Biden. ..."
"... What is clear from only this account of the crucial role of big money foundations behind protest groups such as Black lives Matter is that there is a far more complex agenda driving the protests now destabilizing cities across America. ..."
"... The role of tax-exempt foundations tied to the fortunes of the greatest industrial and financial companies such as Rockefeller, Ford, Kellogg, Hewlett and Soros says that there is a far deeper and far more sinister agenda to current disturbances than spontaneous outrage would suggest. ..."
Color Revolution is the term used to describe a series of remarkably effective CIA-led
regime change operations using techniques developed by the RAND Corporation, "democracy" NGOs
and other groups since the 1980's. They were used in crude form to bring down the Polish
communist regime in the late 1980s. From there the techniques were refined and used, along with
heavy bribes, to topple the Gorbachev regime in the Soviet Union. For anyone who has studied
those models closely, it is clear that the protests against police violence led by amorphous
organizations with names like Black Lives Matter or Antifa are more than purely spontaneous
moral outrage. Hundreds of thousands of young Americans are being used as a battering ram to
not only topple a US President, but in the process, the very structures of the US
Constitutional order.
If we step back from the immediate issue of videos showing a white Minneapolis policeman
pressing his knee on the neck of a black man, George Floyd , and look at what has taken place
across the nation since then, it is clear that certain organizations or groups were
well-prepared to instrumentalize the horrific event for their own agenda.
The protests since May 25 have often begun peacefully only to be taken over by well-trained
violent actors. Two organizations have appeared regularly in connection with the violent
protests -- Black Lives Matter and Antifa (USA). Videos show well-equipped protesters dressed
uniformly in black and masked (not for coronavirus to be sure), vandalizing police cars,
burning police stations, smashing store windows with pipes or baseball bats. Use of Twitter and
other social media to coordinate "hit-and-run" swarming strikes of protest mobs is evident.
What has unfolded since the Minneapolis trigger event has been compared to the wave of
primarily black ghetto protest riots in 1968. I lived through those events in 1968 and what is
unfolding today is far different. It is better likened to the Yugoslav color revolution that
toppled Milosevic in 2000.
Gene Sharp: Template for Regime Overthrow
In the year 2000 the US State Department, aided by its National Endowment for Democracy
(NED) and select CIA operatives, began secretly training a group of Belgrade university
students led by a student group that was called Otpor! (Resistance!). The NED and its various
offshoots was created in the 1980's by CIA head Bill Casey as a covert CIA tool to overthrow
specific regimes around the world under the cover of a human rights NGO. In fact, they get
their money from Congress and from USAID.
In the Serb Otpor! destabilization of 2000, the NED and US Ambassador Richard Miles in
Belgrade selected and trained a group of several dozen students, led by Srđa Popović,
using the handbook, From Dictatorship to Democracy, translated to Serbian, of
the late Gene Sharp and his Albert Einstein Institution. In a post mortem on the Serb events,
the Washington Post wrote, "US-funded consultants played a crucial role behind the scenes in
virtually every facet of the anti-drive, running tracking polls, training thousands of
opposition activists and helping to organize a vitally important parallel vote count. US
taxpayers paid for 5,000 cans of spray paint
used by student activists to scrawl anti-Milošević graffiti on walls across
Serbia."
Trained squads of activists were deployed in protests to take over city blocks with the aid
of 'intelligence helmet' video screens that give them an instantaneous overview of their
environment. Bands of youth converging on targeted intersections in constant dialogue on cell
phones, would then overwhelm police. The US government spent some $41 million on the operation.
Student groups were secretly trained in the Sharp handbook techniques of staging protests that
mocked the authority of the ruling police, showing them to be clumsy and impotent against the
youthful protesters. Professionals from the CIA and US State Department guided them behind the
scenes.
The Color Revolution Otpor! model was refined and deployed in 2004 as the Ukraine Orange
Revolution with logo and color theme scarves, and in 2003 in Georgia as the Rose Revolution.
Later Secretary of State Hillary Clinton used the template to launch the Arab Spring. In all
cases the NED was involved
with other NGOs including the Soros Foundations.
After defeating Milosevic, Popovic went on to establish a global color revolution training
center, CANVAS, a kind of for-profit business consultancy for revolution, and was personally
present in New York working reportedly with Antifa during the Occupy Wall Street where also
Soros money was reported.
Antifa and BLM
The protests, riots, violent and non-violent actions sweeping across the United States since
May 25, including an assault on the gates of the White House, begin to make sense when we
understand the CIA's Color Revolution playbook.
The impact of the protests would not be possible were it not for a network of local and
state political officials inside the Democratic Party lending support to the protesters, even
to the point the Democrat Mayor of Seattle ordered police to abandon several blocks in the
heart of downtown to occupation by protesters.
In recent years major portions of the Democratic Party across the US have been quietly taken
over by what one could call radical left candidates. Often they win with active backing of
organizations such as Democratic Socialists of America or Freedom Road Socialist Organizations.
In the US House of Representatives the vocal quarter of new representatives around Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Rashida Tlaib and Minneapolis Representative Ilhan Omar are
all members or close to Democratic Socialists of America. Clearly without sympathetic
Democrat local officials in key cities, the street protests of organizations such as Black
Lives Matter and Antifa would not have such a dramatic impact.
To get a better grasp how serious the present protest movement is we should look at who has
been pouring millions into BLM. The Antifa is more difficult owing to its explicit anonymous
organization form. However, their online Handbook openly recommends that local Antifa "cells"
join up with BLM chapters.
FRSO: Follow the Money
BLM began in 2013 when three activist friends created the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag to
protest the allegations of shooting of an unarmed black teenager, Trayvon Martin by a white
Hispanic block watchman, George Zimmermann. Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi
were all were connected with and financed by front groups tied to something called Freedom Road
Socialist Organization, one of the four largest radical left organizations in the United States
formed out of something called New Communist Movement that dissolved in the 1980s.
On June 12, 2020 the Freedom Road Socialist Organization webpage states, "The time is now to
join a revolutionary organization! Join Freedom Road Socialist Organization If you have been
out in the streets this past few weeks, the odds are good that you've been thinking about the
difference between the kind of change this system has to offer, and the kind of change this
country needs. Capitalism is a failed system that thrives on exploitation, inequality and
oppression. The reactionary and racist Trump administration has made the pandemic worse. The
unfolding economic crisis we are experiencing is the worst since the 1930s. Monopoly capitalism
is a dying system and we need to help finish it off. And that is exactly what Freedom Road
Socialist Organization is
working for ."
In short the protests over the alleged police killing of a black man in Minnesota are now
being used to call for a revolution against capitalism. FRSO is an umbrella for dozens of
amorphous groups including Black Lives Matter or BLM. What is interesting about the
self-described Marxist-Leninist roots of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO) is not
so much their left politics as much as their very establishment funding by a group of
well-endowed tax-exempt foundations.
Alicia Garza of BLM is also a board member or executive of five different Freedom Road front
groups including 2011 Board chair of Right to the City Alliance, Board member of School of
Unity and Liberation (SOUL), of People Organized to Win Employment Rights (POWER), Forward
Together and Special Projects director of National Domestic Workers Alliance.
The Right to the City Alliance got $6.5 million between 2011 and 2014 from a number of very
established tax-exempt foundations including the Ford Foundation ($1.9 million), from both of
George Soros's major tax-exempts–Open Society Foundations, and the Foundation to Promote
Open Society for $1.3 million. Also the cornflake-tied Kellogg Foundation $250,000, and
curiously , Ben
& Jerry's Foundation (ice cream) for $30,000.
Garza also got major foundation money as Executive Director of the FRSO front, POWER, where
Obama former "green jobs czar" Van Jones, a self-described "communist" and "rowdy black
nationalist," now with CNN, was on the board. Alicia Garza also chaired the Right to the City
Alliance, a network of activist groups opposing urban gentrification. That front since 2009
received $1.3 million from the Ford Foundation, as well as $600,000 from the Soros foundations
and again, Ben & Jerry's ($50,000).
And Garza's SOUL, which claimed to have trained 712
"organizers" in 2014, when she co-founded Black Lives Matter, got $210,000 from the Rockefeller
Foundation and another $255,000 from the Heinz Foundation (ketchup and John Kerry family) among
others. With the Forward Together of FRSO, Garza sat on the board of a "multi-racial
organization that works with community leaders and organizations to transform culture and
policy to catalyze social change." It officially got $4 million in 2014 revenues and from 2012
and 2014, the organization received a total of $2.9 million from Ford Foundation ($655,000) and
other major
foundations .
Nigeria-born BLM co-founder Opal Tometi likewise comes from the network of FRSO. Tometi
headed the FRSO's Black Alliance for Just Immigration. Curiously with a "staff" of two it got
money from major foundations including the Kellogg Foundation for $75,000 and Soros foundations
for $100,000, and, again, Ben & Jerry's ($10,000). Tometi got $60,000 in 2014 to direct the group .
The Freedom Road Socialist Organization that is now openly calling for a revolution against
capitalism in the wake of the Floyd George killing has another arm, The Advancement Project,
which describes itself as "a next generation, multi-racial civil rights organization." Its
board includes a former Obama US Department of Education Director of Community Outreach and a
former Bill Clinton Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights. The FRSO Advancement Project
in 2013 got millions from major US tax-exempt foundations including Ford
($8.5 million), Kellogg ($3 million), Hewlett Foundation of HP defense industry founder ($2.5
million), Rockefeller Foundation ($2.5 million), and Soros foundations ($8.6 million).
Major Money and ActBlue
By 2016, the presidential election year where Hillary Clinton was challenging Donald Trump,
Black Lives Matter had established itself as a well-organized network. That year the Ford
Foundation and Borealis Philanthropy announced the formation of the Black-Led Movement Fund
(BLMF), "a six-year pooled donor campaign aimed at raising $100 million for the Movement for
Black Lives coalition" in which BLM was a central part. By then Soros foundations had already
given some $33 million in
grants to the Black Lives Matter movement . This was serious foundation money.
The BLMF identified itself as being created by top foundations including in addition to the
Ford Foundation, the Kellogg Foundation and the Soros Open Society Foundations. They described
their role: "The BLMF provides grants, movement building resources, and technical assistance to
organizations working advance the leadership and vision of young, Black, queer, feminists and
immigrant leaders who are shaping and leading a national
conversation about criminalization, policing and race in America."
The Movement for Black Lives Coalition (M4BL) which includes Black Lives Matter, already in
2016 called for "defunding police departments, race-based reparations, voting rights for
illegal immigrants, fossil-fuel divestment, an end to private education and charter schools, a
universal basic income, and
free college for blacks ."
Notably, when we click on the website of M4BL, under their donate button we learn that the
donations will go to something called ActBlue Charities. ActBlue facilitates donations to
"democrats and progressives." As of May 21, ActBlue had given $119 million to the campaign
of Joe Biden.
That was before the May 25 BLM worldwide protests. Now major corporations such as Apple,
Disney, Nike and hundreds others may be pouring untold and unaccounted millions into ActBlue
under the name of Black Lives Matter, funds that in fact can go to fund the election of a
Democrat President Biden. Perhaps this is the real reason the Biden campaign has been so
confident of support from black voters.
What is clear from only this account of the crucial
role of big money foundations behind protest groups such as Black lives Matter is that there is
a far more complex agenda driving the protests now destabilizing cities across America.
The
role of tax-exempt foundations tied to the fortunes of the greatest industrial and financial
companies such as Rockefeller, Ford, Kellogg, Hewlett and Soros says that there is a far deeper
and far more sinister agenda to current disturbances than spontaneous outrage would
suggest.
***
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F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in
politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics,
exclusively for the online magazine "New
Eastern Outlook" where this article was originally published. He is a Research Associate of
the Centre for Research on Globalization.
Before looking into Russian options in relation to the US, we need to take a quick look at
how Russia has been faring this year. The short of it would be: not too well. The Russian
economy has shrunk by about 10% and the small businesses have been devastated by the combined
effects of 1) the economic policies of the Russian government and Central Bank, and 2) the
devastating economic impact of the COVID19 pandemic, and 3) the full-spectrum efforts of the
West, mostly by the Anglosphere, to strangle Russia economically. Politically, the "Putin
regime" is still popular, but there is a sense that it is getting stale and that most Russians
would prefer to see more dynamic and proactive policies aimed, not only to help the Russian
mega-corporations, but also to help the regular people. Many Russians definitely have a sense
that the "little guy" is being completely ignored by fat cats in power and this resentment will
probably grow until and unless Putin decides to finally get rid of all the Atlantic
Integrationists aka the "Washington consensus" types which are still well represented in the
Russian ruling circles, including the government. So far, Putin has remained faithful to his
policy of compromises and small steps, but this might change in the future as the level of
frustration in the general population is likely to only grow with time.
That is not to say that the Kremlin is not trying. Several of the recent constitutional
amendments adopted in a national vote had a strongly expressed "social" and "patriotic"
character and they absolutely horrified the "liberal" 5th columnists who tried their best two
1) call for a boycott, and 2) denounce thousands of (almost entirely) imaginary violations of
the proper voting procedures, and to 3) de-legitimize the outcome by declaring the election a
"fraud". None of that worked: the participation was high, very few actual violations were
established (and those that were, had no impact on the outcome anyway) and most Russians
accepted that this outcome was the result of the will of the people. Furthermore, Putin has
made public the Russian strategic goals for 2030
,which are heavily focused on improving the living and life conditions of average Russians (for
details, see here ). It is impossible to predict
what will happen next, but the most likely scenario is that Russia has several, shall we say,
"bumpy" years ahead, both on the domestic and on the international front.
I would add that Russia should also start opening channels of communication with various
organizations in Canada, especially those in the far north. While Canada is small
politically, it is vastly bigger than the U.S. in natural resources, very strategically
located and right next door to Russia.
I really agree with you that the "blame Russia" and "blame China" thing has gotten out of
hand in US politics. Whether it will turn into a shooting war seems doubtful to me, as the
government is still full of people who are looking out for their own interests and know that
a full-sized war with Russia, China, Iran or whoever will not advance their interests.
But who would have guessed, a few years ago, that "Russian asset" would become the
all-purpose insult for Democrats to use, not just against Republicans, but against other
Democrats?
I think Trump can win, though, if he successfully hangs the escalating Antifa/BLM mayhem
around the Democrat's necks. Normal, salt-of-the-earth-type Americans won't vote for the
party of Maoist mayhem. I just hope their numbers are still sufficient. So, really, the
mayhem needs to worsen and get ultra-bad, and Trump needs to carefully respond with just
enough law enforcement to bait the Democrats into defending the insurrectionists and their
tactics and loudly condemning Trump's "fascist" response. Normal people will see the true
story and in the privacy of the voting booth, not vote Democrat. And if you think the other
side lost their minds after the 2016 election .
Thanks Saker – I would have loved it, had Alaska been able to hang on to the 90s
relationship with Russia. It was a perfect match, except that Russian economy { as we were
told} was just tanking, and they had no money to throw into the tourist trade. Not that us
Alaskans, expected much more than what our bush villages had to offer. lol But , I'm afraid
this will never happen again, with the Zio freaks in charge of the US. I recall when I was
flying and living in McGrath in the 90s, that a womens Russian helicopter team dropped down
to refuel and I was workin on my cessna about 50 yrds away. I saw about 6+ really good
looking Russian chicks come out of those choppers, and us guys were floored ! We started to
communicate with them, they told us that they were re -tracing the WW II lend lease route and
were headed to the lower 48. Just about the time we started getting close tho, an old Lady
colonel jumped out and put the girls in place – lol . I also remember the Magadan
hockey team came over to play against our University teams Anchorage and Fairbanks. My
neighbor here in Kryme, was on that Russian team – small world. Ya, Russia and Alaska
would be a great match today – just gotta get rid of Washington. Thanks for the
memories.
" until and unless Putin decides to finally get rid of all the Atlantic Integrationists
aka the "Washington consensus" types which are still well represented in the Russian ruling
circles, including the government."
Putin's regime is merely a less unbearable version of the Yeltsin regime, with open loot
by oligarchs replaced by less overt loot by smaller scale actors. Putin is exactly as
beholden to the neoliberal capitalist system as Yeltsin. To expect Putin to change sides as
this point is ludicrous.
" Russia and the Empire have been at war since at least 2013, for no less than seven
years (something which Russian 6th columnists and Neo-Marxists try very hard to
ignore)."
I have no idea what a "neo" Marxist is (apart from a blatant made up term to taint us by
association with the neo-Nazis), but as a Marxist, which the Saker obviously is not, it's
obvious to me that the Imperialist States of America has been at war with Russia since the
Yeltsinite attack on the Moscow parliament in 1993, and probably from the failed patriotic
coup of 1991. If we ignore the Saker's idea of a war since 2013 it's only because we know
it's twenty years out of date.
Things will never improve between Amerikastan and Russia and don't need to. Amerikastan is
sinking and will sink; Putin will, if he continues on the neoliberal capitalist track, sink
Russia as well in the end.
The video link to Sahra Wagenknecht's report was the best part of this article although
the article itself was spot on if one has any respect for reality.
I keep waiting for Germany to tell NATO and the US to get the hell out, but their
political establishment is just as corrupt as the US's.
The amount of money the US Fed Gov steals from the population in taxes and regulation or
causes loss of purchasing power by increasing debt could be much better put to use than
shoveling it into the military to murder people around the globe. The entire Fed Gov will, I
hope, disappear like fart gas as a result of the economic collapse in the making.
@Emily at was just a brutal form of monopoly capitalism that is the essence of the
Zionist syndicate we all are up against. Today piratized not privatized Russia is suffering a
less severe form but it is estimated that half Jew Putin and his oligarch cronies control ap.
30% of the Russian economy. all of this insider theft was "codified and Legalized" by Larry
Summers and the Harvard Jews. Same thing is happening in Jewmerica and moving lots faster now
with the theft under cover of the fake virus. Don't forget in 08-09 the bailout for
billionaires cost the regular economy trillions then too. No problem, the Jews at Black Rock
picked up some great bargains as they will this time.
The real cause of the West's hatred for Russia is as simple as it is old: Russia cannot
be conquered, subdued, subverted or destroyed.
I would add that Putin (a masterful statesman) tamed Russia's oligarchs. The greatest fear
of America's oligarchs might well be a similar taming by a masterful American statesman.
Hence the refusal to allow anyone other than corrupted mediocrities anywhere near nominal
power in the US. And hence the entirely genuine hatred for Putin. He embodies their worst
nightmare.
"Russia will never attack first (which is a major cause of frustration for western
russophobes)"
Now that team orange clown (with the full support of congress) has done away with the
doctrine of mutually assured destruction, apparently replacing it with the concept of a
"winnable" nuclear war (impliedly by way of a devastating first strike), the time may come
when Russia may have to either strike first or be struck first.
Also, what about the case where the empire is finally successful in starting a war against
Iran, for example, and the war goes badly for the empire (i.e. Iran is inflicting some
serious damage), whereupon the empire resorts to nukes. Would Russia just sit back and watch,
or would Russia then realize that the monster has to be put down?
"The real cause of the West's hatred for Russia is as simple as it is old: Russia cannot
be conquered, subdued, subverted or destroyed."
In a sense that's true as far as it goes, but it really doesn't explain very much. Lots of
countries are unable to subdue, subvert or conquer other countries but that in itself doesn't
generally lead to "hatred." The simpler and more profound explanation is that the empire does
what it does because it's evil. And the evil empire is analogous to an aggressive cancer:
either the cancer wins and the patient dies, or the cancer is completely eradicated and the
patient survives. There is no peaceful coexistence with the evil empire just like there is no
peaceful coexistence with glioblastoma. You cannot negotiate with it to find some kind of a
reasonable compromise.
The US government and FRS seem to be hell-bent on destroying the value of the US $: when
someone issues debt obligations (treasuries) and then buys them himself because there are no
other takers, you cannot help smelling a rat.
The crash of the $ will hurt everyone, but some will recover faster than others. Euro and
yen would be buried with the US $, but assets in less US-dependent countries that have real
economies producing things other than hot air will likely fare better. Which leaves Russia,
big China, South Korea, and some SE Asia countries.
the US was at about the same level in 2013: "The top 10% of families held 76% of the
wealth in 2013, while the bottom 50% of families held 1%. Inequality worsened from 1989 to
2013"
Indications are that the worsening has only continued since then, and with all the money
being poured into the stock market by the Fed this year, 2020 is on track to be exceptionally
iniquitously inequitable.
Trump 're-election' is certain. All roads are paved toward it. In fact and so far Trump is
the best Neocon/Deep State's man they found. Stop pretending Saker!
The US is under rule by decree, not by rule of law. Looking at the original list of
grievances the Colonists had against King George, it looks like most of them are met –
and then some – by our current system of government. Can we regain our
independence?
said:
"A Trump re-election will virtually guarantee civil war, but that is still a better option
than a Biden hot war against Russia. Either way though, the country is totally fucked."
– We already have a civil war.
– Either way there will be no "hot war against Russia". That's just silly.
– And there is no "Biden" there.
– The US is much, much better off with Trump, it's not even close. Especially if you
value free speech, fighting violence, and at least some semblance of a market economy devoid
of the 'Green New Deal' scam.
after Vietnam war, Vietnam, ally of China , keep their regime in their own
hand.
The ally of North Vietnam was Russia.
China blocked the transit of Russian weapons to North Vietnam. After North Vietnam
defeated the Americans, with Russian help, China invaded North Vietnam and was defeated.
For Saker it is always about Russia, Russia, Russia Sure, Russia is a big world power, it
used to be and it is now. It is so mostly because of its military, which draws its strength
and know-how from the USSR (meaning it is not strictly Russian). However, Russia will never
again be a superpower as the USSR had been. It was possible then only because of the
(historically) unparalleled appeal of the communist ideology. Firstly and objectively, Russia
does not have an economy necessary to support such a status. Secondly, Russia has no
sufficient population which, again, is a limiting factor to its economy. Putin probably
realized that although he did not realize that the Putin-inspired immigration from the former
Muslim republic of the USSR will not alleviate the problem. But again, who would even want to
go to today's Russia if not Asiatic muslims. It will slowly but surely make Russia not much
different from the West. Muscovites, just like New Yorkers are already leaving the city,
those who can afford.
And, subjectively, Russia or the Russians don't have the most important ingredient fort the
superpower status – the MENTALITY. The recent (1990-2020) Russian history clearly
displays that. It shows that in order to realize the centuries old dreams of the few (so
called "elites") Russia as a nation and as country had put itself to the downward trajectory:
As an empire it sold Alaska; as a civilization – it destroyed itself by dismantling the
rest of the empire, the USSR. As an ally it abandoned and handed over the most Russophile
german friend and ally E. Honecker and others to the "partners" in the west. And, as an
orthodox and Slavic "brother" it betrayed and abandoned the only people that have always
loved Russia – the Serbs. As an ally it behaved recklessly and treacherously. Russia
will do the same again. So, hate Russia.
Since 2016 I've always believed Trump will be legally elected in 2020 but the DNC/Deep
State will reject the result much more forcefully and violently than they've been doing since
2016. The DNC/Deep State will establish a shadow government minus the shadow. It will not be
Joe Biden leading it but someone much younger, possibly Biden's VP choice – who was
(will be) selected to replace Biden should Biden actually win. Hell, it may even be Hussein
since he's such a treasonous pussy and easy to manipulate. The communists behind the scenes
(aren't they always such cowards) currently coordinating BLM and Antifa riots all over
America will again use rioting but with firearms and bombings. This must be met with a
military response and the violence will be nationwide. At some point either Trump declares
martial law and outright civil war ensues, or a military coup takes over with or without
Trump as a figurehead and they crush the communists and leftists while right wing militias
join in the hunt. The only wild-card is if race driven factionalism within lower ranks cause
wide divisions and some officers break away – then the whole show is over and there
will be no place safe from people with guns and bad intentions. We will be fighting over food
and gasoline. At least, like in China, there will be plenty of dogs to satisfy hunger.
Putin's difficulty is that Russia is really too important for the West to ignore.
Western elites, and not just in the US, but in the EU and the western-hemisphere in
general, are facing a problem: people are beginning to notice that human values are not
universal. This had been one of the main pillars for the existence and credibility of a
technocratic elite, specifically for the people to trust the elites to implement some
unspecified but benevolent neo-enlightenment.
Putin became truly anathema first when he rejected western neoliberal criminality
because
[Hide MORE] it was destroying his country, secondly, when he thwarted amputation
of Crimea by color revolution, and thirdly, when he kept calling out NATO/EU expansionism for
what it was. This made conversion of Russia to the neoliberal finance and 'universal value"
system even less likely than the conversion to Roman Catholicism prophesied at Fatima. Putin
decided that Russia would live by its own values, thank you very much. Russia could
still have been an arms-length ally, but Anglo-Zionist geopolitical extremism forced him to
make cause with a clearly adversarial China, and encouraged him to circumvent the western
currency system as well.
But peoples within the west were also developing this NGTOW (Nations Going Their Own Way)
attitude. Hungary and Poland were already becoming thorns in the side of the EU over the
"human value" immigration, and the elections of Trump and Brexit were further assertions of
populist preferences. Other politicians like Wagenknecht, LePen and Salvini are nurturing
this movement elsewhere. It remains to be seen whether the neoliberal oligarchy, by dialing
up propaganda and censorship, and by using Orwellian cancel terrorism, can quell this
awakening rebellion.
@Wally licies.
6. Dramatically improve US education, from elementary school up.
7. Reform US healthcare, with a view of making it healthcare, rather than extortion racket it
is today.
There are many other things, but anyone attempting to do even half of those listed would
be promptly JFK'ed by the Deep State. That is why there is no one in the US politics decent
enough to even talk about real problems, not to mention attempting to do what needs to be
done to save the country. Hence, I can name no names.
As things stand, even Trump is better than senile and corrupt Biden. But being better than
that piece of shit is not a big achievement.
China allowed Soviet arms through to North Vietnam and was herself giving weapons to them.
The Soviets didn't trust the Chinese though, so they preferred to transport more advanced
weapons on ships rather than by train through China, to prevent the Chinese from getting a
close look on these.
China attacked Vietnam for invading Cambodia, but this war exposed the weakness of the
Chinese Army. Deng Xiaoping was able to push through military reforms after the debacle.
@Ko e and destabilize western nations. These paid activists, opportunists and useful
idiots could be taken care of by the local law enforcement as the constitution mandates if
allowed to do so. The goal of the Zionist criminals is to create enough chaos and breakdown
that people will demand that the national gov. step in with martial law. This is exactly what
the Zionists want so they can get rid of the locally controlled police and implement a
gestapo of thugs that are accountable only to the elite at the top.
The zionist politicians and their operatives from the mayors to the Governors on up need
to be thrown out of office. That is the first step in restoring the Republic.
@alwayswrite ernative media has excellent analysts) instead of immersing in the stinky
products of presstituting MSM controlled by 6 zio-corporations.
Your hysterics about Russia's alleged attempts at destabilizing the EU are particularly
entertaining. For starter, 1. learn about US bases in Europe and beyond, and 2. read about
the consequences of the wars of aggression (also known as Wars for Israel) in the Middle East
for the EU.
If you are in search of neonazi, turn your attentions to a great project run by ziocons and
neonazi in Ukraine. See Grossman, Kolomojsky, Zelinsky, Nuland-Kagan, Pyatt, Carl Gershman
(NED), and the whole Kagans' clan united with Banderites What can go wrong?
...while every country is different, the signposts tend to be the same. It is worth
attending to the characteristics he describes. They should sound familiar:
In a weak state , basic services such as education and health are privatized;
public facilities decline. Infrastructure, including schools and hospitals, shows signs of
neglect, particularly outside of major cities. Journalists and civil society activists are
harassed. Tensions among ethnic, religious, or linguistic groups increase, but widespread
violence does not erupt -- yet.
In a failing state , a single leader gains control of the legislature, law
enforcement, and the judiciary. The leader and his cronies are enriched while ordinary
citizens are left without basic services.
In a failed state , living standards deteriorate rapidly. Citizens feel they
exist only to satisfy the ruler's greed and lust for power. The potential for violence
increases as the state's legitimacy crumbles.
Finally, in a collapsed state , warlords run the country. The market rules to
the exclusion of any other concerns, while the social compact has been completely eroded.
"The Id is unleashed."
...Rotberg points out that widespread violence, one of the key markers of a failed state, is
not in evidence. But as John Comaroff noted, the soft coup of finance can make violence
redundant. Rotberg is one of the more conservative voices on state failure, so I was surprised
when I asked about the consequences of a second Trump term. He simply said: "Move."
... America's polarization is as much psychological as political, Rauch wrote in
National Affairs , echoing John Comaroff's recognition of tribalism as intrinsic to
human society. Rauch calls America's polarization neither "ideological or even rational," but
deep and atavistic, a sign of the human need for group identity in a fragmented world.
"Rebuilding institutions -- and, just as important, noticing and valuing them -- is more
important for containing tribalism than pretty much anything that public policy could do," he
writes. "And two institutions in particular deserve strengthening: the Republican Party and the
Democratic Party."
... With the executive branch cratering and the legislature limping along, citizens seek
recourse from the courts -- a trend Comaroff calls "lawfare" -- or become beggars, relying on
the whims of billionaires. Neither are a substitute for good government. Start with the courts:
since the Reagan years, the pro-business Federalist Society has been stacking the courts, so
increasingly these, too, reflect that new system of finance über alles .
... Surprisingly, few have pointed out the parallels to the United States. In the 1980s,
Ronald Reagan's cowboy anti-communism made institutions the enemy, whether government
bureaucracies or labor unions. Libertarianism here means freedom for corporations and slavery
for everyone else. James Carville's famous dictum on winning elections can be repurposed: it's
corruption, stupid.
If American frontier culture is the disease, it may yet hold the cure. Among the
self-described political realists, conservative Jospeh Postell's remedies sound the most
realistic: grassroots organizing and restoring the power of local government to dispense
largesse. In Texas, Beto O'Rourke has been pouring time and resources into just the kind of
organizing Postell talks about, a test case that should be watched. The next few years will
likely tell us if the old remedies work or if the restoration of America's civil society needs
something that goes beyond electoral politics. The worst-case scenario? Politics as we know it
may be irrelevant.
... "The United States is a state that is a partially owned commodity of the corporate
sector. If that's the definition of a failed state, we are. The state has become analogous to
McDonald's. It's a franchise." And what better leader for a nation reduced to a franchise than
a puffed up, golf-playing billionaire whose wealth comes in large part from licensing his name?
Perhaps, as some scholars are suggesting, the new world order won't be countries at all, but
vast trading cities in a sea of ungoverned spaces.
... In his taxonomy of state failure, Rotberg uses a telling phrase to mark the state's
decline: losing "the mandate of heaven." This expression, once invoked to describe the divine
source of authority for China's rulers, invokes a crisis that is both individual and collective
and more powerful for that dual nature.\
... The failure of a state shakes people to their foundations. Downward mobility has bred a
hopelessness that's sent rates of suicide and alcoholism skyrocketing.
... Even now, America is more like Sierra Leone than we care to admit, disunited and
conflicted, our spirits eaten by cynicism. No longer asking what we can do for our country, the
old martial definition of the state has given way to the description of war-torn Sierra Leone
by London School of Economics professor David Keen: "a war where one avoids battles but picks
on unarmed civilians and perhaps eventually acquires a Mercedes may make more sense . . .
[than] risking death in the name of the nation-state with little or no prospect of significant
financial gain."
Susan Zakin is the editor ofJournal of the Plague Year. She is the
author of several books, including Coyotes and Town Dogs: Earth First! and the Environmental
Movement and Waiting for Charlie. More of her writing can be found atwww.susanzakin.com.
Turkey is currently involved in quite a few international military conflicts -- both against
its own neighbors such as Greece, Armenia, Iraq, Syria and Cyprus, and against other nations
such as Libya and Yemen. These actions by Turkey suggest that Turkey's foreign policy is
increasingly destabilizing not only several nations, but the region as well.
In addition, the Erdogan regime has been militarily targeting Syria and Iraq, sending its
Syrian mercenaries to Libya to seize Libyan oil and continuing, as usual, to bully Greece.
Turkey's regime is also now provoking ongoing violence between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
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Since July 12, Azerbaijan has launched a series of cross-border attacks against Armenia's
northern Tavush region in skirmishes that have resulted
in the deaths of at least four Armenian soldiers and 12 Azerbaijani ones. After Azerbaijan
threatened to launch missile attacks on Armenia's Metsamor nuclear plant on July 16, Turkey
offered military assistance to Azerbaijan.
"Our armed unmanned aerial vehicles, ammunition and missiles with our experience, technology
and capabilities are at Azerbaijan's service,"
said İsmail Demir, the head of Presidency of Defense Industries, an affiliate of the
Turkish Presidency.
One of Turkey's main targets also seems to be Greece. The Turkish military is targeting
Greek territorial waters yet again. The Greek newspaper Kathimerini
reported :
"There have been concerns over a possible Turkish intervention in the East Med in a bid to
prevent an agreement on the delineation of an exclusive economic zone (EEZ) between Greece
and Egypt which is currently being discussed between officials of the two countries."
Turkey's choice of names for its gas exploration ships are also a giveaway. The name of the
main ship that Turkey is using for seismic "surveys" of the Greek continental shelf is
Oruç Reis , (1474-1518), an admiral of the Ottoman Empire who often raided the
coasts of Italy and the islands of the Mediterranean that were still controlled by Christian
powers. Other exploration and drilling vessels Turkey uses or is planning to use in Greece's
territorial waters are named after Ottoman sultans who targeted Cyprus and Greece in bloody
military invasions. These include the drilling ship
Fatih "the conqueror" or Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II, who invaded Constantinople in 1453; the
drilling ship
Yavuz , "the resolute", or Sultan Selim I, who headed the Ottoman Empire during the
invasion of Cyprus in 1571; and
Kanuni , "the lawgiver" or Sultan Suleiman, who invaded parts of eastern Europe as well as
the Greek island of Rhodes.
Turkey's move in the Eastern Mediterranean came in early July, shortly after the country had
turned Hagia Sophia, once the world's greatest Greek Cathedral, into a mosque. Turkish
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan then
linked Hagia Sophia's conversion to a pledge to "liberate the Al-Aqsa Mosque" in
Jerusalem.
On July 21, the tensions arose again following Turkey's announcement that it plans to
conduct seismic research in parts of the Greek continental shelf in an area of sea between
Cyprus and Crete in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean.
"Turkey's plan is seen in Athens as a dangerous escalation in the Eastern Mediterranean,
prompting Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis to warn that European Union sanctions could follow
if Ankara continues to challenge Greek sovereignty," Kathimerini
reported on July 21.
Here is a short list of other countries where Turkey is also militarily involved:
In Libya , Turkey has been increasingly involved in the country's civil war. Associated
Press reported on July 18:
"Turkey sent between 3,500 and 3,800 paid Syrian fighters to Libya over the first three
months of the year, the U.S. Defense Department's inspector general concluded in a new
report, its first to detail Turkish deployments that helped change the course of Libya's
war.
"The report comes as the conflict in oil-rich Libya has escalated into a regional proxy
war fueled by foreign powers pouring weapons and mercenaries into the country."
Libya has been in turmoil since 2011, when an armed revolt during the "Arab Spring" led to
the ouster and murder of dictator Muammar Gaddafi. Political power in the country, the current
population of which is around 6.5 million, has been split
between two rival governments. The UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA), has been led
by Prime Minister Fayez al Sarraj. Its rival, the Libyan National Army (LNA), has been led by
Libyan military officer, Khalifa Haftar.
Backed by Turkey, the GNA
said on July 18 that it would recapture Sirte, a gateway to Libya's main oil terminals, as
well as an LNA airbase at Jufra.
Egypt, which backs the LNA,
announced , however, that if the GNA and Turkish forces tried to seize Sirte, it would send
troops into Libya. On July 20, the Egyptian parliament
gave approval to a possible deployment of troops beyond its borders "to defend Egyptian
national security against criminal armed militias and foreign terrorist elements."
Yemen is another country on which Turkey has apparently set its sights. In a recent video ,
Turkey-backed Syrian mercenaries fighting on behalf of the GNA in Libya, and aided by local
Islamist groups, are seen saying, "We are just getting started. The target is going to be
Gaza." They also state that they want to take on Egyptian President Sisi and to go to
Yemen.
"Turkey's growing presence in Yemen," The Arab Weekly reported
on May 9, "especially in the restive southern region, is fuelling concern across the region
over security in the Gulf of Aden and the Bab al-Mandeb.
"These concerns are further heightened by reports indicating that Turkey's agenda in Yemen
is being financed and supported by Qatar via some Yemeni political and tribal figures
affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood."
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In Syria , Turkey-backed jihadists continue occupying the northern parts of the country. On
July 21, Erdogan
announced that Turkey's military presence in Syria would continue. "Nowadays they are
holding an election, a so-called election," Erdogan said of a parliamentary election on July 19
in Syria's government-controlled regions, after nearly a decade of civil war. "Until the Syrian
people are free, peaceful and safe, we will remain in this country."
Additionally, Turkey's incursion into the Syrian city of Afrin, created a particularly grim
situation for the local Yazidi population:
"As a result of the Turkish incursion to Afrin," the Yazda organization
reported on May 29, "thousands of Yazidis have fled from 22 villages they inhabited prior
to the conflict into other parts of Syria, or have migrated to Lebanon, Europe, or the
Kurdistan Region of Iraq... "
"Due to their religious identity, Yazidis in Afrin are suffering from targeted harassment
and persecution by Turkish-backed militant groups. Crimes committed against Yazidis include
forced conversion to Islam, rape of women and girls, humiliation and torture, arbitrary
incarceration, and forced displacement. The United States Commission on International
Religious Freedom (USCIRF) in its 2020 annual report confirmed that Yazidis and Christians
face persecution and marginalization in Afrin.
"Additionally, nearly 80 percent of Yazidi religious sites in Syria have been looted,
desecrated, or destroyed, and Yazidi cemeteries have been defiled and bulldozed."
In Iraq , Turkey has been carrying out military operations for years. The last one was
started in mid-June. Turkey's Defense Ministry
announced on June 17 that the country had "launched a military operation against the PKK"
(Kurdistan Workers' Party) in northern Iraq after carrying out a series of airstrikes. Turkey
has named its assaults "Operation Claw-Eagle" and "Operation Claw-Tiger".
The Yazidi, Assyrian
Christian and Kurdish
civilians have been terrorized by the bombings. At least five civilians have been killed in
the air raids, according to
media reports . Human Rights Watch has also issued a
report , noting that a Turkish airstrike in Iraq "disregards civilian loss."
Given Turkey's military aggression in Syria, Iraq, Libya, and Armenia, among others, and its
continued occupation of northern Cyprus, further aggression, especially against Greece, would
not be unrealistic. Turkey's desire to invade Greece is not exactly a secret. Since at least
2018, both the Turkish government and opposition parties have openly been calling
for capturing the Greek islands in the Aegean, which they falsely claim belong to
Turkey.
If such an attack took place, would the West abandon Greece?
Gaius Konstantine , 10 hours ago
If such an attack took place, it will get real messy, real fast. The Turkish military is
only partially adept at fighting irregular forces that lack heavy weaponry while Turkey has
absolute control of the sky. Even then, the recent performance of Turkish forces has been
lacklustre for "the 2nd largest Army in NATO".
Turkey should understand that a fight with Greece will mean that the advantages she
enjoyed in her recent adventures will not be there. Nor should Turkey look to the past and
expect an easy victory, the Greek Army will not be marching deep into Anatolia this time,
(which was the wrong type of war for Greece).
So what happens if they actually take it to war?
The larger Greek islands are well defended, they won't be taken, but defending the smaller
ones is hard and Turkey will probably grab some of those. The Greeks, who have absolute
control and dominance in the Aegean will do several things. Turkish naval and air bases along
the Aegean coastline will be attacked as will the bosphorus bridges, (those bridges WILL go
down). The Greek army, which is positioned well, will blitz into eastern Thrace and stop
outside Istanbul where they will dig in and shell the city, thereby causing the civilians to
flee and clogging up the tunnels to restrict military re-enforcement.
That's Greece acting alone, a position will be achieved where any captured islands will be
traded for eastern Thrace. Should the French intervene, (even if it's just air and naval
forces), it gets a lot more interesting.
The mighty Turkish fleet was just met by the entire Greek navy in the latest stand-off, it
was enough to cause Turkey to reconsider her options. There will be no Ottoman empire 2.0
OliverAnd , 9 hours ago
The Greeks need their navy for surgically precise attacks against Turkey's navy. Every
island, especially the large ones are unsinkable aircraft carriers. No one has mentioned in
any article that Turkey's navy is functioning with less than minimum required personnel. No
one has mentioned that their air force is flying with Pakistani pilots. The only way Turks
will land on Greek uninhabited islands is only if they are ship wrecked and that for a very
very short period of time. Turkey's population is composed of 25% Kurds... that will also be
very interesting to see once they awaken from their hibernation and realize their great and
holy goal of Kurdistan. Egypt will not waste the opportunity to join in to devastate whatever
Turkish navy remains. Serbian patriots will not allow the opportunity to go to waste and will
attack Kosovo and indirectly Albania composed primarily of Turkish descendants... realize the
coverage lately of how the US did wrong for supporting these degenerate Muslim
Albanians.
I have no doubt Greeks will make it to Aghia Sophia but will not pass Bosporus. The result
will be a Treaty that is a hybrid of the Treaty of Lausanne and the Treaty of Sevron. If the
Albanians decide to support the Turks by attacking Greeks in the North and in Northern
Epeirus they should expect annexation of Northern Epeirus to Greece. Erdogan bases his
bullying on Trump's incompetences and false friendship. This is why America is non existent
in any of these regions. If Trump wins the election it will be a long war and very
destabilized for the region. If Trump loses the war will be much much quicker. The outcome
will remain the same. The Russians will not allow Turkey to dictate in the area. Israel will
not allow Turkey to dictate in the area. Egypt will not allow Turkey to dictate in the area.
Not even European Union. UK is the questionable.
The West has Turkey's back otherwise the Turkish currency the Turkish Lira would have
collapsed by now under attacks from the City of London Freemasonic Talmudic bankers.
Remember what happened to the Russian Rouble when Russia annexed Crimea?
The Fed and the ECB in cahoots with the usual Talmudic interests, are supporting the
Turkish Lira and propping up the Erdogan regime.
There is NO OTHER explanation.
The Turks have NO foreign currency reserves, no net positive euro nor dollar reserves.
Their tourism industry and main hard currency generator has COLLAPSED (hotels are 95 percent
empty). The Turkish central bank has resorted to STEALING Turkish citizens'
dollar-denominated bank accounts via raising Turkish Banks' foreign currency reserve
requirements which the Turkish central bank SPENDS upon receipt to buy TLs and prop up the
Turkish Lira.
This is utter MADNESS and FRAUD and LARCENY.
London-based currency traders would be all over the Turkish Lira and/or Turkish bonds and
stocks by now UNLESS they had been instructed by the Fed and the ECB or the Talmudic bankers
that own and control both, to lay off the Turkish Lira.
Despite the noise on TV or the press,
BY DEFINITION,
Erdogan and the Turks are only doing the bidding of the TRIBE hence Erdogan has the
blessing and the protection of the people ZH censors the name.
BUT
You know how those parasites treat their host and what the inevitable outcome is,
right?
Indeed,
Erdogan and the Turks are being set up to be thrown under the proverbial bus at the
appropriate time.
The Neo-Ottoman Sultan has inadvertently set up his (ill begotten) country for eventual
destruction and partition. The Kurds will get a piece of it. Who knows, maybe even the
Armenians will be able to recover some bits of their ancient homeland.
Greeks in Constantinople? Nothing is impossible thanks to the hubris and chutzpah of
Erdogan who is purported to have "Amish" blood himself.
Know thyself , 5 hours ago
Good for the UK that they have left the EU.
Apart from the Greeks, who would be fighting for their lives and homeland, the only EU
forces capable of acting are the French. German does not have an operative army or navy;
Italy, Spain and Portugal have neglected their armed forces for many years, and the Baltic
and Eastern Nations are unlikely to want to get involved. The Netherlands have very good
forces but not many of them.
MPJones , 7 hours ago
We can live in hope. Erdogan certainly seems to need external enemies to hold the country
together. Let us also hope that Erdogan's adventurism finally wakes up Europe to the reality
of the ongoing Muslim invasion so that the necessary Muslim repatriation can get going
without the bloodshed which Islam's current strategy in Europe will otherwise inevitably lead
to.
Know thyself , 5 hours ago
The Turkish army is a conscript army. They will need to be whipped up with religious
fervour to perform. Otherwise they will look after their own skins.
But remember that the Turks put up a good defence in the Dardanelles in the First World
War.
HorseBuggy , 9 hours ago
What do you expect? He killed Russian fighter pilots and he survived, this empowers
terrorists like him. Those pilots were the only ones at that time fighting ISIS. May they
RIP.
Max.Power , 9 hours ago
Turkey is in a "proud" group of failed empires surrounded by nations they severely abused
less than 100 years ago.
Other two are Germany and Japan. Any military aggression from their side will be met with
rage by a coalition of nations.
US position will be irrelevant at this point, because local historical grievances will
overweight anything else.
monty42 , 10 hours ago
"Libya has been in turmoil since 2011, when an armed revolt during the "Arab Spring" led
to the ouster and murder of dictator Muammar Gaddafi. Political power in the country..."
Kinda gave yourself away there. The coordinated assault on Libya by the US, Britain,
France, and their Al-CiA-da allies on the ground resulted in the torture, sodomizing, and
murder of Gaddafi, as well as his son and grandchildren killed in bombings by the US.
Also, let's not forget that Turkey is still in NATO, and their actions in Syria were
alongside the US regime and terrorist proxies labeled "moderate rebels". The same terrorists
originally used in Libya, then shipped to destroy Syria, now flown back to Libya. The attempt
to paint all of those things as Turkey's actions alone is not honest.
When Turkey isn't in NATO anymore, let me know.
TheZeitgeist , 10 hours ago
Don't forget that Hiftar guy Turks are fighting in Libya was a CIA toadie living in
Virginia for a decade before they gave him his "chance" to among other things become a client
of the Russians apparently. Flustercluck of the 1st order everywhere one looks.
monty42 , 10 hours ago
Then they put on this whole production where it's the CIA guy or the terrorist puppet
regime they installed, so that the rulers win regardless of the outcome. The victims are
those caught up in their sick game.
GalustGulbenkyan , 9 hours ago
Turkish population has been recently getting ****** due to the economic contractions and
devaluation of the Lira. Once Turkey starts fighting against a real army the Turks will
realize that they are going to be ****** by larger dildos. In 1990's they sent thousands of
volunteers to Nagorno Karabagh to fight against irregular Armenian forces and we know how
that ended for them. Greeks and Egyptians are not the Kurds. Erdogan is a lot of hot air and
empty threats. You can't win wars with Modern drones which even Armenians have learned how to
jam and shoot down with old 1970's soviet tech.
Guentzburgh , 5 hours ago
Greece should be aligned with Russia, EU and USA are a bad choice that Greece will
regret.
Greece needs to pivot towards Russia which will open huge opportunities for both
countries
KoalaWalla , 6 hours ago
Greeks are bitter and prideful - they would not only defend themselves if attacked but
would counter attack to reclaim land they've lost. But, I don't know that Erdogan is clever
enough to realize this.
60s Man , 9 hours ago
Turkey is America's Mini Me.
currency , 3 hours ago
Erdogan is in Trouble at home declining economy and his radical conservative/Thug type
policies. Turks are moving away from him except the hard core radicals and conservatives. He
and his family are Corrupt - they rule with threats and use of THUGS. Sense his constant wars
may be over stretched Time for a Turkish Spring.
Time for US, Nato and etc. to say goodbye to this THUG
OrazioGentile , 7 hours ago
Turkey seems to be on a warpath to imploding from within. Erdogan looks like a desperate
despot with a failing economy, failing political clout, and failing modernization of his
Country. Like any despot, he has to rally the troops or he will literally be a dead man
walking.
HorseBuggy , 9 hours ago
The world fears loud obnoxious tyrants and Erdogan is the loudest tyrant since Hitler.
Remember how countries pandered to Hitler early on? Same thing is happening with Erdogan.
This terrorist will do a lot more damage than he has already before the world wakes
up.
By the time Hitler was done, 70 million people were dead, what will Erdogan cause?
OliverAnd , 9 hours ago
Turkey is not Germany. Not by far. Erdogan may be a bigger lunatic than Hitler, but Turkey
is not Germany of the 30's. Without military equipment/parts from Germany, Italy, Spain,
France, USA, and UK he cannot even build a nail. Economies are very integrated; he will be
disposed of very very quickly. He has been warned. He is running out of lives.
NewNeo , 9 hours ago
You should research a lot more. Turkey is a lot more power thank Nazi Germany of the
1930's. Turkey currently have brand new US made equipment. It even houses the nuclear arsenal
of NATO.
You should probably look at information from stratfor and George Friedman to give you a
better understanding.
The failed coupe a few years ago was because the lunatic had gone off the reservation and
was seen as a threat to the region. Obviously the bankers thought it in their benefit to keep
him going and tipped him off.
OliverAnd , 8 hours ago
Clearly the lockdown has hindered your already illiteracy. Turkey has modern US equipment.
Germany did not need US equipment. They made their own equipment; in fact both the US and
USSR used Grrman old tech to develop future tech.
The coup was designed by Erdogan to bring himself to full power. When this is all done he
will be responsible for millions of Turkish lives; after all he is not a Turk but a Muslim
Pontian.
For much of the past year Trump has caused angst among allies by maintaining a consistent
position that Russia should be invited back into the Group of Seven (G7), making it as it was
prior to 2014, the G-8.
Russia had been essentially booted from the summit as relations with the Obama White House
broke down over the Ukraine crisis and the Crimea issue. Trump
said in August 2019 that Obama had been "outsmarted" by Putin.
But as recently as May when Germany followed by other countries rebuffed Trump's plans to
host the G7 at Camp David, Trump blasted the "very outdated group of countries"
and expressed that he planned to invite four additional non-member nations, mostly notably
Russia .
Germany has rejected a proposal by U.S. President Donald Trump to invite Russian President
Vladimir Putin back into the Group of Seven (G7) most advanced economies , German Foreign
Minister Heiko Maas said in a newspaper interview published on Monday.
Interestingly enough the Ukraine and Crimea issues were raised in the interview: "But Maas
told Rheinische Post that he did not see any chance for allowing Russia back into the G7 as
long as there was no meaningful progress in solving the conflict in Crimea as well as in
eastern Ukraine," according to the report.
"... By Dr. Karin Kneissl , who works as an energy analyst and book author. She served as the Austrian minister of foreign affairs between 2017-2019. She is currently writing her book 'Die Mobilitätswende' (Mobility in transition), to be published this summer. ..."
"... "humanitarian corridor" ..."
"... "good opposition" ..."
"... "humanitarian war," ..."
"... "worst mistake." ..."
"... "geopolitical commission." ..."
"... "community of the good ones" ..."
"... "Friends of Libya," ..."
"... "good opposition" ..."
"... "exclusive economic zone" ..."
"... "other actors" ..."
"... "mare nostrum" ..."
"... Think your friends would be interested? Share this story! ..."
By
Dr.
Karin Kneissl
, who works as an energy analyst and book author. She served as the Austrian minister of foreign affairs
between 2017-2019. She is currently writing her book 'Die Mobilitätswende' (Mobility in transition), to be published this
summer.
A confrontation between the two NATO states France and Turkey continues to trouble the Mediterranean region; Egyptian forces
are mobilizing. And many other military players are continuing operations there.
In March 2011, during a hectic weekend, the French delegation to the UN
Security Council managed to convince all other member States of the Council to support Resolution 1973. It was all about a
"humanitarian
corridor"
for Benghazi, which was considered the
"good opposition"
by the
government of Nicolas Sarkozy. One of his whisperers was the controversial philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy, who supported a
French intervention. Levy, fond of the
"humanitarian war,"
found a congenial
partner in Sarkozy.
France was at root of crisis
Muammar Gaddafi had been received generously with all his tents in the park of
the Elysée, but suddenly he was coined the bad guy. The same had happened to Saddam Hussein in Iraq. It was not the Arab
dictator who had changed; it was his usefulness to his allies. The Libyans had been distributing huge amounts of money in
Europe, in particular in Rome and Paris at various levels. In certain cases they knew too much. Plus, the Libyans had been
protecting the southern border of the Mediterranean for the European Union.
So, the French started the war in 2011, took the British on board, which made
the entire adventure look a bit like a replay of the Suez intervention of 1956, the official end of European colonial
interventions. A humanitarian intervention changed into regime change on day two, which was March 20, 2011. Various UN
Security Council members felt trapped by the French.
The US was asked to help, with then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and
many other advisers in favor of joining that war. President Obama, however, was reluctant but, in the end, he gave in. In one
of his last interviews while still in the White House, Obama stated that the aftermath of the war in Libya was his
"worst
mistake."
Libya ever since has mostly remained a dossier in the hands of administrative
officials in Washington, but not on the top presidential agenda anymore. This practice has been slightly shifting in the past
weeks. US President Donald Trump and France's Emmanuel Macron had a phone conversation on how to deescalate the situation
there. Trump also spoke on that very topic with Turkish President Recep T. Erdogan. Paris supports General Haftar in his war
against the Turkish-backed Government of National Accord, which is also supported by the European Union, in theory
The triggering momentum for the current rise in tensions was a naval clash
between French- and Turkish-supported vessels. Both nations are NATO members, and an internal alliance investigation is
underway. But France decided to pull out of the NATO naval operation that enforces the Libya arms embargo, set up during the
high-level Berlin conference on Libya in mid-January 2020. Without the French vessels it will be even more toothless than its
critics already deem it. This very initiative on Libya was the first test for the new European commission headed by Ursula von
der Leyen and claiming to be a
"geopolitical commission."
The EU strives to speak
the language of power but keeps failing in Libya, where two members, namely Italy and France, are pursuing very different
goals. Rome is anxious about migration while Paris cares more about the terrorist threat. But both have an interest in
commodities.
When Gaddafi was reintegrated in the
"community
of the good ones"
in early 2004 after a curious British legal twisting on the Lockerbie attack of December 1988, a
bonanza for oil and gas concessions started. The Italian energy company ENI and BP were among the first to have a big foot in
the door. I studied some of those contracts and asked myself why companies were ready to accept such terms. The answer was
maybe in the then rise in the oil price of oil and the proximity of Libya to the European market.
Interestingly, in September 2011, the very day of the opening ceremony of the
Paris conference dubbed
"Friends of Libya,"
a secret oil deal for the French
company Total was published by the French daily Libération. The
"good opposition"
had
promised the French an interesting range of oil concessions. Oil production continuously fell with the rise of the war,
attracting sponsors, militias and smugglers from all horizons. The situation in Libya has since been called 'somalization,'
but it would become even worse, since many more regional powers got involved in Libya than ever was the case in hunger-ridden
Somalia.
In exchange for its military assistance, Turkey recently gained access to
exploration fields off Libya's shores. Ankara had identified an
"exclusive economic
zone"
with the government in Tripoli, which disregards the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. Actually, Israel made the
same bilateral demarcation with Cyprus about ten years ago, when Noble Energy started its delineation of blocs in the Levant
Basin. So Turkey is infringing on Greek and Cypriot territorial waters, while President Macron keeps reminding his EU
colleagues of the
"other actors"
in the Mediterranean Sea. Alas, it is nobody's
"mare
nostrum"
as it was 2,000 years ago in the Roman era. In principle, all states which have ratified the UN Convention on
the Law of the Sea should simply comply with their legal obligations.
The crucial question remains: who has which leverage to de-escalate? Is it the
US President, who seemingly has acted more wisely on certain issues in recent times? Or will Russian and Turkish diplomacy be
able to negotiate and implement a truce? The tightrope-walk diplomacy between these last two countries is a most interesting
example of classical diplomacy: interest-based and focused; able to conduct hard-core relations even in times of direct
military confrontation and assassinations (remember the Russian Ambassador Karlov, shot by his Turkish bodyguard in Ankara in
December 2016?).
Meanwhile, yet another actor could move in to complicate everything even more.
On July 20, the Egyptian parliament voted unanimously for the deployment of the national army outside its borders, thereby
taking the risk of direct confrontation with Turkey in Libya. Egyptian troops would be mobilized in support of the eastern
forces of General Khalifa Haftar. Furthermore, Cairo would thereby compete even more obviously with Algeria, spending a
fortune on military control of its border with Libya. Algeria in the past could rely on US support in the region, but with the
gradual decline in US engagement in that part of the world, the country faces a fairly existential crisis.
There are currently two powers, among those involved in Libya, that can still
contain the next stage of a decade of proxy wars started by a French philosopher and various EU oil interests: Russia and the
USA.
Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those
of RT.
Quizblorg
48 minutes ago
Does anything here make sense? No, because France this, Italy that is not how the world is run. The parties
involved here go far beyond countries. Also no mention of Saudi-Arabia/Israel. Who engineered the "Arab
Spring"?
"... The reality is that, in the summer of 2020, America faces two deadly viruses. The first is Covid-19. With hard work and some luck, scientists may be able to mass-produce an effective vaccine for it, perhaps by as early as next spring . In the meantime, scientists do have a sense of how to control it, contain it, even neutralize it, as countries from South Korea and New Zealand to Denmark have shown, even if some Americans, encouraged by our president, insist on throwing all caution to the winds in the name of living free. The second virus, however, could prove even more difficult to control, contain, and neutralize: forever war, a pandemic that U.S. military forces, with their global strike missions, continue to spread across the globe. ..."
"... To survive, the human body needs a healthy immune system, so when it goes haywire, becomes wildly inflamed, and ends up attacking and degrading our vital organs, we're in trouble deep. It's a reasonable guess that, in analogous terms, American democracy is already on a ventilator and beginning to feel the effects of multiple organ failure. ..."
"... Unlike a human patient, doctors can't put our democracy into a medically induced coma. But collectively we should be working to suppress our overactive immune system before it kills us. In other words, it's truly time to defund that military machine of ours, as well as the militarized version of the police, and rethink how actual threats can be neutralized without turning every response into an endless war. ..."
...as Martin Luther King, Jr., pointed
out in 1967 during the Vietnam War, the United States remains the world's greatest
purveyor of violence -- and nothing in this century, the one he didn't live to see, has
faintly proved him wrong. Considered another way, Washington should be classified as the
planet's most committed arsonist, regularly setting or fanning the flames of fires globally
from Libya to Iraq, Somalia to Afghanistan, Syria to -- dare I say it -- in some quite
imaginable future Iran, even as our leaders invariably boast of having the world's greatest
firefighters (also known as
the U.S. military ).
Scenarios of perpetual war haunt my thoughts. For a healthy democracy, there should be few
things more unthinkable than never-ending conflict, that steady drip-drip of death and
destruction that drives
militarism , reinforces authoritarianism, and facilitates disaster capitalism .
In 1795, James Madison
warned Americans that war of that sort would presage the slow death of freedom and
representative government. His prediction seems all too relevant in a world in which, year
after year, this country continues to engage in needless wars that have nothing to do with
national defense.
You Wage War Long, You Wage It Wrong
U.S. helicopters on the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Midway (CV-41) during the
evacuation of Saigon, April 1975. (DanMS, Wikimedia Commons)
To cite one example of needless war from the last century, consider America's horrendous
years of fighting in Vietnam and a critical lesson drawn firsthand from that conflict by
reporter Jonathan Schell. "In Vietnam," he noted , "I learned about the capacity of the
human mind to build a model of experience that screens out even very dramatic and obvious
realities." As a young journalist covering the war, Schell saw that the U.S. was losing, even
as its military was destroying startlingly large areas of South Vietnam in the name of saving
it from communism. Yet America's leaders, the " best and brightest "
of the era, almost to a man refused to see that all of what passed for realism in their world,
when it came to that war, was nothing short of a first-class lie.
Why? Because believing is seeing and they desperately wanted to believe that they were the
good guys, as well as the most powerful guys on the planet. America was winning, it practically
went without saying, because it had to be. They were infected by their own version of an
all-American victory culture ,
blinded by a sense of this country's obvious destiny: to be the most exceptional and
exceptionally triumphant nation on this planet.
As it happened, it was far more difficult for grunts on the ground to deny the reality of
what was happening -- that they were fighting and dying in a senseless war. As a result,
especially after the shock of the enemy's Tet Offensive early in 1968, escalating protests
within the military (and among veterans at home) together with massive antiwar demonstrations
finally helped put the brakes on that war. Not before, however, more than 58,000 American
troops died, along with
millions of Vietnamese, Cambodians, and Laotians.
In the end, the war in Indochina was arguably too costly, messy, and futile to continue. But
never underestimate the
military-industrial complex , especially when it comes to editing or denying reality, while
being eternally over-funded for that very reality. It's a trait the complex has shared with
politicians of both parties. Don't forget, for instance, the way President Ronald Reagan
reedited that disastrous conflict into a "
noble cause " in the 1980s. And give him credit! That was no small thing to sell to an
American public that had already lived through such a war. By the way, tell me something about
that Reaganesque moment doesn't sound vaguely familiar almost four decades later when our very
own "
wartime president " long ago
declared victory in the "war" on Covid-19, even as the death toll from that virus
approaches 150,000 in the homeland.
President Donald Trump during briefing on Covid-19 testing capacity May 11, 2020. (White
House, Shealah Craighead)
In the meantime, the military-industrial complex has mastered the long con of the
no-win forever war in a genuinely impressive fashion. Consider the war in Afghanistan. In
2021 it will enter its third decade without an end in sight. Even when President Donald Trump
makes noises
about withdrawing troops from that country, Congress approves an amendment to another massive,
record-setting military budget with broad
bipartisan support that effectively obstructs any efforts to do so (while the Pentagon
continues to bargain Trump down on the
subject).
The Vietnam War, which was destroying the U.S. military, finally ended in an ignominious
withdrawal. Almost two decades later, after the 2001 invasion, the war in Afghanistan can now
be -- the dream of the Vietnam era -- fought in a "limited" fashion, at least from the point of
view of Congress, the Pentagon, and most Americans (who ignore it), even if not the Afghans.
The number of American troops being killed is, at this point, acceptably
low , almost imperceptible in fact (even if not to Americans who have lost loved ones over
there).
More and more, the U.S. military is relying on air power ,
unmanned drones, mercenaries, local militias, paramilitaries, and private contractors.
Minimizing American casualties is an effective way of minimizing negative media coverage here;
so, too, are efforts by the Trump administration to classify nearly everything related to that
war while
denying or downplaying " collateral
damage " -- that is, dead civilians -- from it.
Their efforts boil down to a harsh truth: America just plain
lies about its forever wars, so that it can keep on killing in lands far from home.
When we as Americans refuse to take in the destruction we cause, we come to passively accept
the belief system of the ruling class that what's still bizarrely called "defense" is a "must
have" and that we collectively must spend
significantly more than a trillion dollars a year on the Pentagon, the Department of
Homeland Security, and a sprawling network of intelligence agencies, all justified as necessary
defenders of America's freedom. Rarely does the public put much thought into the dangers
inherent in a sprawling "defense" network that increasingly invades and dominates our
lives.
Unmanned MQ-9 Reaper taxis after a mission in Afghanistan, Oct. 1, 2007. (Wikimedia)
Meanwhile, it's clear that low-cost
wars , at least in terms of U.S. troops killed and wounded in action, can essentially be
prolonged indefinitely, even when they never result in anything faintly like victory or fulfill
any faintly useful American goal. The Afghan War remains the case in point. "Progress" is a
concept that only ever fits
the enemy -- the Taliban continues to gain ground -- yet, in these years, figures like
retired general and former CIA Director David Petraeus have continued to call for a "
generational
" commitment of troops and resources there, akin to U.S. support for South Korea.
Who says the Pentagon leadership learned nothing from Vietnam? They learned how to wage
open-ended wars basically forever, which has proved useful indeed when it comes to justifying
and sustaining
epic military budgets and the political authority that goes with them. But here's the
thing: in a democracy, if you wage war long, you wage it wrong. Athens and the historian
Thucydides learned this the hard way in the struggle against Sparta more than two millennia
ago. Why do we insist on forgetting such an obvious lesson?
'We Have Met the Enemy and He Is Us'
Sept. 11, 2001: Firefighters battling fire in portion of the Pentagon damaged by attack.
(U.S. Navy/Bob Houlihan)
World War II was arguably the last war Americans truly had to fight. My Uncle Freddie was in
the Army and stationed at Pearl Harbor when it was attacked on Dec. 7, 1941. The country then
came together and won a global conflict (with lots of help) in 44 months, emerging as the
planetary superpower to boot. Now, that superpower is very much on the wane, as Trump
recognized in running successfully as a
declinist candidate for president in 2016. (Make America Great Again !) And yet,
though he ran against this country's forever wars and is now president, we're approaching the
third decade of a war on terror that has yielded little, spread radical Islamist terror outfits
across an expanse of the planet, and still seemingly has no end.
"Great nations do not fight endless wars," Trump
himself claimed only last year. Yet that's exactly what this country has been doing,
regardless of which party ruled the roost in Washington. And here's where, to give him credit,
Trump actually had a certain insight. America is no longer great precisely because of the
endless wars we wage and all the largely hidden but associated costs that go with them,
including the recently much publicized
militarization of the police here at home. Yet, in promising to make America great again,
President Trump has
failed to end those wars, even as he's fed the military-industrial complex with even
greater piles of cash.
There's a twisted logic to all this. As the leading purveyor of violence and terror, with
its leaders committed to fighting Islamist terrorism across the planet until the phenomenon is
vanquished, the U.S. inevitably becomes its own opponent, conducting a perpetual war on itself.
Of course, in the process, Afghans, Iraqis, Libyans, Syrians, Somalis, and Yemenis, among other
peoples on this embattled planet of ours, pay big time, but Americans pay, too. (Have you even
noticed that high-speed railroad that's unbuilt
, that dam in increasing
disrepair , those bridges that need fixing, while money continues to
pour into the national security state?) As the cartoon possum Pogo once so classically
said , "We
have met the enemy and he is us."
Early in the Iraq War, General Petraeus asked a question that
was relevant indeed: "Tell me how this [war] ends." The answer, obvious to so many who had
protested in the global streets
over the invasion to come in 2003, was "not well." Today, another answer should be obvious:
never, if the Pentagon and America's political and national security elite have anything to do
with it. In thermodynamics class, I learned that a perpetual motion machine is impossible to
create due to entropy. The Pentagon never took that in and has instead been hard at work
proving that a perpetual military machine is possible until, that is, the empire it feeds off
of collapses and takes us with it.
America's Military Complex as a Cytokine Storm
U.S. Air Force basic military graduation on April 16, 2020, on Joint Base San
Antonio-Lackland, Texas. (U.S. Air Force, Johnny Saldivar)
In the era of Covid-19, as cases and deaths from the pandemic continue to soar in America, it's astonishing that
military spending is also soaring to record
levels despite a medical emergency and a major recession.
The reality is that, in the summer of 2020, America faces two deadly viruses. The first
is Covid-19. With hard work and some luck, scientists may be able to mass-produce an effective
vaccine for it, perhaps by as early as
next spring . In the meantime, scientists do have a sense of how to control it, contain it,
even neutralize it, as countries from South Korea and New Zealand to Denmark have shown, even
if some Americans, encouraged by our president, insist on throwing all caution to the winds in
the name of living free. The second virus, however, could prove even more difficult to control,
contain, and neutralize: forever war, a pandemic that U.S. military forces, with their global
strike missions, continue to spread across the globe.
Sadly, it's a reasonable bet that in the long run, even with Trump as president, America has
a better chance of defeating Covid-19 than the virus of forever war. At least, the first is
generally seen as a serious threat (even
if not by a president blind to anything but his chances for reelection); the second is,
however, still largely seen as evidence of our strength and exceptionalism. Indeed, Americans
tend to imagine "our" military not as a dangerous virus but as a set of benevolent antibodies,
defending us from global evildoers.
When it comes to America's many wars, perhaps there's something to be learned from the way
certain people's immune systems respond to Covid-19. In some cases, the virus sparks an
exaggerated immune response that drives the body into a severe inflammatory state known as a
cytokine storm . That "storm" can lead to multiple organ failure followed by death, yet it
occurs in the cause of defending the body from a viral attack.
In a similar fashion, America's exaggerated response to 19 hijackers on 9/11 and then to
perceived threats around the globe, especially the nebulous threat of terror, has led to an
analogous (if little noticed) cytokine storm in the American system. Military (and
militarized police ) antibodies have been sapping our resources, inflaming our body
politic, and slowly strangling the vital organs of democracy. Left unchecked, this "storm" of
inflammatory militarism
will be the death of democracy in America.
To put this country right, what's needed is not only an effective vaccine for Covid-19 but a
way to control the "antibodies" produced by America's forever wars abroad and, as the years
have gone by, at home -- and the ways they've attacked and inflamed the collective U.S.
political, social, and economic body. Only when we find ways to vaccinate ourselves against the
destructive violence of those wars, whether on foreign streets or our own, can we begin to heal
as a democratic society.
To survive, the human body needs a healthy immune system, so when it goes haywire,
becomes wildly inflamed, and ends up attacking and degrading our vital organs, we're in trouble
deep. It's a reasonable guess that, in analogous terms, American democracy is already on a
ventilator and beginning to feel the effects of multiple organ failure.
Unlike a human patient, doctors can't put our democracy into a medically induced coma.
But collectively we should be working to suppress our overactive immune system before it kills
us. In other words, it's truly time to defund
that military machine of ours, as well as the militarized version of the police, and rethink
how actual threats can be neutralized without turning every response into an endless
war.
So many years later, it's time to think the unthinkable. For the U.S. government that means
-- gasp! -- peace. Such a peace would start with imperial retrenchment (bring our troops
home!), much reduced military (and police) budgets, and complete
withdrawal from Afghanistan and any other place associated with that "generational" war on
terror. The alternative is a cytokine storm that will, in the end, tear us apart from
within.
A retired lieutenant colonel (USAF) and professor of history, William J. Astore is
a
TomDispatch regular. His personal blog is " Bracing Views ."
To understand what enables all the absurdity noted, try identifying what made short shrift
of Tulsi Gabbard’s run for the democrat nomination. She clearly was raising the wrong
questions about war, and some one like Biden and Hillary were providing the narratives that
enable what is happening to continue.
evelync , July 27, 2020 at 17:26
Why do we live a different public from private life?
The public – American Dream; American Exceptionalism;
The private – CIA Director approved in spite of overseeing torture; secretive paranoid
cold warriors approved to run CIA. Coups/Wars
– The secretive State Dept and Intelligence agencies adopt policies that serve short
term financial interests of MICIMATT
NOT the long term public interest.
Trump was elected in part because people are sick of endless regime change wars and
reckless financial deregulation and unfair trade.
He made promises (which he lied about) because in spite of his glaring flaws he’s a
clever manipulator of peoples’ feelings and he knows what people worry about.
Aaron , July 27, 2020 at 13:48
The war on terror is an Israeli construct, it’s a perpetual war, an impossible kind
of war for our military to win in any conventional sense, whereby we could then pack up and
go home, which is exactly the way the Zionists want it to be played out. The goal has been to
Balkanize all of the countries that Israel feels threatened by and break them apart into
ethnic statelets, and thereby hugely weakening their overall power.
Not unlike what happened
to the former Yugoslavia. Remember that after the war in Afghanistan started, a person in the
Pentagon told Wesley Clark that we were going to war in 7 Middle East countries, and he said
he asked the person “Why?” and they didn’t give him an answer other than
that was the plan.
Sure, there are always the war profiteers and all that, but the particular
mission that our military is serving in that overall region is a Zionist plan.
The American
people have bought this for the most part because the Zionist mainstream media has
successfully conflated the goals of the state of Israel with our own goals, and that we must
equate any and all things Israeli with “The West”, and so whatever antipathy is
directed at them, we are to construe that they are attacking America also. And not only have
many thousands of American troops been killed, tens of thousands injured, the p.t.s.d. and
suicides will go on, as Petraeus seems to imply, for generations. This is a like a terrible,
persistent sickness.
Will there be a modern day Alexander to cut this Gordian Knot? The
financial, emotional, spiritual, moral toll of this forever war is indeed killing our
democracy.
"... International law is simply a weapon for the empire when it is invoked by it, and it is a useless farce for those the empire opposes. ..."
"... Interesting, but how is it possible to prosecute the US when it already dominates the world? If Hitler and the Germans had won the war there wouldn't have been a Nuremberg Trial. ..."
Editor's Note: As the United States approaches the third anniversary of the Iraq invasion,
much of the commentary is focusing on the Bush administration's "incompetence" in prosecuting
the war -- the failure to coimnit enough troops, the decision to disband the old Iraqi army
without adequate plans for training a new one, the highhandedness of the U.S. occupation.
But what about the legal and moral questions aiising from the unprovoked invasion of Iraq?
Should George W. Bush and his top aides be held accountable for violating the laws against
aggressive war that the United States and other Western nations promulgated in punishing senior
Nazis after World War II? Do the Nuremberg precedents that prohibit one nation from invading
another apply to Bush and American officials -- or are they somehow immune? Put bluntly, should
Bush and his inner circle face a war-crimes tiibunal for the tens of thousands of deaths in
Iraq?
Despite the present-day conventional wisdom in Washington that these are frivolous
questions, they actually go to the heart of the American commitment to the rule of law and the
concept that the law applies to everyone. In this guest essay, Peter Dyer looks at this larger
issue:
Just over six decades ago, the first Nuremberg Trial began. On Nov. 21, 1945, U.S. Supreme
Court Justice Robert Jackson opened the prosecution of 21 Germans for initiating a war of
aggression and for the crimes which flowed from this act. Now is a good time to reconsider some
of the history and issues involved in this momentous trial in the light of the invasion and
occupation of Iraq.
The trial lasted for over a year, culminating in verdicts of guilty of one, some, or all of
these crimes for 18 of the defendants. Eleven were sentenced to death.
While the Nuremberg trial is, these days, seldom invoked or discussed, it was, and still is,
in the words of Tribunal President Sir Geoffrey Lawrence, "unique in the history of the
jurisprudence of the world." Among the most groundbreaking aspects were the drive to formally
criminalize the three categories of crimes, and to establish responsibility by individuals for
these crimes.
These days, the Nuremberg Trial is chiefly remembered for the prosecution and punishment of
individuals for genocide. Equally important at the time, however, was the focus on wars of
aggression. Thus, the first sentence of Justice Jackson's opening statement: "The privilege of
opening the first trial in history for crimes against the peace of the world imposes a grave
responsibility."
Crimes against peace and the responsibility tor them were detined in Article 6, the heart of
the Charter of the IMT: "The tribunal.. .shall have the power to try and punish persons who..
.whether as individuals or as members of organizations, committed any of the following
crimes...(a) Crimes Against Peace, namely, planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war
of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances..
The desire was not only to punish individuals for crimes but to set an international moral
and legal precedent for the future. Indeed, before the end of 1946, the United Nations General
Assembly unanimously adopted Resolution 95 (1), affirming '4he principles of International Law
recognized by the Charter of the Nuremberg Tribunal and the judgment of the Tribunal." And, of
course, the United Nations Charter forbids armed aggression and violations of the sovereignty
of any state by any other state, except in immediate self defense (Article 2, Sec. 4 and
Articles 39 and 51).
Invoking the precedent set by the United States and its allies at the Nuremberg trial in
1946, there can be no doubt that the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 was a war of aggression.
There was no imminent threat to U.S. security nor to the security of the world. The invasion
violated the U.N. Charter as well as U.N. Security Council Resolution #1441.
The Nuremberg precedent calls for no less than the arrest and prosecution of those
individuals responsible for the invasion of Iraq, beginning with President George W. Bush, Vice
President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Condoleeza
Rice, former Secretary of State Colin Powell and former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul
Wolfowitz.
Those who still justify the invasion of Iraq would do well to remember the words of Justice
Jackson: "Our position is that whatever grievances a nation may have, however objectionable it
finds the status quo, aggressive warfare is an illegal means for settling these grievances or
for altering these conditions."
And, for those who have difficulty visualizing American leaders as defendants in such a
trial, Justice Jackson's words again: "...(L)et me make clear that while this law is first
applied against German aggressors, the law includes, and if it is to serve a useful purpose it
must condemn, aggression by any other nations, including those which sit here now in
judgment...This trial represents mankind's desperate effort to apply the discipline of the law
to statesmen who have used their powers of state to attack the foundations of the world's peace
and to commit aggression against the rights of their neighbors."
Peter Dyer is a machinist who moved with his wife from California to New Zealand in
2004.
Aaron , July 26, 2020 at 20:17
Well, it would have been up to one person to call for an investigation and prosecute any
illegal actions pertaining to the invasion – Barack Obama. Nobody in the Bush
administration would have done it, and it was something that Obama talked about alot in his
speeches in his campaign to be president.
Ana Márcia Vainsencher , July 25, 2020 at 17:47
Law is only applied to the USA "enemies", are they real, or no. Historically, the USA
loves to create enemies. It's the king of wars.
Sadly, we still entertain notions of war crimes, meaning that mass murders can be
conducted in legal ways that's the disease right there: all we have to do is make rules for
how to slaughter human beings according to a scholarly and civilized rule book written by our
most gifted and trained in the humanities experts and then wipe out as many humans as we need
to in a completely legal way hello?
How about a Geneva convention to write up rules of child
rape, wife beating, or maybe the only thing to get "civilized" people upset: pet
murdering?
Germany was only doing the politcal economic business of capital, as were its enemies, except
for Russia which played the greater role in the defeat of "evil" nazi
capitalism..anti-democratic capitalism is in the business of war and it will take democratic
communism to bring about peace and global sanity before it destroys humanity.
Andrew Thomas , July 25, 2020 at 13:25
It has been clear for several decades that Nuremberg was not a precedent. It was -- and this
is very difficult to actually write out -- victor's justice, which is exactly what the Nazis
and their sympathizers said it was then. The US has been "projecting power" around the world
ever since in violation of the spirit of the legal terms of the international order it was
instrumental in creating post World War II; and its clear provisions at least since Reagan
told the World Court to drop dead re: Nicaragua vs. US.
Other more informed readers may have
much earlier examples. International law is simply a weapon for the empire when it is invoked
by it, and it is a useless farce for those the empire opposes.
Robert Sinuhe , July 25, 2020 at 10:34
Interesting, but how is it possible to prosecute the US when it already dominates the world? If Hitler and the Germans
had won the war there wouldn't have been a Nuremberg Trial. Principles are morals and just but power trumps all.
We've been doing it since the Sixties, and it's bad for the world. People protest against
racism and police brutality in Paris on June 6, 2020, as part of 'Black Lives Matter' worldwide
protests against racism and police brutality in the wake of the death of George Floyd. (Photo
by Jerome Gilles/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Why is a public school in France
renaming itself after Rosa Parks? Let us stipulate that Rosa Parks was an admirable lady.
Why should the Grand Est regional council, when it consolidated the Lycée Jean-Baptiste
Colbert and the Lycée Sophie Germain, choose to rename the combined school not after the
17th-century statesmen, not after the pioneering female mathematician, but after an activist
from Alabama who had nothing to do with France?
The spread of George Floyd protests around the globe has a lot of people asking why the
death of a man in Minneapolis should lead to statues being toppled in Europe. The answer is
that American racial politics have colonized the rest of the planet. The answer to why
that happened is partly because we deliberately exported it.
A New York Times article this month headlined " A Racial
Awakening in France " explains that the U.S. embassy in Paris has made minority outreach
part of its mission. Embassy programs have sent French anti-racism activists on exchange trips
to the U.S. and funded training programs for them in "managing ethnic diversity." One program
promoted affirmative action, "a taboo concept in France," the Times notes, since France
famously does not even collect any government data based on race.
American outreach to French activists has indeed been energetic, with consequences for
French politics. One beneficiary, Tara Dickman, was sent to Chicago to learn community
organizing and returned to start a campaign against racial profiling, using decidedly American
methods such as lawsuits against the government. "Within a year, police profiling went from a
sort of topic that didn't exist to a major political stake," Dickman said. "Fourteen people
went to court to sue the state, and then it became a major issue in the elections, there are
three law proposals now and this is really thanks to this trip."
The broader goal of this outreach is to introduce into France the American approach to
racial problems, our color-conscious multiculturalism as opposed to their colorblind
universalism. One of the activists quoted by the Times , Rokhaya Diallo, has said that
the problem with France is that "the country continues to view racism from a moral and
individual standpoint. In doing so, it excludes the possibility of enacting broad policies that
can tackle the structural problem of racism."
Well, yes. That's the point of being French. Viewing things from a "moral and individual
standpoint" is at the heart of their version of the Enlightenment. In his stern televised
address of June 14, President Emmanuel Macron condemned "separatists" for trying to use the
current unrest to promote " communautarisme ," the breaking up of France into subgroups.
However well that method might work in other places, it is fundamentally contrary to French
traditions.
Steele's "Primary Subsource" Was Alcoholic Russian National Who Worked With Trump
Impeachment Witness At Brookings by Tyler Durden Sat, 07/25/2020 - 16:50
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The mysterious "Primary Subsource" that Christopher Steele has long hidden behind to defend
his discredited Trump-Russia dossier is a former Brookings Institution analyst -- Igor "Iggy"
Danchenko, a Russian national whose past includes criminal convictions and other personal
baggage ignored by the FBI in vetting him and the information he fed to Steele , according to
congressional sources and records obtained by RealClearInvestigations. Agents continued to use
the dossier as grounds to investigate President Trump and put his advisers under
counter-espionage surveillance.
The 42-year-old Danchenko, who was hired by Steele in 2016 to deploy a network of sources to
dig up dirt on Trump and Russia for the Hillary Clinton campaign, was arrested, jailed and
convicted years earlier on multiple public drunkenness and disorderly conduct charges in the
Washington area and ordered to undergo substance-abuse and mental-health counseling, according
to criminal records.
Fiona Hill: She worked at the Brookings Institution with dossier "Primary Subsource" Igor
"Iggy" Danchenko (top photo), and testified against President Trump last year during
impeachment hearings. AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta
In an odd twist, a 2013 federal case against Danchenko was prosecuted by then-U.S Attorney
Rod Rosenstein, who ended up signing one of the FBI's dossier-based wiretap warrants as deputy
attorney general in 2017.
Danchenko first ran into trouble with the law as he began working for Brookings - the
preeminent Democratic think tank in Washington - where he struck up a friendship with Fiona
Hill, the White House adviser who testified against Trump during last year's impeachment
hearings. Danchenko has described Hill as a mentor, while Hill has sung his praises as a
"creative" researcher.
Hill is also close to his boss Steele, who she'd known since 2006 . She met with the former
British intelligence officer during the 2016 campaign and later received a raw, unpublished
copy of the now-debunked dossier.
It does not appear the FBI asked Danchenko about his criminal past or state of sobriety when
agents interviewed him in January 2017 in a failed attempt to verify the accuracy of the
dossier, which the bureau did only after agents used it to obtain a warrant to surveil Trump
campaign adviser Carter Page. The opposition research was farmed out by Steele, working for
Clinton's campaign, to Danchenko, who was paid for the information he provided.
A newly declassified FBI summary of the FBI-Danchenko meeting reveals agents learned that
key allegations in the dossier, which claimed Trump engaged in a "well-developed conspiracy of
cooperation" with the Kremlin against Clinton, were largely inspired by gossip and bar talk
among Danchenko and his drinking buddies, most of whom were childhood friends from Russia.
The FBI memo is heavily redacted and blacks out the name of Steele's Primary Subsource. But
public records and congressional sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, confirm the
identity of the source as Danchenko.
In the memo, the FBI notes that Danchenko said that he and one of his dossier sources "drink
heavily together." But there is no apparent indication the FBI followed up by asking Danchenko
if he had an alcohol problem, which would cast further doubt on his reliability as a source for
one of the most important and sensitive investigations in FBI history.
The FBI declined comment. Attempts to reach Danchenko by both email and phone were
unsuccessful.
The Justice Department's watchdog recently debunked the dossier's most outrageous
accusations against Trump, and faulted the FBI for relying on it to obtain secret wiretaps. The
bureau's actions, which originated under the Obama administration, are now the subject of a
sprawling criminal investigation led by special prosecutor John Durham.
Rod Rosenstein: In an odd twist, a 2013 drunkenness case against Danchenko was prosecuted by
then-U.S Attorney Rod Rosenstein, who ended up signing one of the FBI's dossier-based wiretap
warrants as deputy attorney general in 2017. (Greg Nash/Pool via AP)
One of the wiretap warrants was signed in 2017 by Rosenstein, who also that year appointed
Special Counsel Robert Mueller and signed a "scope" memo giving him wide latitude to
investigate Trump and his surrogates. Mueller relied on the dossier too. As it happens,
Rosenstein also signed motions filed in one of Danchenko's public intoxication cases, according
to the documents obtained by RCI.
In March 2013 -- three years before Danchenko began working on the dossier -- federal
authorities in Greenbelt, Md., arrested and charged him with several misdemeanors, including
"drunk in public, disorderly conduct, and failure to have his [2-year-old] child in a safety
seat," according to a court
filing . The U.S. prosecutor for Maryland at the time was Rosenstein, whose name
appears in the docket filings .
The Russian-born Danchenko, who was living in the U.S. on a work visa, was released from
jail on the condition he undergo drug testing and "participate in a program of substance abuse
therapy and counseling," as well as "mental health counseling," the records show. His lawyer
asked the court to postpone his trial and let him travel to Moscow "as a condition of his
employment." The Russian trips were granted without objection from Rosenstein. Danchenko ended
up several months later entering into a plea agreement and paying fines.
In 2006, Danchenko was arrested in Fairfax, Va., on similar offenses, including "public
swearing and intoxication," criminal records show. The case was disposed after he paid a
fine.
At the time, Danchenko worked as a research analyst for the Brookings Institution, where he
became a protégé of Hill. He collaborated with her on at least two Russian policy
papers during his five-year stint at the think tank and worked with another Brookings scholar
on a project to
uncover alleged plagiarism in Russian President Vladimir Putin's doctoral dissertation --
something Danchenko and his lawyer boasted about during their meeting with FBI agents. (Like
Hill, the other scholar, Clifford Gaddy, was a Russia hawk. He and Hill in 2015 authored "Mr.
Putin: Operative in the Kremlin," a book strongly endorsed by Vice President Joe Biden at the
time.)
"Igor is a highly accomplished analyst and researcher," Hill noted on his LinkedIn page in
2011.
"He is very creative in pursuing the most relevant of information and detail to support
his research."
Strobe Talbott of Brookings with Hillary Clinton: He connected with Christopher Steele and
passed along a copy of his anti-Trump dossier to Fiona Hill. AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster
Hill also vouched for Steele, an old friend and British intelligence counterpart. The two
reunited in 2016, sitting down for at least one meeting. Her boss at the time, Brookings
President Strobe Talbott, also connected with Steele and
passed along a copy of his anti-Trump dossier to Hill. A tough Trump critic, Talbott
previously worked in the Clinton administration and rallied the think tank behind Hillary.
Talbott's brother-in-law is Cody Shearer, another old Clinton hand who disseminated his own
dossier in 2016 that echoed many of the same lurid and unsubstantiated claims against Trump.
Through a mutual friend at the State Department, Steele obtained a copy of Shearer's dossier
and reportedly submitted it to the FBI to help corroborate his own.
In August 2016, Talbott personally called Steele, based in London, to offer his own input on
the dossier he was compiling from Danchenko's feeds. Steele phoned Talbott just before the
November election, during which Talbott asked for the latest dossier memos to distribute to top
officials at the State Department. After Trump's surprise win, the mood at Brookings turned
funereal and Talbott and
Steele strategized about how they "should handle" the dossier going forward.
During the Trump transition, Talbott encouraged Hill to leave Brookings and take
a job in the White House so she could be "one of the adults in the room" when Russia and
Putin came up. She served as deputy assistant to the president and senior director for European
and Russian affairs on the National Security Council from 2017 to 2019.
She left the White House just before a National Security Council detailee who'd worked with
her, Eric Ciaramella, secretly huddled with Democrats in Congress and
alleged Trump pressured the president of Ukraine to launch an investigation of Biden and
his son in exchange for military aid. Democrats soon held hearings to impeach Trump, calling
Hill as one of their star witnesses.
Congressional investigators are taking a closer look at tax-exempt Brookings, which has
emerged as a nexus in the dossier scandal. As a 501(c)(3) non-profit, the liberal think tank is
prohibited from lobbying or engaging in political campaigns. Gryffindor/Wikimedia
Under questioning by Republican staff, Hill disclosed that Steele reached out to her for
information about a mysterious individual, but she claimed she could not recall his name. She
also said she couldn't remember the month she and Steele met.
"He had contacted me because he wanted to see if I could give him a contact to some other
individual, who actually I don't even recall now, who he could approach about some business
issues," Hill told the House
last year in an Oct. 14 deposition taken behind closed doors.
Congressional investigators are reviewing her testimony, while taking a closer look at
tax-exempt Brookings, which has emerged as a nexus in the dossier scandal.
Registered with the IRS as a 501(c)(3) non-profit, the liberal think tank is prohibited from
lobbying or engaging in political campaigns. Specifically, investigators want to know if
Brookings played any role in the development of the dossier.
"Their 501(c)(3) status should be audited, because they are a major player in the dossier
deal," said a congressional staffer who has worked on the investigation into alleged Russian
influence.
Hill, who returned to Brookings as a senior fellow in January, could not be reached for
comment. Brookings did not respond to inquiries.
Ghost Employee
As a former member of Britain's secret intelligence service, Steele hadn't traveled to
Russia in decades and apparently had no useful sources there . So he relied entirely on
Danchenko and his supposed "network of subsources," which to its chagrin, the FBI discovered
was nothing more than a "social circle."
It soon became clear over their three days of debriefing him at the FBI's Washington field
office - held just days after Trump was sworn into office - that any Russian insights he may
have had were strictly academic.
Danchenko confessed he had no inside line to the Kremlin and was "clueless" when Steele
hired him in March 2016 to investigate ties between Russia and Trump and his campaign
manager.
Christopher Steele, former British spy, leaving a London court this week in a libel case
brought against him by a Russian businessman. Dossier source Danchenko's drinking pals fed him
a tissue of false "rumor and speculation" for pay -- which Steele, in turn, further embellished
with spy-crafty details and sold to his client as "intelligence." (Victoria Jones/PA via
AP)
Desperate for leads, he turned to a ragtag group of Russian and American journalists,
drinking buddies (including one who'd been arrested on pornography charges) and even an old
girlfriend to scare up information for his London paymaster, according to the FBI's January
2017 interview memo, which runs 57 pages. Like him, his friends made a living hustling gossip
for cash, and they fed him a tissue of false "rumor and speculation" -- which Steele, in turn,
further embellished with spy-crafty details and sold to his client as "intelligence."
Instead of closing its case against Trump, however, the FBI continued to rely on the
information Danchenko dictated to Steele for the dossier, even swearing to a secret court that
it was credible enough to renew wiretaps for another nine months.
One of Danchenko's sources was nothing more than an anonymous voice on the other end of a
phone call that lasted 10-15 minutes.
Danchenko told the FBI he figured out later that the call-in tipster, who he said did not
identify himself, was Sergei Millian, a Belarusian-born realtor in New York. In the dossier,
Steele labeled this source "an ethnic Russian close associate of Republican U.S. presidential
candidate Donald Trump," and attributed Trump-Russia conspiracy revelations to him that the FBI
relied on to support probable cause in all four FISA applications for warrants to spy on Trump
adviser Carter Page -- including the Mueller-debunked myth that he and the campaign were
involved in "the DNC email hacking operation."
Danchenko explained to agents the call came after he solicited Millian by email in late July
2016 for information for his assignment from Steele. Millian told RCI that though he did
receive an email from Danchenko on July 21, he ignored the message and never called him.
"There was not any verbal communications with him," he insisted. "I'm positive, 100%,
nothing what is claimed in whatever call they invented I could have said."
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Millian provided RCI part of the email, which was written mostly in Russian. Contact
information at the bottom of the email reads:
Igor Danchenko
Business Analyst
Target Labs Inc.
8320 Old Courthouse Rd, Suite 200
Vienna, VA 22182
+1-202-679-5323
At the time, Danchenko listed Target Labs, an IT recruiter run by ethnic-Russians, as an
employer on his resumé. But technically, he was not a paid employee there. Thanks to a
highly unusual deal Steele arranged with the company, Danchenko was able to use Target Labs as
an employment front.
It turns out that in 2014, when Danchenko first started freelancing regularly for Steele
after losing his job at a Washington strategic advisory firm, he set out to get a security
clearance to start his own company. But drawing income from a foreign entity like Steele's
London-based company, Orbis Business Intelligence, would hurt his chances.
So Steele agreed to help him broker a special "arrangement" with Target Labs, where a
Russian friend of Danchenko's worked as an executive, in which the company would bring
Danchenko on board as an employee but not put him officially on the payroll. Danchenko would
continue working for Steele and getting paid by Orbis with payments funneled through Target
Labs. In effect, Target Labs served as the "contract vehicle" through which Danchenko was paid
a monthly salary for his work for Orbis, the FBI memo reveals.
Though Danchenko had a desk available to use at Target Labs, he did most of his work for
Orbis from home and did not take direction from the firm. Steele continued to give him
assignments and direct his travel. Danchenko essentially worked as a ghost employee at Target
Labs.
Asked about it, a Target Labs spokesman would only say that Danchenko "does not work with us
anymore."
Brian Auten: He wrote the memo on the FBI's interview with the Primary Subsource, which is
silent about Danchenko's criminal record. Patrick Henry College
Some veteran FBI officials worry Moscow's foreign intelligence service may have planted
disinformation with Danchenko and his network of sources in Russia. At least one of them,
identified only as "Source 5" in the FBI memo, was described as having a Russian "kurator," or
handler.
"There are legions of 'connected' Russians purveying second- and third-hand -- and often
made-up -- due diligence reports and private intelligence," said former FBI assistant
director Chris Swecker. "Putin's intelligence minions use these people well to plant
information."
Danchenko has scrubbed his social media account. He told the FBI he deleted all his
dossier-related electronic communications, including texts and emails, and threw out his
handwritten notes from conversations with his subsources.
In the end, Steele walked away from the dossier debacle with at least $168,000, and
Danchenko earned a large undisclosed sum.
The FBI interview memo, which is silent about Danchenko's criminal record, was written by
FBI Supervisory Intelligence Analyst Brian Auten, who was called out in the Justice inspector
general report for ignoring inconsistencies, contradictions, errors and outright falsehoods in
the dossier he was supposed to verify.
It was also Auten's duty to vet Steele and his sources. Auten sat in on the meetings with
Danchenko and also separate ones with Steele. He witnessed firsthand the countless red flags
that popped up from their testimony. Yet Auten continued to tout their reliability as sources,
and give his blessing to agents to use their dossier as probable cause to renew FISA
surveillance warrants to spy on Page.
As RCI first reported, Auten teaches a national security course at a Washington-area college
on the ethics of such spying .
"... Attempting to neutralise a global competitor is the main goal of Americans. Neutralising China's rapid, dynamic development is the essence of the American strategy ..."
Recap from today's Global Times where the argument is to continue to stay the
course and counterpunch in the typical martial arts fashion, as this op/ed from today's Global
Times says :
"Chinese analysts said Sunday the key for China to handle the US offensive is to focus on
its own development and insist on continued reform and opening-up to meet the increasing
needs of Chinese people for better lives. In the upcoming three months, before the November
US presidential election, the China-US relationship is in extreme danger as the Trump
administration is likely to launch more aggressions to force China to retaliate, they
said."
Stay the course; Trump's shit is just an election ploy. However,
"The US' posturing is serving to distract from domestic pressure over President Trump's
failure in handling the pandemic when Trump is seeking reelection this year, Chinese
observers said. However, the Trump administration's China stance still reflects bipartisan
consensus among US elites, so China should not expect significant change in US policy toward
China even if there is a power transition in November, which means China should prepare
itself for a long fight."
Don't stray from the Long Game. An international conference was held that I'll try to get
a link for. Here's GT's summation:
"According to the Xinhua News Agency on Saturday, international scholars said at a virtual
meeting on the international campaign against a new cold war on China on Saturday that
'aggressive statements and actions by the US government toward China poses a threat to world
peace and a potential new cold war on China goes against the interests of humanity.'
"The meeting gathered experts from a number of countries including the US, China, Britain,
India, Russia and Canada.
"Experts attending the meeting issued a statement calling upon the US to step back from
this threat of a cold war and also from other dangerous threats to world peace it is engaged
in.
"The reason why international scholars are criticizing the US rather than China is that
they can see how restrained China remains and the sincerity of China to settle the tension by
dialogue, even though the US is getting unreasonably aggressive, said Chinese experts.
"Washington has made a huge mistake as it has chosen the wrong target - China - to be 'the
common enemy or common fear' to reshape its declining leadership among the West. Right now,
the common enemy of humanity is COVID-19, and this is why its new cold war declaration
received almost no positive responses from other major powers and even raised concern, said
Lü Xiang, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing, on
Sunday."
Today's Global Timeslead editorial asked most of the
questions everyone else's asking:
"People are asking: How far will the current China-US confrontation keep going? Will a new
cold war take shape? Will there be military conflicts and will the possible clashes evolve
into large-scale military confrontation between the two?
"Perhaps everyone believes that China does not want a new cold war, let alone a hot war.
But the above-mentioned questions have become disturbing suspense because no one knows how
wild the ambitions the US ruling team has now, and whether American and international
societies are capable of restraining their ambitions."
IMO, the editor's conclusions are quite correct:
"The world must start to act and do whatever it can to stop Washington's hysteria in its
relations with China.
"Right now, it is no longer a matter of whether China-US ties are in freefall, but whether
the line of defense on world peace is being broken through by Washington. The world must
not be hijacked by a group of political madmen. The tragedies in 1910s and 1930s must not be
repeated again ."
Trump is elevated to the same plane as Hitler and Mussolini, and the Outlaw US Empire is
now the equivalent of Nazi Germany and the Fascist drive to rule the world--a well
illustrated trend that's been ongoing since 1991 that only those blinded by propaganda aren't
capable of seeing. I think it absolutely correct for China to focus its rhetoric on the
Outlaw US Empire's utter failure to control COVID, which prompts some probing questions made
from the first article:
"Shen Yi, a professor at the School of International Relations and Public Affairs of Fudan
University, told the Global Times on Sunday that there is wide consensus among the
international community that the COVID-19 pandemic is the most urgent challenge that the
world should deal with. Whether on domestic epidemic control or international cooperation,
the US has done almost nothing right compared to China's efforts to assist others and its
successful control measures for domestic outbreaks .
"In response to US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's 'new Iron Curtain speech' at the
Richard Nixon Presidential Library on Thursday declaring a new cold war against China, Shen
said, ' We can also ask 'is Pompeo an ally of coronavirus?' Because he wants to confuse
the world to target the wrong enemy amid the tough fight against the pandemic, so that the
virus can kill more people, especially US people, since his country is in the worst
situation .'
Shen said, 'In 2018, US Vice President Mike Pence already made a speech which the media
saw as a new 'Iron Curtain speech,' and in 2020, Pompeo made a similar speech again, which
means their cold war idea is not popular and brings no positive responses from its allies, so
they need to try time and again. Of course, they will fail again.'" [My Emphasis]
Wow! The suggestion that Trump, Pompeo, Pence, and company want to "kill more people,
especially US people" seems to be proven via their behavior which some of us barflies
recognize and have discussed. Now that notion is out in the public, internationally. You
don't need Concentration Camps and ovens when the work can be done via the dysfunctional
structure of your economy and doing nothing about the situation.
Shen provides the clincher, what Gruff, myself, and others have said here:
"'So if we want to win this competition that was forced by the US, we must focus on our
own development and not get distracted. The US is not afraid of a cold war with us, it is
afraid of our development .'" [My Emphasis]
My synopsis of both articles omitted some additional info, so do please click the links to
read them fully.
Sputnik offers
this analysis of the China/Outlaw US Empire issue , where I found this bit quite apt from
"Alexey Biryukov, senior adviser at the Centre for International Information Security,
Science and Technology Policy (CIIS) MGIMO-University":
"'The US is fighting with a country that is developing very rapidly, gaining power,
increasing its competitiveness in areas where previously there was undeniably US leadership.
Attempting to neutralise a global competitor is the main goal of Americans. Neutralising
China's rapid, dynamic development is the essence of the American strategy .
Meanwhile, China is interested in developing friendly relations with all countries.
Recently, it presented the idea of building a community of common destiny for humanity.
That's what Sino-American relations should be built around . It would seem that the
pandemic should have brought people together around the idea of building a prosperous world
for all, not just someone. But the Americans didn't understand that: they started looking for
the guilty ones. This is the favourite strategy of Anglo-Saxons, Americans including, to
look for the guilty . As a result, they found their main competitor – China'". [My
Emphasis]
That is the "guilty ones" that aren't within the Outlaw US Empire. Many more opinions are
provided in the article, but they all revolve around the one theme of Trump's actions being
motivated by the election and his morbidly poor attempts to corral COVID.
Neocons are by nature paranoid. It's their 'circle the wagons', 'build walls' mentality.
In their simple view, the world is neatly divided into friends/toadies who obey you and
enemies who don't. And they LOVE big government
Naturally compromise, 'give-and-take' and free trade is OUT with that
ParkAveFlasher , 1 hour ago
I disagree that it's paranoia. It's an overt power grab on a global scale.
meditate_vigorously , 50 minutes ago
Neocons AKA Trotskyites only care about making war. Perpetual state of war is how they
keep generations weak.
Wars take the best and strongest men and
-kill them
-leave them changed or damaged
-impair them from making strong families
This is probably more important in destroying the family unit than all the efforts of
feminism and the Frankfort school combined. Generation after generation is damaged and
crippled by one war after another.
War lowers the birth rate, which is why (((Neocons))) are all too happy to make up the
deficit with immigrants of different races and ethnicity to further weaken their host nations
so that they can fill the power vacuum. The "baby boom" was less about a birthrate rebound
from WW2 and everything about improvements in agriculture and a booming economy due to no
competition, while women were still in their traditional and natural roles.
joyful-feet , 59 minutes ago
The world is finally waking up to taking steps to address to shine light on and address
the relentless systematic Chinese espionage network. While this should have happened 20 years
ago, the only question is will the world do enough to shatter it completely and take steps to
ensure it doesn't happen again.
Just read some of the page after page of convictions and prison sentences of Chinese
nationals committing espionage against the USA and these are just the fraction of those who
got caught.
But you're wrong about Marines. They kill people for a living. Innocent people. Like
Iraqis. And Afghans. Anyone who thinks that murdering Iraqis and Afghans, who never did
nothing to Americans, nor Vietnamese, who also did nothing to Americans, or, as Cassius Clay
said, "I ain't got nothing against no Vietcong." And he didn't. Because he was an American.
So, I thank the service of conscientious objectors, draft dodgers, and deserters. They are
the real heroes. Takes much more bravery to go against the dumbass belligerent society you
are unfortunately born into. Oh, fuck it, you'll never understand.
@obwandiyag ompletely object to our whole response to 911 as it was indeed a false flag.
If so many people were so easily fooled in the US by our "American Pravda" including
myself, how can I hold it against an 18 year old or some other kid who hasn't even gone to
college that he too cannot see through the dense haze of lies bellowed by those who rule over
us? So yes, I admire their bravery but I want desperately for the US military to withdraw
from the Middle East (and most everywhere else) and return home to protect us and only us
from any real invasion should it ever occur.
We need a) a good military and b) honest leadership. We have the former but not the
latter.
Not a chance. Too many people's livelihood depends on war. From billionaires to the person
who putting bullets in boxes. Anyone who advocate no war will end up in prison for colluding
with the Russians.
monty42 , 16 hours ago
Colluding with the Reds, Terrorists, Chicoms, Covid...pick an enemy. That's how it works.
They roll out their psyops and make sure to inform you up front that those who question the
narrative are in the enemy column.
uhland62 , 14 hours ago
They've done it with us since 1970.
A_Huxley , 15 hours ago
Contractors like their world travel and over time.
Too many US camps, forts, bases around the world to keep working.
quanttech , 13 hours ago
The single most powerful voice against the wars in the last two years has been Tucker
Carlson - and look at what they're doing to him.
optimator , 8 hours ago
A vibrant economy can't tell the difference between manufacturing a submarine or a
refrigerator.
monty42 , 16 hours ago
Honor your oath and the wars for empire will stop. A standing army is only viable through
the Constitution for a short term defense of the States, not for endless wars of aggression
and invasion for the spread of a military empire.
quanttech , 13 hours ago
Correct. Lt. Ehren Watada refused his illegal orders to deploy to Iraq. His case was
dismissed, and he was simply discharged. Today he co-owns a restaurant in Vegas.
THERE'S LITERALLY NO PENALTY FOR FOLLOWING THE LAW.
alexcojones , 16 hours ago
As an old veteran, I've spent 50 years atoning some how, some way, myself.
"Vietnam veteran Tim O'Brien wrote: "There should be a law . . . If you support a war, if
you think it's worth the price, that's fine, but you have to put your own precious fluids on
the line. You have to head for the front and hook up with an infantry unit and help spill the
blood." As every old veteran knows, the day that happens is the day warfare ends forever,
when bullets are fattening rather than fatal to your health.
Heinlein's proposal in Starship Troopers - that only combat troops be given the franchise
to vote - is a concept with merit
ConanTheContrarian1 , 8 hours ago
I don't know that we have to make atonement. The official government position that we were
invited there to help the legitimate government of South VietNam still holds water. The
Nguyen and Tranh had been at war with each other for centuries until the French took over,
and the war was simply a continuation that the Dogpile Democrats of the day didn't see as
anything other than a way to make money. Just because you reject rightwing propaganda, don't
fall for the leftwing either.
Atlana99 , 16 hours ago
We need thousands of hardcore street activists to print these fliers out and place them on
car windshields all across America:
By Caitlin Johnstone , an independent journalist based in Melbourne, Australia. Her
website is here and you can follow
her on Twitter @caitoz
Senate has passed a bill calling for the removal of Confederate names from US bases, but it'd
be more truthful for them to continue to be named after racists, killers & oppressors, as
they embody the values of the US war machine.
"JUST IN: Senate Passes $740 Billion Defense Bill With Provision To Remove Confederate
Names Off Military Bases" reads a
headline from the digital news site Mediaite , which could also serve as a perfect
diagnosis for everything that is sick about mainstream liberal orthodoxy.
The Democrat-led House and Republican-led Senate have now both passed versions of this
bill authorizing three-quarters of a trillion dollars for a single year of military
spending, both by overwhelming bipartisan majorities, on the condition that the names of
Confederate Civil War leaders be removed from military bases.
Unsurprisingly, the Security Policy Reform Institute's Stephen Semler found a direct
relationship
between how much a House Democrat has been paid by the war industry and how likely they were to
have voted for the bloated military budget, which also obstructs any attempts to scale down
troop presence
in Afghanistan.
This is everything that is horrible about the Democratic Party and the ideological position
of mainstream liberals. Their leaders have figured out a way to trade hard objects for empty
narrative. To get people to consent to almost limitless amounts of thievery, murder and
exploitation in exchange for words and stories.
They'll get rid of Confederate names on bases, but they won't even slightly reduce the vast
fortunes they're stealing from an impoverished populace and pouring into global slaughter and
oppression. They'll kneel wearing Kente
cloth , but they won't even think about dismantling the US police state. They'll say "I
hear you, and that's something we're looking at," but they'll never intervene against
plutocrats funnelling money away from the needful to add to their unfathomably vast fortunes.
They'll call you whatever gender pronoun you like, but they'll never do anything to
inconvenience the oligarchs and warmongers.
They'll still make you fight tooth and claw for each empty concession, because otherwise
they'd be devaluing the empty, imaginary currency they're trading you in exchange for the
concrete things they want. But in the end there is no amount of narrative the powerful won't
swap out for actual policy changes of substance, because narrative in and of itself has no
value. Manipulators understand this distinction with crystal clear lucidity. Their victims do
not.
In reality, it would be a lot more truthful and authentic for bases within the US war
machine to continue to bear the names of racists, killers and oppressors, since these embody
the values of that war machine far better than anything with a more pleasant ring to it. As
long as you're robbing the American people to murder brown-skinned foreigners for corporate
interests and geostrategic resource control, you might as well have names which reflect such
values on your war machinery.
So I say keep the Confederate names on the bases. Hell, add more of them. Add the names of
Nazis, genocidal warlords, and serial killers too while you're at it. It'd certainly be a lot
more honest and accurate to have a Fort Jeffrey Dahmer as part of America's murder machine than
a Fort Colin Kaepernick.
War is the single worst thing in the world. It is the most evil, insane, counter-productive,
wasteful, damaging, kleptocratic and unsustainable thing that human beings do, by a very wide
margin. If Americans could viscerally experience all of the horrors that are inflicted by the
war machine their wealth and resources are being funneled into, with their perception
unfiltered by propaganda and government secrecy, they would fall to their knees screaming with
abject rage. They would be in the streets immediately forcing an end to this unforgivable
savagery. Which is exactly why America has so much government secrecy and propaganda.
If Americans could see with their perceptions unmanipulated, their response to the news that
$740 billion is being stolen from the American people by a sociopathic murder machine in
exchange for removing the names of Confederate leaders from its bases would not be "Oh good,
maybe we'll get a Fort Harriet Tubman!" It would be rage. Unmitigated, unforgiving rage.
Which is all the status quo deserves. Which is all the Democratic Party exists to prevent.
Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author
and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
Closing consulates is far from the best foreign policy and fat Pompeo known it. It just
starts the unnecessary and counter productive spiral of retaliation and Chinese have more
leverage over the USA as more the USA diplomatic personnel woks in China than the china
diplomatic personnel in the USA. They were always burned in Russia and now they stepped on the
same rake again.
Maybe fat Pompeo knows he's on his way out and desperate to make a lasting mark on the
geopolitical stage on behalf of the West Point mafia and his brothers-in-arm at the Jweish
mafia.
QABubba , 8 hours ago
Quit stealing Russian consulates, Chinese consulates, etc.
It serves no purpose.
Haboob , 7 hours ago
Closing diplomacy with nations as USA shrinks on the world stage shows America's juvenile
behavior.
Salisarsims , 7 hours ago
We are a young twenty something nation what do you expect but drama.
Haboob , 7 hours ago
It is funny how the young and arrogant always think they are right and have manifest
destiny over the old and wise. The young never listen to the old and as the story goes they
are defeated everytime. China is older than America, older than the west, they understand
this world we are living in far more than we do.
me or you , 9 hours ago
He is right!
The world has witnessed the US is not more than a banana Republic with a banana healthcare
system
To Hell In A Handbasket , 9 hours ago
I love seeing how gullible the USSA dunces are susceptible to hating an imaginary enemy.
Go on dunces wave the star spangled banner, and place the hand over the heart, you
non-critical thinking imbeciles. I told you fools years ago we are going to invoke the Yellow
Peril 2.0, and now we are living it. China bad, is just as stupid as Russia bad, while the
state stenographers at the MSM netowrks do all in their power to hide our rotten
behaviour.
Who falls for this ****? The poorly educated, and the inherently stupid.
To Hell In A Handbasket , 8 hours ago
No, it's called nationalism or self preservation.
What are the citizens of the US suppose to do,
You are wrong on so many levels, but ultimately the Chinese have beaten us at our own
rigged game. When I was riling against unfettered free-markets, and the movement of capital,
that allowed the west for centuries to move into undeveloped foreign markets and gain a
stranglehold, I was called a communist, and a protectionist.
While the USSA money printing b@stards was roaming around the planet like imperialists,
and their companies was not only raping the planet, but gouging foreign markets, the average
USSA dunce was brainwashed into believing USSA companies were the best.
Now these same market and economic rules we the west have set for the last several hundred
years no longer work for us, we want to change the rules. Again, my point is "where was you
on this position 5-10-20-30 years ago?" I've always seen this outcome, because logic said so.
To reject our own status quo, and return to mercantilism, makes us look like the biggest
hypocrites ever.
When it comes to debate about US military policy, the 2020 presidential election campaign is
so far looking very similar to that of 2016. Joe Biden has pledged to ensure that "we have the
strongest military in the world," promising to "make the investments necessary to equip our
troops for the challenges of the next century, not the last one."
In the White House, President Trump is repeating the kind of anti-interventionist head
feints that won him votes four years ago against a hawkish Hillary Clinton. In his recent
graduation address at West Point, Trump re-cycled applause lines from 2016 about "ending an era
of endless wars" as well as America's role as "policeman of the world."
In reality, since Trump took office, there's been no reduction in the US military presence
abroad, which last year required a Pentagon budget of nearly $740 billion. As military
historian and retired career officer Andrew Bacevich notes ,
"endless wars persist (and in some cases have
even intensified ); the nation's various alliances and its empire of
overseas bases remain intact; US troops are still present in something like
140 countries ; Pentagon and national security state spending continues to
increase astronomically ."
When the National Defense Authorization Act for the next fiscal year came before Congress
this summer, Senator Bernie Sanders proposed a modest 10 percent reduction in military spending
so $70 billion could be re-directed to domestic programs. Representative Barbara Lee introduced
a House resolution calling for $350 billion worth of DOD cuts. Neither proposal has gained much
traction, even among Democrats on Capitol Hill. Instead, the House Armed Services Committee
just
voted 56 to 0 to spend $740. 5 billion on the Pentagon in the coming year, prefiguring the
outcome of upcoming votes by the full House and Senate.
An Appeal to Conscience
Even if Biden beats Trump in November, efforts to curb US military spending will face
continuing bi-partisan resistance. In the never-ending work of building a stronger anti-war
movement, Pentagon critics, with military credentials, are invaluable allies. Daniel Sjursen, a
37-year old veteran of combat in Iraq and Afghanistan is one such a critic. Inspired in part by
the much-published Bacevich, Sjursen has just written a new book called Patriotic Dissent:
America in the Age of Endless War (Heyday Books)
Patriotic Dissent is a short volume, just 141 pages, but it packs the same kind of punch as
Howard Zinn's classic 1967 polemic, Vietnam: The Logic of
Withdrawal . Like Zinn, who became a popular historian after his service in World War II,
Sjursen skillfully debunks the conventional wisdom of the foreign policy establishment, and the
military's own current generation of "yes men for another war power hungry president." His
appeal to the conscience of fellow soldiers, veterans, and civilians is rooted in the unusual
arc of an eighteen-year military career. His powerful voice, political insights, and painful
personal reflections offer a timely reminder of how costly, wasteful, and disastrous our post
9/11 wars have been.
Sjursen has the distinction of being a graduate of West Point, an institution that produces
few political dissenters. He grew up in a fire-fighter family on working class Staten Island.
Even before enrolling at the Academy at age 17, he was no stranger to what he calls
"deep-seated toxically masculine patriotism." As a newly commissioned officer in 2005, he was
still a "burgeoning neo-conservative and George W. Bush admirer" and definitely not, he
reports, any kind of "defeatist liberal, pacifist, or dissenter."
"The horror, the futility, the farce of that war was the turning point in my life,"
Sjursen writes in Patriotic Dissent .
When he returned, at age 24, from his "brutal, ghastly deployment" as a platoon leader, he
"knew that the war was built on lies, ill-advised, illegal, and immoral." This "unexpected,
undesired realization generated profound doubts about the course and nature of the entire
American enterprise in the Greater Middle East -- what was then unapologetically labeled the
Global War on Terrorism (GWOT)."
A Professional Soldier
By the time Sjursen landed in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan, in early 2011, he had been
promoted to captain but "no longer believed in anything we were doing."
He was, he confesses, "simply a professional soldier -- a mercenary, really -- on a
mandatory mission I couldn't avoid. Three more of my soldiers died, thirty-plus were wounded,
including a triple amputee, and another over-dosed on pain meds after our return."
Despite his disillusionment, Sjursen had long dreamed of returning to West Point to teach
history. He applied for and won that highly competitive assignment, which meant the Army had to
send him to grad school first. He ended up getting credentialed, while living out of uniform,
in the "People's Republic of Lawrence, Kansas, a progressive oasis in an intolerant, militarist
sea of Republican red." During his studies at the state university, Sjursen found an
intellectual framework for his "own doubts about and opposition to US foreign policy." He
completed his first book, Ghost Riders , which combines personal memoir with counter-insurgency
critique. Amazingly enough, it was published in 2015, while he was still on active duty, but
with "almost no blowback" from superior officers.
Before retiring as a major four years later, Sjursen pushed the envelope further, by writing
more than 100 critical articles for TomDispatch and other civilian publications. He was no
longer at West Point so that body of work triggered "a grueling, stressful, and scary
four-month investigation"by the brass at Fort Leavenworth, during which the author was
subjected to "a non-publication order." At risk were his career, military pension, and
benefits. He ended up receiving only a verbal admonishment for violating a Pentagon rule
against publishing words "contemptuous of the President of the United States." His "PTSD and
co-occurring diagnoses" helped him qualify for a medical retirement last year.
Sjursen has now traded his "identity as a soldier -- the only identity I've known in my
adult life -- for that of an anti-war, anti-imperialist, social justice crusader," albeit one
who did not attend his first protest rally until he was thirty-two years old. With several
left-leaning comrades, he started Fortress on A Hill, a lively podcast about military affairs
and veterans' issues. He's a frequent, funny, and always well-informed guest on progressive
radio and cable-TV shows, as well as a contributing editor at Antiwar.com , and a contributor to a host of mainstream liberal
publications. This year, the Lannan Foundation made him a cultural freedom fellow.
In Patriotic Dissent , Sjursen not only recounts his own personal trajectory from military
service to peace activism. He shows how that intellectual journey has been informed by reading
and thinking about US history, the relationship between civil society and military culture, the
meaning of patriotism, and the price of dissent.
One historical figure he admires is Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler, the recipient
of two Medals of Honor for service between 1898 and 1931. Following his retirement, Butler
sided with the poor and working-class veterans who marched on Washington to demand World War I
bonus payments. And he wrote a best-selling Depression-era memoir, which famously declared that
"war is just a racket" and lamented his own past role as "a high-class muscle-man for Big
Business, for Wall Street, and for the Bankers."
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Sjursen contrasts Butler's anti-interventionist whistle-blowing, nearly a century ago, with
the silence of high-ranking veterans today after "nineteen years of ill-advised, remarkably
unsuccessful American wars." Among friends and former West Point classmates, he knows many
still serving who "obediently resign themselves to continued combat deployments" because they
long ago "stopped asking questions about their own role in perpetuating and enabling a
counter-productive, inertia-driven warfare state."
Sjursen looks instead to small left-leaning groups like Veterans for Peace and About Face:
Veterans Against the War (formerly Iraq Veterans Against the War), and Bring Our Troops Home.
US, a network of veterans influenced by the libertarian right. Each in, its own way, seeks to
"reframe dissent, against empire and endless war, as the truest form of patriotism." But
actually taming the military-industrial complex will require "big-tent, intersectional action
from civilian and soldier alike," on a much larger scale. One obstacle to that, he believes, is
the societal divide between the "vast majority of citizens who have chosen not to serve" in the
military and the "one percent of their fellow citizens on active duty," who then become part of
"an increasingly insular, disconnected, and sometimes sententious post-9/11 veteran
community."
Not many on the left favor a return to conscription.
But Sjursen makes it clear there's been a downside to the U.S. replacing "citizen
soldiering" with "a tiny professional warrior caste," created in response to draft-driven
dissent against the Vietnam War, inside and outside the military. As he observes:
"Nothing so motivates a young adult to follow foreign policy, to weigh the advisability or
morality of an ongoing war as the possibility of having to put 'skin in the game.' Without at
least the potential requirement to serve in the military and in one of America's now
countless wars, an entire generation -- or really two, since President Nixon ended the draft
in 1973–has had the luxury of ignoring the ills of U.S. foreign policy, to distance
themselves from its reality ."
At a time when the U.S. "desperately needs a massive, public, empowered anti-war and
anti-imperial wave" sweeping over the country, we have instead a "civil-military" gap that,
Sjursen believes, has "stifled antiwar and anti-imperial dissent and seemingly will continue to
do so." That's why his own mission is to find more "socially conscious veterans of these
endless, fruitless wars" who are willing to "step up and form a vanguard of sorts for
revitalized patriotic dissent." Readers of Sjursen's book, whether new recruits to that
vanguard or longtime peace activists, will find Patriotic Dissent to be an invaluable
educational tool. It should be required reading in progressive study groups, high school and
college history classes, and book clubs across the country . Let's hope that the author's
willingness to take personal risks, re-think his view of the world, and then work to change it
will inspire many others, in uniform and out.
Do we need to be in 160 countries with our military and can we afford it?
Cat Daddy , 1 hour ago
I am all for bringing the troops home except for this one unnerving truth; nature abhors a
vacuum, specifically, when we pull out, China moves in. A world dominated by the CCP will be
a dangerous place to be. When we leave, we will need to make sure our bases are safely in the
hands of our friends.
dogbert8 , 1 hour ago
War is effectively the way the U.S. has done business since the Spanish American War, our
first imperial conquests. War is how we ensure big business has the materials and markets
they demand in return for their support of political parties and candidates. War is the only
area left with opportunities for growth and profit. Don't think for a minute that TPTB will
ever let us stop waging war to get what we (they) want.
TheLastMan , 2 hours ago
If you are new to zh all you need to do is study PNAC and the related nature of all
parties to understand the criminality of USA militarization and for whose benefit it
serves
Anonymous IX , 2 hours ago
I have written many times on this platform the exact same sentiments.
I am most disheartened by the COVID + Antifa/BLM Riots because of the facts this author
presents.
We are distracted with emotional and highly volatile MASSIVELY PROPAGANDIZED stories by
MSM (I don't watch) while the real problem in the world is as the author describes above.
We are war-mongering nation who needs to bring our troops home and disband over half of
our overseas installations and bases.
We have no right to levy economic sanctions to impoverish, sicken, and weaken the citizens
of Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, or anywhere else.
Yet, we run around arguing about masks and who can go into a restaurant or toppling
statutes and throwing mortar-type fireworks at federal officers. This is what we do instead
of facing a real problem which is that we are war-mongering nation with no moral/ethical
conscience. These scraggily bearded white Antifas need to WTFU and realize who their true
enemy.
Oh, wait. They work for the true enemy! Get it?
Max21c , 1 hour ago
We have no right to levy economic sanctions to impoverish, sicken, and weaken the
citizens of Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, or anywhere else.
I don't agree with the economic sanctions nonsense thing as they seem to be more of a
crutch for people that are not any good at planning, strategy, analytical thinking, critical
thinking, strategic thinking, and lack much in the way of talent or creativity or
intellectual acumen or intellectual skills...I believe there's around just shy of 10k
economic sanctions by Washington...
But the USA does have the right to receive or refuse to receive foreign Ambassadors and
Consuls and to recognize or not recognize other nations governments thus it does have some
degrees of the right to not trade or engage in commerce with other nations to a certain
extent... per imports and exports... et cetera... though it's not necessarily an absolute
right or power
IronForge , 2 hours ago
Sjursen may admire General Butler; but he doesn't seem to know that several of the
General's Descendants Served in the US Military.
Sjursen isn't Butler. The General Prevented a Coup in his Time.
The USA are a Hegemony whose KleptOchlarchs overtook the Original Constitutional
Republic.
PetroUSD, MIC, Corporate Expansion-Conquest, AgriGMO, and Pharma Interests Span the
Globe.
Wars are Rackets; and Societies to Nation-States have waged them over Real Estate, Natural
Resources, Trade Routes, Industrial Capacity, Slavery, Suppresive Spite,
Religious/Ideological Zeal, Economic Preservation, and Profiteering Greed.
YET, Militaries are still formed by Nation-States to Survive and for Some - Thrive above
such Competitive Existenstential Threats.
*****
The Hegemony are running up against New Shifts in Global Power, Systems, and Influences;
and are about to Lose their Unilateral Advantages. The Hegemon themselves may suffer Societal
Collapses Within.
Sjursen should read up on Chalmers Johnson. Instead of trying to Coordinate Ineffective
Peace Demonstrations, the Entire Voting/Political Contribution/Candidacy Schemes should be
Separated from the Oligarchy of Plutocrats and Corporate/Political KleptOchlarchs.
Without Bringing the Votes back to the Collective Hands of Citizenry Interests First and
Foremost, the Republic are Forever Conquered; and the Ethical may have to resort to
Emigration and/or Secession.
Ink Pusher , 2 hours ago
Nobody rides for free,there's always a cost and those who can't pay in bullion will often
pay in bodily fluids of one form or another.
Profiteers that create warfare for profit are simply parasitical criminals and should not
be considered a "special breed" when weighed upon the Scales of Justice.
gzorp , 2 hours ago
Read 'Starship Troopers' by Robert A Heinlein (1959) pay especial attention to the
"History and Moral Philosophy" courses... that's where his predictions for the future course
of 'America's' future appear.... rather accurately. Heinlein was a 1930's graduate of
Annapolis (Navy for you dindus and nohabs).....
A DUDE , 2 hours ago
t's not just the war machine but the entire system, the corporatocracy, of which the MIC
is a part. And there is no way to change the system from within the system because whatever
is anti-establishment becomes absorbed and neutered and part of the system.
Tulsi Gabbard ran on anti interventionism foreign policy.
Look how fast the DNC disappeared her.
Of course destroying Kamala Harris in a debate and going after the ancient evil Hitlery
sealed her fate.
BarkingWolf , 2 hours ago
In reality, since Trump took office, there's been no reduction in the US military
presence abroad, which last year required a Pentagon budget of nearly $740 billion. As
military historian and retired career officer Andrew Bacevich notes ,
"endless wars persist (and in some cases have
even intensified ); the nation's various alliances and its empire of
overseas bases remain intact; US troops are still present in something like
140 countries ; Pentagon and national security state spending continues to
increase astronomically ."
Now wait just a minute there mister, that sounds like criticism of the Donald John PBUH
PBUH PBUH ... you can't do that ... the cult followers will call you a leftist and a commie
if you point out stuff like that even if it is objectively true! That's strike one, punk.
An Appeal to Conscience
Even if Biden beats Trump in November, efforts to curb US military spending will face
continuing bi-partisan resistance.
November doesn't have anything to do with anything really. The appeal to conscience is
wasted. The appeal would be better spent on removing the political class that is on the AIPAC
dole and have dual citizenship in a foreign country in the ME while pretending to serve
America while they are members of Congress. That's only the tip of the spear ... and that is
a nonstarter from the get go.
Sjursen skillfully debunks the conventional wisdom of the foreign policy establishment,
and the military's own current generation of "yes men for another war power hungry
president."
I don't think Trump is necessarily a war power hungry president. While it is true that we
have not withdrawn from Syria and basically stole their oil as Trump has repeated promised he
would do, it is also true that Trump has yet to deliver Israels war with Iran and in fact had
called back an invasion of Iran ten minutes before a flotilla of US warships was about to set
sail to ignite such an invasion leaving Tel Aviv not only aggrieved, but angry as well.
Sjursen has now traded his "identity as a soldier -- the only identity I've known in my
adult life -- for that of an anti-war, anti-imperialist, social justice crusader," albeit
one who did not attend his first protest rally until he was thirty-two years old. With
several left-leaning comrades ...
Okay, this is where you are starting to lose me .... i't like listening to a concert and
suddenly the music is hitting sour notes that are off key, off tempo, and don't seem to fit
somehow.
Marine Corps Major General Smedley Butler, the recipient of two Medals of Honor for
service between 1898 and 1931. Following his retirement, Butler sided with the poor and
working-class veterans who marched on Washington to demand World War I bonus payments. And
he wrote a best-selling Depression-era memoir, which famously declared that "war is just a
racket" and lamented his own past role as "a high-class muscle-man for Big Business, for
Wall Street, and for the Bankers."
Butler was correct, war especially nowadays, is a racket that makes rich people who never
seem to get their hands dirty, even richer. As one grunt put it long ago, "it's a dirty job,
but somebody has to do it."
That "somebody" is going to be the kids of the little people (the real high-class
muscle-men ) who are hated by their political class overlords even as the political class are
worshipped as gods.
Sjursen looks instead to small left-leaning groups like Veterans for Peace and About
Face: Veterans Against the War (formerly Iraq Veterans Against the War), and Bring Our
Troops Home. US, a network of veterans influenced by the libertarian right.
The problem here is that the so-called "left" brand has always been about war and the
capitalism of death.
The Democrat party is really the group that started the American civil war for instance,
they are the ones behind legacy of Eugenists like Margaret Sanger who was a card carrying
Socialist who founded the child murder mill known today as Planned Parenthood that sadly
still exists under Trump but has turned into the industrialized slaughter of children ...even
after birth so that their organs can be "harvested" for profit.
Sjursen's affinity for "the left" as saintly purveyors of peace, goodness, love, and life
strikes me as rather disingenuous. Then he seems to argue if I read the analysis correctly
that conscription will somehow be the panacea for the insatiable appetite for war?
One false flag such as The Gulf of Tonkin or 911 or even Perl Harbor or the Sinking of the
Lusitania or the assassination of an Arch Duke ... is all that is really needed to arouse the
unbridled hoards to march off to battle with almost erotic enthusiasm -the political class
KNOWS IT!
Amendment X , 2 hours ago
And don't forget President Wilson (D) who was re-elected on the platform "He kept us out
of the war" only to drag U.S. into the hopeless European Monarchary driven WWI.
11b40 , 1 hour ago
Yo! Low class muscle man here, and I have to agree with bringing back the draft. It should
never have been eliminated, and is the root of the golbalists abiity to keep us in
Afghanistan, and other parts of the ME, for going on 20 years.
Skin in the game. It means literally everything. As noted we now have 2 generations of men
who never had to give much thought at all to what's happening around the world, and how
America is involved....and look at the results. It would be a much different situation today
if all those 18 year olds had to face the draft board with an unforgiving lottery.
Yes, one false falg can whip up the country to a war time fever pitch, but unless there is
a real, serious threat, the fever cannot be maintained. The 1969 draft lottery caught me when
I stayed out the first semester of my senior year. Didn't want to go, but accepted my fate
and did the best job I could to stay alive and keep those around me as safe as possible. In
1966, I was in favor of the war, and was about to go Green Beret on the buddy system. We were
going to grease gooks with all the enthusiasm of John Wayne. My old man, an artillery 1st Sgt
at the time in Germany, talked me out of it. More like get your *** on a plane back to the
States and into college, befroe i kick it up around your shouders. A WW2 & Korea vet, he
told me then it was the wrong war, in the wrong place, at the wrong time.
The point is, when kids are getting drafted, Mom's, Dad's, and everyone else concerned
with the safety of their friends & relatives, start paying attention and asking hard
questions of politicians. Using Afghanistan as an example, we would have been on the way out
by the 2004 election cycle, or at max before the next one in 2008. That was 12 years ago, and
we are still there.
I addition, the reason we went would have been more closely examined, and there may have
been a real investigtion into 9/11. Plus, I am convinced that serving your country makes for
a better all around citizen, and God knows, we need better citizens.
Cassandra.Hermes , 2 hours ago
Trump and Pompeo started new cold war with China, but have no way to back up their threats
and win it!! When i was in Kosovo peace corps i heard so many stories from Albanian who were
blamed to be Russian or American spy because of double cold war against Albania. Trump and
Pompeo just gave excuse to Xi to blame anyone who protest as American spy. BBC were showing
China's broadcast of the protests in Oregon to Hong Kong with subtitle "Do you really want
American democracy?", LMFAO
Max21c , 2 hours ago
Joe Biden has pledged to ensure that "we have the strongest military in the world,"
promising to "make the investments necessary to equip our troops for the challenges of the
next century, not the last one."
The United States shall continue to have a weak military until it starts to fix its
foreign policy and diplomacy. You cannot have the strongest military in the world if you lack
a good foreign policy and good diplomacy. Brains are a lot more important than battleships,
battalions, bullets, barrels, or bombs. Get a frickin' clue you friggin' Washington
morons.
Washington is weak because they are dumb. Blind, deaf, and dumb.
Heroic Couplet , 2 hours ago
Too little, too late. Great ad for a book that will be forgotten in a week. Read Bolton's
book. The minute Trump tries to reduce troops, Bolton is right there, saying "No, we can't
move troops to the perimeter. No, we can't move troops from barracks to tents at the
perimeter." Who needs AI?
Erik Prince wrote 3.5 years ago that 4th gen warfare consists of cyberwarfare and
bio-weapons. The US military is fooked. There's probably an interesting book to be
researched: How do Republicans feel about contracting COVID-19 after listening to Trump
fumble?
ChecksandBalances , 3 hours ago
Blame the voters. Run on a platform to reduce military and police spending. See how many
of those lose. Probably all of them. You have to stop feeding the beast. This is a slogan
Trump correctly said but as usual didn't actually mean. We should cut all military and police
spending by 1/2 and then take the remaining money and build a smarter, more efficient
military and police force.
Max21c , 3 hours ago
It's not just the "Deep State." It's Washingtonians overall. It's Deep Crazy. They're all
Deep Crazy! They're nuts. And the rare exceptions that may know better and have enough common
sense to know its wrong to sick the secret police on innocent American civilians aren't going
to say anything or do anything to stop it. The few that know better in foreign policy aren't
going to say anything or do anything against the new Cold Wars on the Eastern Front against
China or on the Western Front against Russia since they're not willing to go up against the
Regime. So the Regimists know they have carte blanche to persecute or terrorize or go after
any that stand in their way. This is how tyrannies and police states operate. It's the nature
of the beast. At a minimum they brow beat people into submission. People don't want to stick
their neck out and risk going up against the Regime and risk losing to the Regime, its secret
police, and the powers that be. They shy away from anything that would bring the Regime and
its secret police and its radicals, extremists, fanatics, and zealots their way.
nonkjo , 4 hours ago
It's okay to be against "forever war" and still not have to be a progressive douchbag.
Sjursen is an unprincipled ******** artist. He leaves Iraq disillusioned as a lieutenant
but sticks around long enough for them to pay for his grad school and give him some sweet
"resume building" experiences that he can stand on to sell books? FYI, from commissioning
time as a second lieutenant to promotion to captain is 3 years...that means Sjusen was so
disillusioned that he decided to stick around for 12 more years which is about 9 years longer
than he actually needed to as an Academy grad (he only had to serve 6 unless he elected to go
to grad school).
The bottom line is Sjusen capitalizes on people not knowing how the military works. That
is, that his own self-interest far outweighs his the principles he espouses. Typical leftist
hypoctite.
Max21c , 4 hours ago
...the U.S. "desperately needs a massive, public, empowered anti-war and anti-imperial
wave ..."
Perhaps the USA just needs a better foreign policy. Though we all know that's not going to
happen with the flaky screwballs of Washington and the flaky screwballs in the Pentagon, CIA,
State Department, foreign policy establishment, think tanks et cetera.
Minor technical point: the time for the "anti-imperial wave" was before Washingtonians
destroyed much of the world and created their strategic blunders and disastrous foreign
policy. You folks all went along with this nonsense and now you have your quagmires, forever
wars, and numerous trouble spots that have popped up here and there along the way to
boot.
Pottery barn rule: you broke it and you own it and it's yours...Ma'am please pay at the
register on the way out...Sorry Ma'am there's no more free gluing...though the gluing
specialist may be in on the third Thursday this month though it's usually the second Tuesday
each month...
Contemporaneously, in the same vein the American public has been brainwashed into going
along with the new Cold Wars on the Western Front against Moscow and the even newer Cold War
on the Eastern Front against Beijing. It's like P.T. Barnum said "There's a sucker born every
minute," and you fools in the American public just keep buying right in to the brainwashing.
They're now successfully indoctrinating you into buying into their new Cold Wars with Russia
and China. The Cold War on the Eastern Front versus Peking is more getting more fanciful
attentions at the moment and the Cold War on the Western Front has temporarily been relegated
to the back burner but they'll move the Western Front Cold War from simmer to boil over
whenever it suits their needs. It's just a rendition of the Oceania has always been at war
with East Asia and Eurasia is our friend are just gameplays right out of George Orwell's
1984.
Most of the quagmires can be fixed to a certain extent by applying some cement and
engineering to the quicksand and many of the trouble spots can become more settled and less
unstable if not stable in some instances. Even some of the more serious strategic problems
like the South China Sea, North Korean nuclear weapons development, and potential Iranian
nuclear weapons development can still be resolved through peaceful strategies and
solutions.
In re sum, while I won't disparage a peace movement I do not believe it is either
necessary nor proper simply because you will not solve anything through a peace movement. The
sine qua non or quintessential element is simply to end one of these wars successfully
through a peaceful diplomatic solution or solve one of these serious foreign policy problems
through diplomacy which is something that hasn't been the norm since the downfall of the
Berlin Wall, is no longer in favor, and which is the necessary element to prove that peace
can be achieved through strategy and diplomacy and thereby change the course of the country's
future.
In foreign affairs the foreign policy establishment has its pattern of behavior and it is
that pattern of behavior that has to be changed. It's the mindset of the Washingtonians &
elites that has to be changed. Just taking to the streets won't really change their ways or
their beliefs for any significant part of the duration. They may pay lip service to peace
& diplomacy but it won't win out in their minds in the long run. They are so warped in
their views and beliefs that it'll have little or no effect over the long haul. As soon as
the protests dissipate they'll be right back at it, back to their bad ways and bad
behavior.
Son of Captain Nemo , 4 hours ago
For the past 19 years... And as Anti-War as you will ever get!...
Was it George Carlin that said " if voting made a difference they wouldn't let us do it "
? The only way to stop these forever wars is for people to stop joining the military. Parents
should teach their children that joining the military and trotting off to some country to
fight a war for the elite is not being patriotic . I was in the military from 1964 -1968.
When Lyndon Johnson became president he drug out the Vietnam war as long as he could. Oh !
Lady Byrd Johnson bought Decon Company [ rat poison ] when most people never heard of it.
Johnson bought this rat poison , government paid for ,at an inflated price . Sent ship loads
of it to Vietnam .Never mind all the Americans and so called enemy killed.. Jane Fonda ,
Hanoi Jane , was really a hero who helped save countless lives by helping to end the war.
Tommy and **** Smothers , Smother Brothers , spoke out against the war . Our government had
them black balled from TV. Our government is probably as corrupt as any other country.
A piece of irony, one of our greatest generals was Dwight Eisenhower, the Allied Supreme
Commander in WWII and two term president. He kept the peace for almost 10 years and warned
Americans to beware of the "military-industrial complex." Most military men never want war,
they just make sure they are ready if it comes. We have had the military industrial complex
for way too long, it needs to be reduced and we need more generals to run for president, Gen.
Flynn maybe? I'll also take Schwartzkoff.
cowboyted , 7 hours ago
The U.S. should only use our military if we are attacked, period. Otherwise, as Jefferson
astutely stated, a standing army is a threat to democracy.
captain noob , 7 hours ago
Capitalism has no morals
Profit is the driving force of every single thing
cowboyted , 7 hours ago
The U.S. should only use our military if we are attacked, period. Otherwise, as Jefferson
astutely stated, a standing army is a threat to democracy.
Chief Joesph , 7 hours ago
After what General Smedley Butler had to say and warned us about, here we are, 90 years
later, doing the very same thing. Goes to show how utterly dumb, unprogressive, sheepish, and
Medieval Americans really are. And you thought this is what makes America Great????
cowboyted , 8 hours ago
The U.S. Constitution provides for a "national defense." Yet, the last time we were
attacked by a foreign nation was on Dec. 7, 1941 in which, the Congress declared war on
Japan. Yet, in the past 100 years our country's leaders have convinced Americans that we can
wage war if the issue concerns our "national INTEREST." This is wrong and needs to be deleted
and replaced with our Constitution's language. Also, Congress is the ONLY Constitutional
authority to declare war, not the executive branch. Too many countries, including the U.S.,
spend too much money preparing for war on levels of destruction that are unnecessary. We must
attain a new paradigm with leading countries to achieve a mutual understanding that the
people of the world are better off with jobs, food, families, peace, and a chance at a better
life, filled with hope, faith, and flourishing communities. Things have to change.
transcendent_wannabe , 8 hours ago
I have to agree in sentiment with the author, but the reality of humans on earth almost
demands constant war, it is the price we pay for the modern city lifestyle. There are various
reasons.
1. Ever since WW1, the country has become citified, and the old peaceful country farm life
was replaced with the rat race of industrial production. Without war, there is no need for
the level of industrial production required to give full employment to the overpopulated
cities. People will scream for war and jingoism when they have no city jobs. How do you deal
with that? Sure, War is a Racket, but so far a necessary racket.
2. Every 20 years the military needs a real shooting war to battle test its upcoming
soldiers and new equipment. Now the battles are against insurgencies... door-to-door in
cities and ghettos, and new tactics need to be field tested. If the military goes more than
20 years without a real shooting war, they lose the real men, the sargeant majors, who just
become fat pot bellied desk personel without the adrenaline of a real fight.
3. Humans inately like to fight. Even children, boys wrestle, girls taunt one another.
There is no way discovered yet to keep people from turning violent in their attempts to steal
what others have, or to gain dominance thru physical intimidation. Without war, gangs will
form and fight over territorial boundaries. There is no escaping it.
4. Earth is where the battle field is, Battlefield Earth. There is no fighting allowed in
heaven, so Earth is where souls come to fight. Nobody on earth likes it, but fighting and war
is here to stay, and you should really use this life to find out how to transcend earth and
get to a place where war is not needed or allowed, like heaven or Valhalla.
Tortuga , 8 hours ago
So. He thinks the crooked, grifting, regressive hate US murdering dim pustules aren't the
warmongering, globalist, hate US, crooked, grifting, murdering republicrats. What a mo
ron.
HenryJonesJr , 8 hours ago
Real conservatives were always against foreign intervention. It was the Left that embraced
foreign wars (Wilson / Roosevelt / Truman / Johnson).
messystateofaffairs , 8 hours ago
From my perspective being a professional goon to serve the greater glory of international
criminals, is, aside from having to avoid the mirror, way too much hard and dangerous work
for the money. As a civilian of a society run by criminals on criminal imperialist
principles, I have no literal PTSD type of skin in that filthy game, but like most citizens,
knowing and unknowing, I do swim in that sewer everyday, doing my best to avoid bumping into
the larger turds. My "patriotism" lies where the turds are fewest, anywhere in the world that
might be.
bh2 , 8 hours ago
The threat to US interests is not in the ME (apart from Israel). It's in the Pacific.
NATO was never intended to be a defense arrangement perpetually funded by the US. Once
stood up and post-war economies in Europe were restored, it was supposed to be a European
defense shield with the US as ultimate backup. Not as a sugar-daddy for wealthy nations. Now
that Russia is no longer situated to attack through the Fulda Gap, NATO is a grotesque
expression of Parkinson's Law writ large.
China is a real threat to US interests. That's obvious simply by consulting a map.
Military assets committed to engagement in theaters that no longer seriously matter is
feckless and spendthrift. Particularly when Americans are put in harm's way with no prospect
of either winning or leaving.
Worse yet is the accelerating prospect of being drawn into conflict in the South China Sea
because fewer than decisive US and allied assets are deployed there.
While nations are now responding to that threat (including Japan, who are re-arming),
China must realize a successful Taiwan invasion faces steadily diminishing prospects. They
must act soon or give up the opportunity. Moreover, the CCP are loosing face with their own
people because of multiple calamities wreaking havoc. The danger of a desperate CCP turning
to a hot war to save face is an ever-rising threat. (If Three Gorges Dam fails, that could be
the final straw.)
FDR deliberately suckered Japan into attacking the US (but apparently never guessed it
would be on Pearl Harbor). It appears modern neo warmongers of all stripes would be delighted
if China were tempted into yet another senseless war in the Pacific. And more lives lost on
all sides.
While the size of US military and (ineptly named) "intelligence" budgets are vastly out of
scale, the short-term cost in money is secondary to risk of long-term cost in blood. Surging
the budget may make good sense when guns are all pointing in the wrong direction and
political donors don't care as long as it pays well.
Defeating that outrageously wasteful spending is the first battle to be won. Disengaging
from stupid, distracting, unwinnable conflicts is an imperative to achieve that goal.
The Judge , 8 hours ago
US. is the real threat to US interests.
DeptOfPsyOps-14527776 , 8 hours ago
An important part of this statue quo is propaganda and in particular neo-con
propaganda.
Once it was clear that agitating against the Russian federation had failed, they started
agitating against the PRC.
FDR administration wasn't that clever, they just had (((support))). They wanted Imperial
Japan unable to strengthen itself against the United Kingdom as it was waging a war against
the European Axis, did not realize that the Japanese fleet could reach as far as Hawaii and
after Pearl Harbor, believed the West Coast could have been attacked as well.
Hovewer, they likely expected the Japanese to intercept their fleet on the way to the
Phillipines after a war between Imperial Japan and the Commonwealth had started.
Salzburg1756 , 8 hours ago
"FDR deliberately suckered Japan into attacking the US (but apparently never guessed it
would be on Pearl Harbor)." No, we knew the japs were going to attack Pearl Harbor. We had
broken their code. That's why we sent our best battle ships away from Hawaii just before the
attack. Most of the ships they sank were old and worthless; our good ships were out at
sea.
TheLastMan , 4 hours ago
What constitutes "America's interests"?
the us military is the world community welcome wagon for global multi national Corp
chamber of commerce
Do us citizens serve corporations or do corporations serve us citizens?
next ?, who owns / controls corporations?
Alice-the-dog , 8 hours ago
There is a reason why suicide is the leading cause of death among active duty military.
They come to realize that what they are doing is perfect male bovine fecal matter. That they
are guilty of participating in completely unwarranted death and destruction.
847328_3527 , 9 hours ago
Liberals and "progressives" are traditionally against wars. This new "woke" group of
Demorats shows they are NOT liberals or progressives since they support the Establishment War
Criminals like Obama and his side kick, demented Biden, and Bloodthirsty Clinton.
The violent US, run by greedy billionaires, has to be cut down to size before they start
WW3. Full Spectrum Dominance (FDS) will be very expensive for the US Evil Empire. Did the
deluded US elites really think RF and China will not respond to their quest for space
dominance???
"And USA's propaganda is second to none. That's important because winning a war, whether
Cold or Hot, requires a populace that will accept sacrifices. Blaming the other side for
the need for such sacrifices is an art as much as a science."
Was causing the death of two million Iraqi's is one of the scarifies you talk about that
the populace had to accept?
Sometimes I have a problem to understand the way the so called "western people" behave.
I am almost reaching a conclusion that the art of media is to give the populous an excuse
to themselves why they appear to be accepting scarifies.
We should stop lying to ourselves that we care about others. As long suffering is not at
your doorsteps, human race as individuals, is as bad as our governments.
The CIA, NSA, and all the other XYZs in the War Department believe strongly that they set
policy. In effect, that they are in charge and know best. How does that fit in with the
Constitution. Where are these powers specified?
The Treaty Clause is part of Article II, Section 2, Clause 2 of the United States
Constitution that empowers the President of the United States to propose and chiefly
negotiate agreements between the United States and other countries, which, upon receiving
the advice and consent of a two-thirds supermajority vote of the United States Senate,
become binding with the force of federal law .
(My Bold)
Since we ratified the UN Charter that makes all of our wars of aggression unconstitutional
and war crimes. Our use of phosphorus and napalm are war crimes.
If you read the Constitution carefully, especially the Bill of Rights then you know that
what we got bears little resemblance. So we have two levels of bad. The Constitution, written
by the slave owning aristocracy, is a piece of shit by modern, or any, standards. It was
intended that the elite run the government, and the people in only one case get to elect
these elite representatives. Electoral college for the Presidency? really. With nothing
specified as to how the States are to select these electors. There is little commitment to
democracy and, given our corruption on top of that, it's clear that we have a very defective
democracy. And the second level, of course, is that we ignore the Constitution when it's too
inconvenient.
The thing is, we desperately need a new constitution and the will to follow it. This will
never happen.
Yeah, you mention Brzezinski. He convinced Carter to put the screws to the Soviet Union by
arming and financing the extremists in Afghanistan. How'd that work out? Looking for a pair
of Trade Towers in NYC? He had stated publicly that he was the first Pole in 300 years to put
the screws to Russia. He ruined Carter's presidency. Carter had good options to make the
world a safer place, instead he listened to Brzezinski. Same thing with Reagan and Richard
Pearle. We might not be sitting in a world under a hair trigger of thermonuclear armageddon
if it were not for Pearle. Reagan came within one item of agreement on a plan to eliminate
nuclear weapons. That was SDI, or star wars. Gorbachev insisted that the project remain in
the laboratory and that Space was not to be militarized. Pearle convinced Reagan to keep SDI
and not sign the agreement. These asshole Neocons from the deep state have screwed us and
civilization over and over again. Wait till Biden is in office. He will fill the War
department with neocons, starting with Susan Rice.
' Due Process; Lamenting the death of the rule of law in a country where it might have
always been missing ', Lewis H. Lapham, laphamsquarterly.org
True law is right reason in agreement with nature.
-- Cicero
Law is a flag, and gold is the wind that makes it wave.
-- Russian proverb
To pick up on almost any story in the news these days -- political, financial, sexual, or
environmental -- is to be informed in the opening monologue that the rule of law is
vanished from the face of the American earth. So sayeth President Donald J. Trump, eight or
nine times a day to his 47 million followers on Twitter. So sayeth also the plurality of
expert witnesses in the court of principled opinion (media pundit, Never Trumper,
think-tank sage, hashtag inspector of souls) testifying to the sad loss of America's
democracy, a once upon a time "government of laws and not of men."
The funeral orations make a woeful noise unto the Lord, but it's not clear the orators
know what their words mean or how reliable are their powers of observation. The American
earth groans under the weight of legal bureaucracy, the body politic so judiciously
enwrapped and embalmed in rules, regulations, requirements, codes, and commandments that it
bears comparison to the glorified mummy of a once upon a time great king in Egypt.
Senior statesmen and tenured Harvard professors say the rule of law has been missing for
three generations, ever since President Richard Nixon's bagmen removed it from a safe at
the Watergate. If so, who can be expected to know what it looks like if and when it shows
up with the ambulance at the scene of a crime? Does it come dressed as a man or a woman?
Blue eyes and sweet smile riding a white horse? Black uniform, steel helmet, armed with
assault rifle? Or maybe the rule of law isn't lost but misplaced. Left under a chair on
Capitol Hill, in a display case at the Smithsonian, scouting locations for Clint Eastwood's
next movie.
The confusion is in keeping with the trend of the times that elected Trump to the White
House. In hope of clarification, this issue of Lapham's Quarterly looks to the lessons of
history. They are more hopeful than those available to the best of my own knowledge and
recollection, which tend to recognize the rule of law as the politically correct term of
art for the divine right of money.'
[long snip]
'The framers of the Constitution were of the same opinion. The prosperous and
well-educated gentlemen assembled in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787 shared with John
Adams the suspicion that "democracy will infallibly destroy all civilization," agreed with
James Madison that the turbulent passions of the common man lead to reckless agitation for
the abolition of debts and "other wicked projects." With Plato the framers shared the
assumption that the best government, under no matter what name or flag, incorporates the
means by which a privileged few arrange the distribution of property and law for the less
fortunate many. They envisioned a wise and just oligarchy -- to which they gave the name of
a republic -- managed by men like themselves, to whom Madison attributed "most wisdom to
discern, and most virtue to pursue the common good of the society." Adams thought the great
functions of state should be reserved for "the rich, the wellborn, and the able"; John Jay,
chief justice for the Supreme Court, observed that "those who own the country ought to
govern it."
This was spot on rooster. I couldn't agree more! I'm so sick of the red vs blue shit. For
chrissakes neither side is worth a shit. The government hasn't done anything to help the
average citizen in a very long time. Wake up and smell the roses people!
The more money a member of Congress accepts from the defense industry, the higher the
probability that they'll vote how the defense industry wants them to vote. (So probably what
you expected.)
... ... ...
If you order the members of Congress based on the amount each of them accepted from the
defense sector (2020 cycle) with their respective votes then break your list down (roughly)
into fourths, you'll get something that looks like this:
Amount member accepts from
defense
industry Likelihood that member lets us down Less than $3,000 70% $3,000-$9,999 77%
$10,000-$29,999 84% More than $30,000 More than 98% Notes
41 House Democrats didn't let us down (in this case)
These 41 received (on average) $7,005.63 in campaign contributions from the defense
industry so far in this election cycle
179 House Democrats did let us down
These 179 received (on average) $30,075.85 in campaign contributions from the defense
industry so far in this election cycle
Adam Smith , Democratic Chair of the House Armed Services Committee, has received
$376,650.00 in campaign contributions from the defense industry so far in this election
cycle. (He also named the NDAA after his Republican counterpart.)
There is circumstantial evidence the European Union is systematically sinking boats loaded
with refugees coming from the Libyan route. The MS editorial is correct in calling the
Mediterranean "the graveyard of many people from the Middle East and Africa."
It looks like a continental-wide operation of genocide and silence: the Italian and Greek
Coast Guards do the dirty job with secret blessing from their governments, and their
governments count with the tacit blessing (and silence) from the other EU governments and
their respective MSMs. The Russian and Chinese MSMs do nothing because they can't prove it
(as they don't have access to the local) and are more honest than the Western MSM (they don't
report what they can't know).
I wouldn't be surprised if we were talking, after all of this is done, of about some
100,000 dead drowned in the Mediterranean. After that dead boy in a Turkish beach fiasco,
they took care of perfecting the scheme, so that the Italian and Greek coast guards can
operate deeper into the sea, where the drowned corpses cannot be beached. If true, this would
be the most well covered genocide in modern history, and the first one will full and direct
complying from the "free press".
Roger Thornhill 2 hours ago If I recall correctly, Obama gave the Russians all of 48 hours
to leave their consulate in San Francisco, which had been occupied since the 19th Century. This
was around Christmas time in 2016. So I don't find this particularly surprising. Two days to
have the diplomats, staff, and families completely out of the country.
Cutting the defense budget by a modest 10 percent could provide billions to combat the pandemic, provide health
care and take care of neglected communities.
Capitol Souvenir Company, Inc. via Boston Public Library
Sen. Bernie Sanders is an independent from Vermont.
▶ Click here for the
conservative
case
for reducing defense spending.
Fifty-three years ago Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. challenged all of us to fight against three major evils: "the
evil of racism, the evil of poverty and the evil of war." If there was ever a moment in American history when we
needed to respond to Dr. King's clarion call for justice and demand a "radical revolution of values," now is that
time.
Whether it is fighting against systemic racism and police brutality, defeating the deadliest pandemic in more than
a hundred years, or putting an end to the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, now is the time to
fundamentally change our national priorities.
Sadly, instead of responding to any of these unprecedented crises, the Republican Senate is on a two-week
vacation. When it comes back, its first order of business will be to pass a military spending authorization that
would give the bloated Pentagon $740 billion -- an increase of more than $100 billion since Donald Trump became
president.
Let's be clear: As coronavirus
infections
,
hospitalizations
and
deaths
are
surging to record levels in states across America, and the lifeline of unemployment benefits keeping 30 million
people afloat expires at the end of the month, the Republican Senate has decided to provide more funding for the
Pentagon than the next 11 nations' military budgets combined.
Under this legislation, over half of our discretionary budget would go to the Department of Defense at a time when
tens of millions of Americans are food insecure and over a half-million Americans are sleeping out on the street.
After adjusting for inflation, this bill would spend more money on the Pentagon than we did during the height of
the Vietnam War even as up to 22 million Americans are in danger of being evicted from their homes and
health
workers
are still forced to reuse masks, gloves and gowns.
Moreover, this extraordinary level of military spending comes at a time when the Department of Defense is the only
agency of our federal government that has not been able to pass an independent audit, when defense contractors are
making enormous profits while paying their CEOs outrageous compensation packages, and when the so-called War on
Terror will cost some $6 trillion.
Let us never forget what Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a former four-star general, said in 1953:
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from
those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."
What Eisenhower said was true 67 years ago, and it is true today.
If the horrific pandemic we are now experiencing has taught us anything it is that national security means a lot
more than building bombs, missiles, nuclear warheads and other weapons of mass destruction. National security also
means doing everything we can to improve the lives of tens of millions of people living in desperation who have
been abandoned by our government decade after decade.
That is why I have introduced an amendment to the Defense Authorization Act that the Senate will be voting on
during the week of July 20th, and the House will follow suit with a companion effort led by Representatives Mark
Pocan (D-Wis.) and Barbara Lee (D-Calif.). Our amendment would reduce the military budget by 10 percent and use
that $74 billion in savings to invest in communities that have been ravaged by extreme poverty, mass
incarceration, decades of neglect and the Covid-19 pandemic.
Under this amendment, distressed cities and towns in every state in the country would be able to use these funds
to create jobs by building affordable housing, schools, childcare facilities, community health centers, public
hospitals, libraries and clean drinking water facilities. These communities would also receive federal funding to
hire more public school teachers, provide nutritious meals to children and parents and offer free tuition at
public colleges, universities or trade schools.
This amendment gives my Senate colleagues a fundamental choice to make. They can vote to spend more money on
endless wars in the Middle East while failing to provide economic security to millions of people in the United
States. Or they can vote to spend less money on nuclear weapons and cost overruns, and more to rebuild struggling
communities in their home states.
In Dr. King's 1967 speech, he warned that "a nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military
defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death."
He was right. At a time when half of our people are struggling paycheck to paycheck, when over 40 million
Americans are living in poverty, and when 87 million lack health insurance or are underinsured, we are approaching
spiritual death.
At a time when we have the highest rate of childhood poverty of almost any major country on Earth, and when
millions of Americans are in danger of going hungry, we are approaching spiritual death.
At a time when we have no national testing program, no adequate production of protective gear and no commitment to
a free vaccine, while remaining the only major country where infections spiral out of control, we are approaching
spiritual death.
At a time when over 60,000 Americans die each year because they can't afford to get to a doctor on time, and one
out of five Americans can't afford the prescription drugs their doctors prescribe, we are approaching spiritual
death.
Now, at this unprecedented moment in American history, it is time to rethink what we value as a society and to
fundamentally transform our national priorities. Cutting the military budget by 10 percent and investing that
money in human needs is a modest way to begin that process. Let's get it done.
MOST READ
By a vote of 324-93 ,
the House of Representatives soundly defeated an
amendment to reduce Pentagon authorized spending levels by 10%. The amendment does not
specify what to cut, only that Congress make across-the-board reductions. The amendment to
the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) was offered by Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI). No
Republicans voted for the amendment. Libertarian Justin Amash supported the amendment.
Earlier, the House defeated an amendment to stop the Pentagon's submission of an unfunded
priorities list. Each year, after the Pentagon's budget request is submitted to Congress, the
military services send a separate "wish list," termed "unfunded priorities." This list
includes requests for programs that the military would like Congress to fund, in case they
decide to add more money to the Pentagon's proposed budget.
This article was written while observing the voting on CSPAN. The House Clerk has not
yet posted the roll-call vote. Additional information will be added to the article when
available.
Move comes as Libya gov't and Turkey demand an end of foreign intervention in support of
commander Khalifa Haftar.
####
I suspect In'Sultin Erd O'Grand is a mole of the garden kind. He goes about digging
one hole for himself after another. If he keeps this up, all the holes will merge in to
one and he will disappear! It would give the West a chance to have someone running Turkey
with a more reliably western perspective though I think it is clear that whatever comes next,
Turkey will not allow itself to be treated as a western annex and pawn.
The Congress is serving the interests of the US Oligarchy, at home and abroad. The
strategy is simple: keep allies/vassals in obeisance and non-competitive and destroy
polities that do not subject themselves to a similar system (which ends up to become
subservient to the US interests anyways, in the long run). Thus, all enemies are polities
were Oligarchy doesn't run the roster, and are semi-socialist / socialist countries:
Russia, China, Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea, in the past Iraq.
Fully fledged democracies, that truly enact the will of the people, would not do
something like this.
For those too young to remember the horrible American war on Yugoslavia in 1999, or
those who have forgot, or were misled with lies about Kosovo, here is a quick summary:
This is a very accurate and honest report what { NATO } the North American Terrorist
Organization did to Yugoslavia . If you Americans wish to know what kind of global
government you are promoting . You only have to find the actual transcripts of Milosevic's
trail . Don't read or listen to any fake news of the trail . You must read the trail
transcripts and judge for yourself The butcher of Balkans has kind of been exonerated after
his death . The world court is something to be very afraid of not at all a instrument of
justice .But the trail transcripts are about 5000 pages so you will have to work to find
out the truth .
WW2 and it's depiction in various films and TV programs has had an unexpected effect on
the military psyche. The US believes it won the war on it's own and the troops came home as
heroes. This is the expectation of the US military even today, unable to accept that it can
be defeated. "Thank you for your service" is a given whatever crimes had been committed
abroad on the innocent who had done them no harm whatsoever. The ICC is opposed on the
theory that US troops cannot commit torture or massacres.
The Joke is that the US has not one a war since WWII, except maybe Granada. As for War
Crimes, the Current President himself committed a War Crime, He gave a Pardon to a
Convicted War Criminal, that is actually breach of the Geneva Conventions, which is US
Treaty Law and as such equal to the Constitution itself in importance. Schedule 4 Article
146
The High Contracting Parties undertake to enact any legislation necessary to provide
effective penal sanctions for persons committing, or ordering to be committed, any of the
grave breaches of the present Convention defined in the following Article.
Each High Contracting Party shall be under the obligation to search for persons alleged
to have committed, or to have ordered to be committed, such grave breaches, and shall bring
such persons, regardless of their nationality, before its own courts. It may also, if it
prefers, and in accordance with the provisions of its own legislation, hand such persons
over for trial to another High Contracting Party concerned, provided such High Contracting
Party has made out a prima facie case.
Each High Contracting Party shall take measures necessary for the suppression of all
acts contrary to the provisions of the present Convention other than the grave breaches
defined in the following Article.
In all circumstances, the accused persons shall benefit by safeguards of proper trial
and defense, which shall not be less favorable than those provided by Article 105 and those
following of the Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War of August
12, 1949.
Article 147
Grave breaches to which the preceding Article relates shall be those involving any of
the following acts, if committed against persons or property protected by the present
Convention: willful killing, torture or inhuman treatment, including biological
experiments, willfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health,
unlawful deportation or transfer or unlawful confinement of a protected person, compelling
a protected person to serve in the forces of a hostile Power, or willfully depriving a
protected person of the rights of fair and regular trial prescribed in the present
Convention, taking of hostages and extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not
justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly.
Article 148
No High Contracting Party shall be allowed to absolve itself or any other High
Contracting Party of any liability incurred by itself or by another High Contracting Party
in respect of breaches referred to in the preceding Article.
The President has by absolving the Navy Seal of the Liability, Absolved the United
States of the War Crime also, Now I understand that we will hear arguments here of the
Presidents ability to Pardon, but take this as a given, there is no way that During the
Nuremberg Trials the Prosecution of those War Crimes would have accepted the argument that
the Head of State of Germany (Hitler) had the blanket Authority to Pardon German War
Criminals. as such and this is why this was placed in the Geneva Conventions the very act
of Absolving a War Crime is itself a War Crime!
We could care less what the ICC is opposed to. We are not subject to the ICC or
international law. We can enforce it if needed but do not have to abide by it.
The micrograins of ICC jurisdiction and validity require a sharper legal mind than mine
to sift through. But the debate is revelatory of something else -
In general, the current domestic ICC debate reveals part of the true nature of the US
(helped in no small part by the hamfisted and transparent vulgarity of President Trump):
that we are in fact the rogue state that we accuse everyone else in the world of being.
If we are who we say we are we should be straight up supporting the ICC, helping to fund
it and increase its reach and investigative power. Far better than any military
intervention to deal with the truly bad actors in the world would be a legal intervention.
The idea that vicious and violent despots should run scared when they travel or otherwise
face arrest and extradition is exactly right.
But we're not. Why? The answer is obvious at this point - because we have powerful
players in our midst that would face that arrest. And should face that arrest.
All nice and dandy. But let's say Iran and Iraq would start selling their gas and oil for
euros, yuan, yens, and rupees instead of dollars, crashing the main US export product
(Russian agriculture can now compensate if the US refuses to sell its grain as to threat
countries with famine)... In the current situation, which is not tenable, it is the US's
strategic interest to do what it does... How to scale down these extorting actions of the
US?
You may have missed the part where the US maximum pressure policy just pushed Iran and
China to do a multi billion dollar deal where China will pay for Iranian oil in any currency
except the USD. In doing that KSA just got hung out to dry as their primary export customer
is now more interested in Iran oil than Saudi oil. And oh ya, China will be sending military
assets to Iran to help protect their interests there. So the current US policy has failed
both the US and the countries who are supposed to be US allies. Which I think is the point
the Quincy Institute is trying to make.
Mr. Larison or Quincy Institute never make this argument and to explicitly point to states
trying and moving to economic intercourse using other currencies than the US dollar.
It is something that is conspicuously avoided (not entirely mind you)...
"... First, the US is a Republic dominated by Oligarchy which has obtained control of all levers of power and with some constant effort, has managed to subdue all democratic impulses and processes in the US Republic. As such, regardless of the electorate's wishes, only the will of the ruling oligarchy, which wants to privatize everything or make everyone a debtor and bring every other polity's financial system under the iron fist of the PRIVATE FEDS. ..."
"... It started before that with the Monroe Doctrine, but really got going with the Spanish American War. Once Wilson invaded Mexico while declaring "I am going to teach them to elect good men", American assistance became American hegemony, but with lies that America wasn't like those imperialist countries. Informal control still is hegemony. ..."
The post-Cold War liberal hegemony isn't breaking down. It never existed in the first place. Victorious North Vietnamese troops
wash in the fountain of Saigon's Presidential Palace (Getty Images)
There is a story that members of the foreign policy establishment tell us and themselves when they need to ward off criticisms of
the current U.S. role in the world and suppress doubts about the wisdom of current U.S. strategy. The story is a triumphalist one
that describes how a high-minded superpower benevolently shaped and "led" the world for seventy years, and how, despite a few minor
deviations here and there, it brought peace and stability. It is a story of how the world needs U.S. "leadership" now and forever,
and if the U.S. should "abdicate" the "throne" the world will fall into chaos.
This is the myth that defenders of the status quo have used to dismiss serious changes to the way that the U.S. acts in the world.
It is not a true story. Most dangerous of all, it is a half-truth that credits the U.S. and the "liberal order" for every good thing
that has happened since 1945 while discounting every past crime and blunder as having no bearing on what our foreign policy should
be today.
What if the liberal international order lionized by our foreign policy establishment never really existed? More than that, what
if it isn't possible to have a liberal order at all? Those are some of the questions that Patrick Porter asks and answers in his
extraordinary new book,
The False Promise of Liberal Order . It is not only an incisive critique of the failures of modern U.S. foreign policy, but
it is also a much-needed dispelling of the central myth that "foreign policy traditionalists" cling to.
"Not only did a liberal order never truly exist. Such an order cannot exist," Porter writes in the first few pages of his book.
It is a provocative thesis, and one that he defends admirably. The "liberal order" is a euphemism for U.S. hegemony and the use of
American power in the world, and it is used to tout the virtues of American armed supremacy while overlooking the enormous harm that
U.S. policies have done in many parts of the world. "For every order, including America's, has a shadow," he says, and we are deluding
ourselves if we try to deny that the shadow is there. More than that, by ignoring the shadow, we are more likely to experience similar
or worse disasters in the future. Porter's argument is not just that the U.S. did not abide by the rules that it imposed on others,
but that by assuming the mantle of world-ordering colossus it inevitably set itself on the path to failure. The story that Porter
tells is that of a superpower that believed its own self-justifying propaganda and thus set itself up for a mighty fall.
Defining the "liberal order" is difficult, because it will often mean different things depending on who is using the phrase. As
Porter notes, the concept is a "slippery one." He continues: "Looking to express an aspiration, it projects it back into history.
Like the order it valorizes, it is a moving target that ducks and weaves against close scrutiny." (p.30) But, at its core, what the
defenders of the order mean when they invoke it is a celebration of U.S. hegemony and the near-sanctification of its security commitments
around the world.
In its most extreme forms, it takes the political and military arrangements of the last seventy years and turns them into something
close to an unquestionable edifice that must be preserved for its own sake. To suggest changing or renovating part of the structure
amounts to sacrilege. The defenders of the structure "celebrate orthodoxies -- free trade, expanding alliances, order-enforcing military
action, American global leadership -- and denounce heresies, such as protectionism, military restraint, non-intervention, and détente
with enemies." (p.11) Porter's book is guaranteed to spoil their celebration.
The flaw at the heart of defenses of "liberal order," Porter explains, is that they necessarily exclude the uglier, destructive
parts of the story that were part and parcel of the ordering that took place. On the one hand, defenders of "liberal order" accept
the imperial role that the U.S. has assumed in the last seventy years, and they "desire what amounts to a world monarch," but they
separate out the history of violence and devastation from their account of the "liberal order" to make it seem more appealing. As
Porter says, "they write out large swathes of history."
When the defenders do grudgingly acknowledge the worse parts of the U.S. record, such as Vietnam and Iraq, it is by way of explaining
that these were aberrations rather than outgrowths of the very same order that they applaud. But as Porter perceptively notes, both
Vietnam and Iraq were promoted by the leading defenders of the "order" as being essential to its preservation. Regarding Vietnam,
he writes, "That war was one of the most significant attempts at world-ordering undertaken by an American government. The architects
of the conflict sincerely believed it was a necessary act in protecting the U.S.-led free world." (p.110) The would-be order-builders
were profoundly wrong then and later, and we have good reason to believe that they are wrong again now.
One problem with the "liberal order" myth is not just that it erases and sanitizes the record of U.S. foreign policy, but that
it does so in order to facilitate more of the same costly errors in the future. If the story that U.S. policymakers and politicians
tell themselves is that a meddlesome, hegemonic foreign policy is basically good and successful, and they deliberately conceal or
ignore all of the evidence to the contrary, they will repeat the same kinds of terrible errors that they and their predecessors made
in the past. Beyond that, they are liable to lead the U.S. into many avoidable conflicts out of a misguided sense of mission and
obligation. This missionary drive is inherent in the nature of the "liberal order" project that "looks to extirpate rival alternatives."
That in turn tends to make U.S. foreign policy inflexible and uncompromising in the face of resistance, and it contributes to the
stifling of criticism of that policy here at home.
Porter correctly observes that defenders of "liberal order" are themselves quite hostile to dissent. "Assuming the rightness of
their cause, they regard dissidents as not merely wrong, but as psychologically disordered or morally defective." (p.63) We can see
this in the dismissive descriptions of antiwar activism as evidence of a "syndrome" and in the tendency to write off popular skepticism
about an activist U.S. foreign policy as simple ignorance and "isolationism." That hostility to dissent has real costs for the U.S.
This constant policing of the boundaries of foreign policy debate has blinded U.S. policymakers to their own failings and to the
alternative paths they could take. It has convinced them that they have no choice but to continue with the same costly and unsuccessful
strategy. Having set up the stark choice between domination and isolation, they have trapped themselves into vainly pursuing the
former.
When applied to the wars that the U.S. is currently fighting, "liberal order" rhetoric serves as the license for keeping them
going indefinitely. Porter responds to the argument for staying in Afghanistan this way:
It could also be self-perpetuating, given that the very force of Islamic militancy feeds on a foreign armed presence. Not only
does this promise permanent war, but permanent war becomes the objective of the campaign as well as the means. Liberal order in
this context becomes upholding liberal values through continued armed pacification of the frontier, permanent war for permanent
peace. (p. 118)
Porter's dissection of the "liberal order" mythology is as thorough and effective as one could want, but he does more than simply
explode myths. In the last part of his book, he also outlines what the U.S. can and should do to avoid additional disasters in the
future. To begin with, he advises that we abandon "the core historical claim of liberal order as well as the idea that the USA or
any one power can dominate the globe." If the U.S. does that, it "can return to its original purpose, to secure its interests as
a constitutional republic in a plural world." (p.156)
What would that look like in practice? For one thing, the U.S. "should cease trying to expand democratic capitalism and regime
change abroad." Continued pursuit of hegemony will exhaust the U.S., so Porter proposes instead the U.S. must prioritize those regions
where it has the most important interests, namely Europe and East Asia, and sharply reduce its role in the Middle East. To that end,
the U.S. will have to reduce tensions with at least some of the states that it has considered to be its adversaries for the last
several decades, and then "try to reduce the number of adversaries by limiting the terms of competition." Rather than driving all
adversaries to cooperate with each other against the U.S., Washington should look for ways to drive wedges between them. "To attempt
to suppress every adversary simultaneously would drive the enemies to operate together, creating hostile coalitions." (p.194) If
we would avoid this, we will have to accept accommodations in some parts of the world. To do that, we will first have to give up
on the flattering myth of the "liberal order."
Has there been a military intervention by the US since World War 2 that had value in the terms laid out in this post? I don't
mean that as a rhetorical question. I'm hoping for some insight from people who know more about this than I do. Was the Korean
War justified? Did it protect and support our national interests?
I see the economic and political growth of other countries - China, India, Brazil - as a good thing. When it's all done, I
think the world will be safer and the US will be more secure as a trustworthy and powerful member of the community rather than
as the guy in charge. Always.
Another question. What about the Balkan intervention in the 90s? On the face of it, those actions seem to be a good example
of the kind of nation building Larison is criticizing, but I've always thought it was a policy we could be proud of. It's the
only time I know of that a country stepped in to stop a genocide rather than just waiting around and then saying "we should have
done something" 20 years later.
Too much to unpack here, but very briefly, in the Balkan wars and Kosovo, all were at each others' throat. The US took sides
against the Serbians. Just now, the leader of Kosovo Albanians has been indicted with war crimes by ICC in Hague, and he was Washington's
puppet. Kosovar Albanians have never stopped the ethnic cleansing in that area, with NATO troops always looking the other way.
Thank you very much for bringing up this book as well as for the review that touches a lot of important things, sometimes more
forcefully and sometimes a bit too gingerly.
In my humble opinion, what is clearly not insisted upon in analyzing US foreign policy including its wars of aggression, is
the fact that the basic assumptions are not defined. First, the US is a Republic dominated by Oligarchy which has obtained control
of all levers of power and with some constant effort, has managed to subdue all democratic impulses and processes in the US Republic.
As such, regardless of the electorate's wishes, only the will of the ruling oligarchy, which wants to privatize everything or
make everyone a debtor and bring every other polity's financial system under the iron fist of the PRIVATE FEDS.
Everyone who opposes this intent is to be crushed. And it started in fact with the Korean War (sorry, with sending troops in
Russia in 1917-1918). If it could, the US would attack today Russia and China, against the wishes of its citizens (would make
an effort to present those countries and those people as devils), if the cost would be bearable. Because it is not and because
it would risk the fall of Oligarchy in the US (same way German, Russian, Austrian monarchies fell), this direct action is not
taken, but everything else is par for the course. The rule is, there are no rules (remember, the US is "not agreement capable").
The analysis refers to the expansion of "democratic capitalism". It is obvious to every sane person that oligarchic capitalism,
the climax state, abhors actual democracy, because hoi polloi, if they could, would vote the majority of the oligarchy's privileges
away. Democracy in a capitalist oligarchy is just a pageant. The late electoral cycles in the US have clarified this aspect for
all.
And because of this hollowness and because it tries to subsume every other polity on the face of the planet to its whims, the
US hegemony will not be successful. Oh, it can have some success with immature polities and nations, where there will be traitors,
selling the interest of their state/people for 30 silver coins, but the long run is not looking bright.
It started before that with the Monroe Doctrine, but really got going with the Spanish American War. Once Wilson invaded Mexico while declaring "I am going to teach them to elect good men", American assistance became American
hegemony, but with lies that America wasn't like those imperialist countries. Informal control still is hegemony.
I see your point but at that stage in time the US was just one among others trying to stake claims. With the materialization
of a socialist state, things got ramped up at an ideological level and much effort has been put in justifying US stance - same
as UK tried to justify its position, or French Monarchy justifying its right to rule autocratically...
On Tuesday the U.S. government ordered the closure of the Chinese consulate in Houston,
Texas. The move comes amongst a slew of factless accusations of
Chinese hacking and surveillance
.
While Trump, like Biden, is using anti-China propaganda as part of his campaign, the
closure of the Houston consulate has nothing to do with it. But U.S. media fail to
mention the real and unreasonable motive behind this move:
The United States ordered China to close its diplomatic consulate in Houston within 72
hours, dealing another blow to the rapidly deteriorating relations between the two
countries. China promptly vowed to retaliate, calling the move illegal.
The State Department said the closure was made in response to repeated Chinese
violations of American sovereignty, including "massive illegal spying and influence
operations."
The unmentioned reason for the State Department's move is a squabble over virus testing
and quarantining of U.S. diplomats who are supposed to return to China.
Looks like a similar escalation to the Russian embassy one a few years ago. Trump regime
doesn't know or want to engage in diplomacy and would rather rattle the sabres. Leave
plaguistan (US) to its demise.
I forsee China's being punished further via lawsuits by US companies and individuals
against China. When China starts to see that as a threat, Trump will freeze China's assets
in USA including about $1 trillion of China-owned US Treasury bonds.
That will be a significant speed-bump for China's hopes for the Yuan as an
international/reserve currency.
<> <> <> <> <>
Cue the USA/Trump apologists who will insist that:
"Isn't the US deliberately destroying the China-US relations?" [My Emphasis]
After observing the huge volume of commerce between the Outlaw US Empire and China which
is why the need for multiple consulates exists, the Editorial continues:
"That's why we say the latest US move is crazy. Many people believe that this is another
way the Trump administration creates China-US tensions and helps his reelection efforts.
The US is trying to blame everything on China and to make US voters, who do not understand
China well, believe in Washington's words. The November presidential election is driving
Washington mad ." [My Emphasis]
Well, not all of Washington; just TrumpCo and his allies in both parties. But the
editor's correct IMO that it's all related to Trump's increasingly desperate attempt to get
reelected. This
article looks at recent nationwide trending; and this shows the
currently projected Electoral College map , with Biden ahead 319 to 187. A look at the
map tells you why Georgia and North Carolina are so important to Trump as their 31 votes
drastically changes the calculus.
I thought the same at first--the consulates will be forced to close then Trump will
steal the property just as Obama did to the Russians. All that does is further the
destruction of what little remains of the Empire's credibility and worthiness of its
obeying contractual terms. IMO, the international perception that existed in 1990 is now
reversed with the Outlaw US Empire seen correctly as the liar, cheater, undemocratic entity
that it's been for decades which will move the NAM and particularly Africa further toward
the Eurasian Camp led by Russia and China. If Trump reasons at all, he may figure that
since the Empire's credibility is already diminished, what's there to lose by throwing what
remains under the bus, cause what he's doing looks exactly like that.
The November presidential election is driving Washington mad." [My Emphasis]
The election is just an excuse. The USA/Deep State's move against upstarts
China-Russia-Iran is not new and not driven by election calculus. IMO it began in 2014 when
Russia stood up the USA in Syria and Ukraine and Washington realized that the Russia-China
SCO Alliance was a real threat to the Empire.
Regarding the relation to the election, I read the logic of the situation a little
differently.
The China hawks come from both parties, and even the subgroup now running the foreign
policy have only a shallow attachment to Trump. But like everyone else, they are getting
ready for the a high chance of Biden coming into office, and so a slightly different group
of faces being put in charge.
Thus, for China hawks who expect to fall in status under Biden, the imperative is to
make use of the rest of this year to lock whatever aspects of the US-China relationship
they feel are important, while they have the chance. Meanwhile, China hawks who expect to
rise in status under Biden have reason to ensure that any particularly ugly actions are
done while Trump is still around to take the blame. The intersection of those two groups of
China hawks certainly involve actions designed to lock in hostility and especially
intimidate third countries from doing trade with China. I would think there there is more
to see than just sanctions, propaganda, or closing of consulates -- more like industrial
sabotage and perhaps a regime change operation taking out belt-road participants.
Well, 2013 when Lavrov and Putin caged Kerry over Syria's ancient chemical weapons, then
MINSK agreement doing same with Ukraine idiocy. As I wrote elsewhere, the big change is
Russia's rearming with advanced weapons the Outlaw US Empire won't be able to field for
another decade--and the huge fact that development went undetected. There's a particular
type of confidence you gain when you know your poker hand beats the other guy's.
Internationally since 2003, the Outlaw US Empire's been digging itself into an ever
deepening hole where only its exceptionalist light escapes.
Note that the US govt sold billions worth of embassy related properties in Hong Kong
some weeks prior. Perhaps that was already in anticipation of blowback from this plan to
close China consulate in Houston. (on top of knowing its HK gig is up, after the natl
security law was passed)
There's no way the trillion in T-bills will be seized/defaulted/whatever. The damage to
US credibility will be unrecoverable.
It is certainly crazy time. AG Barr threatened major US corporations Disney & Apple
with having to register as "foreign agents" due to their Chinese investments. Earlier in
the year, the FBI and Congress decided to destroy the career of one of America's top
scientists over failure to submit relatively inconsequential paperwork. These are the types
of things which should result in a determined pushback against an intrusive national
security state, but the balance of power in USA may have flipped.
The praetorian guard has become indistinguishable from the yellow
journalists. Indict them all for treason.
russellremmert 1 day ago
is steel in prison yet Reply
12
DonEstif -> russellremmert 1 day ago
Almost, he's an expert pundit used by CNN
Ban-me Fagggot 1 day ago
If Russia stole the election when Obama was President, why
wouldn't they steal the election when Trump is President? Democrats should protest by not
voting. It wont make a difference.
TGrade1 1 day ago
Behind all of this, hidden behind the
curtain, is a pants suit...
Justis -> TGrade1 11 hours ago
And more importantly, the then leader
of the free world, Obama...
I am not a fan of military spending – following an excellent post by John about
Eisenhower's famous speech (more tanks or more hospitals), I often use it as an example
opportunity cost when teaching. One can certainly claim that the budget should be lower but,
as a share of overall economic resources, the budget has been cut substantially in the last
30 years.
US military spending is certainly much higher than it needs to be for US defense needs. But
the US military is not primarily defending the US. It is defending Asia from China, NATO from
Russia, and a number of countries from Iran, not to speak of Norkland.
IOW, the US military is defending US global hegemony, and is priced accordingly. What you
think of US military spending depends on what you think of the US as a hegemon.
I am not a fan of military spending – following an excellent post by John about
Eisenhower's famous speech (more tanks or more hospitals), I often use it as an example
opportunity cost when teaching. One can certainly claim that the budget should be lower but,
as a share of overall economic resources, the budget has been cut substantially in the last
30 years.
Democracy is incompatible with the global neoliberal empire ruled from Washington. And the
USA is empire now.
Notable quotes:
"... cancel culture is just fine, as long as it's your side doing the cancelling...or if it's Israel or the national security state doing the cancelling ..."
"The forces of illiberalism are gaining strength throughout the world and have a powerful
ally in Donald Trump, who represents a real threat to democracy."
This sacred cow of illusion 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.
Norman Finkelstein must be laughing out loud at the sight of so many hypocritical liberals
opposing cancel. Did anyone in this crowd get 150 people to sign a letter of protest when
Finkelstein got cancelled? Or when Phil Donahue got fired for opposing the Iraq war?
IOW, cancel culture is just fine, as long as it's your side doing the cancelling...or
if it's Israel or the national security state doing the cancelling . CountrPunch, a
victim of blacklisting themselves, has a major takedown of the screaming hypocrisy of some of
the signers: https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/07/10/harpers-and-the-great-cancel-culture-panic/
John, what say you about US/global military spending, which if cut and reallocated in the
low double digits could transform society? Do you think it's just politically untouchable? If
the US cut its military budget by say 25% it would still be formidable, especially given its
nuclear deterrent. For the life of me I can never understand why military budgets are
sacrosanct. Is it just WW2 and Cold War hangover? Couldn't the obvious effects of climate
change and the fragility of the economy subject to natural threats like the pandemic change
attitudes about overfunding the military (like the debacle of the F-35 program)?
Alan White @13 Military spending is about 3.4 per cent of US GDP, compared to 2 per cent
or less most places. So that's a significant and unproductive use of resources that could be
redirected to better effect. But the income of the top 1 per cent is around 20 per cent of
total income. If that was cut in half, there would be little or no reduction in the
productive services supplied by this group. If you want big change, that's where you need to
look.
I think some of the reluctance to cut military spending in the US is the extent to which
it acts as a politically unassailable source of fiscal stimulus and "welfare" in a country
where such things are otherwise anathema. Well, that and all of the grift it represents for
the donor class.
Does Cancel Culture intersect with Woke? The former's not mentioned in
this fascinating essay , but the latter is and appears to deserve some unpacking beyond
what Crooke provides.
As for the letter, it's way overdue by 40+ years. I recall reading Bloom's The Closing
of the American Mind and Christopher Lasch's Culture of Narcissism where they say
much the same.
What's most irksome are the lies that now substitute for discourse--Trump or someone from
his admin lies, then the WaPost, NY Times, MSNBC, Fox, and others fire back with their lies.
And to top everything off--There's ZERO accountability: people who merit "canceling" continue
to lie and commit massive fraud.
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 .
Yes, they were specifically referring to the government, but I'd include the Empire's
institutions as well. In the face of that reality, the letter is worse than a joke.
"... Powell was part of the policy team that crafted the post-Gulf War response to the fact that Iraq's president, Saddam Hussein, survived a conflict he was not meant to. After being labeled the Middle East equivalent of Adolf Hitler whose crimes required Nuremburg-like retribution in a speech delivered by President Bush in October 1990, the Iraqi President's post-conflict hold on power had become a political problem for Bush 41. ..."
"... Powell was aware of the CIA's post-war assessment on the vulnerability of Saddam's rule to continued economic sanctions, and helped craft the policy that led to the passage of Security Council resolution 687 in April 1991. That linked Iraq's obligation to be disarmed of its WMD prior to any lifting of sanctions and the reality that it was U.S. policy not to lift these sanctions, regardless of Iraq's disarmament status, until which time Saddam was removed from power. ..."
"... Regime change, not disarmament, was always the driving factor behind U.S. policy towards Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Powell knew this because he helped craft the original policy. ..."
"... The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of ..."
SCOTT RITTER: Powell & Iraq -- Regime Change, Not Disarmament: The Fundamental
Lie July 18, 2020 Save
Regime change, not disarmament, was always the driving factor behind U.S. policy towards
Saddam Hussein. Powell knew this because he helped craft the original policy.
T he New York Times Magazine has published a puff piece soft-peddling former
Secretary of State Colin Powell's role in selling a war on Iraq to the UN Security Council
using what turned out to be bad intelligence. "Colin Powell Still Wants Answers" is the title
of the article, written by Robert Draper. "The analysts who provided the intelligence," a
sub-header to the article declares, "now say it was doubted inside the CIA at the time."
Draper's article is an extract from a book, To Start a War: How the Bush Administration
Took America into Iraq , scheduled for publication later this month. In the interest of
full disclosure, I was approached by Draper in 2018 about his interest in writing this book,
and I agreed to be interviewed as part of his research. I have not yet read the book, but can
note that, based upon the tone and content of his New York Times Magazine article, my
words apparently carried little weight.
Regime Change, Not WMD
I spent some time articulating to Draper my contention that the issue with Saddam Hussein's
Iraq was never about weapons of mass destruction (WMD), but rather regime change, and that
everything had to be viewed in the light of this reality -- including Powell's Feb. 5, 2003
presentation before the UN Security Council. Based upon the content of his article, I might as
well have been talking to a brick wall.
Powell's 2003 presentation before the council did not take place in a policy vacuum. In many
ways, the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq was a continuation of
the 1991 Gulf War, which Powell helped orchestrate. Its fumbled aftermath was again, something
that transpired on Powell's watch as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the
administration of George H. W. Bush.
Powell at UN Security Council. (UN Photo)
Powell was part of the policy team that crafted the post-Gulf War response to the fact that
Iraq's president, Saddam Hussein, survived a conflict he was not meant to. After being labeled
the Middle East equivalent of Adolf Hitler whose crimes required Nuremburg-like retribution
in a speech delivered by President Bush in October 1990, the Iraqi President's
post-conflict hold on power had become a political problem for Bush 41.
Powell was aware of the CIA's post-war assessment on the vulnerability of Saddam's rule to
continued economic sanctions, and helped craft the policy that led to the passage of Security
Council resolution 687 in April 1991. That linked Iraq's obligation to be disarmed of its WMD
prior to any lifting of sanctions and the reality that it was U.S. policy not to lift these
sanctions, regardless of Iraq's disarmament status, until which time Saddam was removed from
power.
Regime change, not disarmament, was always the driving factor behind U.S. policy towards
Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Powell knew this because he helped craft the original policy.
I bore witness to the reality of this policy as a weapons inspector working for the United
Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM), created under the mandate of resolution 687 to oversee the
disarming of Iraq's WMD. Brought in to create an intelligence capability for the inspection
team, my remit soon expanded to operations and, more specifically, how Iraq was hiding retained
weapons and capability from the inspectors.
SCUDS
UN weapons inspectors in central Iraq, June 1, 1991. (UN Photo)
One of my first tasks was addressing discrepancies in Iraq's accounting of its modified SCUD
missile arsenal; in December 1991 I wrote an assessment that Iraq was likely retaining
approximately 100 missiles. By March 1992 Iraq, under pressure, admitted it had retained a
force of 89 missiles (that number later grew to 97).
After extensive investigations, I was able to corroborate the Iraqi declarations, and in
November 1992 issued an assessment that UNSCOM could account for the totality of Iraq's SCUD
missile force. This, of course, was an unacceptable conclusion, given that a compliant Iraq
meant sanctions would need to be lifted and Saddam would survive.
The U.S. intelligence community rejected my findings without providing any fact-based
evidence to refute it, and the CIA later briefed the Senate that it assessed Iraq to be
retaining a force of some 200 covert SCUD missiles. This all took place under Powell's watch as
chairman of the Joint Chiefs.
I challenged the CIA's assessment, and organized the largest, most complex inspection in
UNSCOM's history to investigate the intelligence behind the 200-missile assessment. In the end,
the intelligence was shown to be wrong, and in November 1993 I briefed the CIA Director's
senior staff on UNSCOM's conclusion that all SCUD missiles were accounted for.
Moving the Goalposts
The CIA's response was to assert that Iraq had a force of 12-20 covert SCUD missiles, and
that this number would never change, regardless of what UNSCOM did. This same assessment was in
play at the time of Powell's Security Council presentation, a blatant lie born of the willful
manufacture of lies by an entity -- the CIA -- whose task was regime change, not
disarmament.
Powell knew all of this, and yet he still delivered his speech to the UN Security
Council.
In October 2002, in a
briefing designed to undermine the credibility of UN inspectors preparing to return to
Iraq, the Defense Intelligence Agency trotted out Dr. John Yurechko, the defense intelligence
officer for information operations and denial and deception, to provide a briefing detailing
U.S. claims that Iraq was engaged in a systematic process of concealment regarding its WMD
programs.
John Yurechko, of the Defense Intelligence Agency, briefs reporters at the Pentagon on Oct.
8, 2002 (U.S. Defense Dept.)
According to Yurechko, the briefing was compiled from several sources, including "inspector
memoirs" and Iraqi defectors. The briefing was farcical, a deliberate effort to propagate
misinformation by the administration of Bush 43. I know -- starting in 1994, I led a concerted
UNSCOM effort involving the intelligence services of eight nations to get to the bottom of
Iraq's so-called "concealment mechanism."
Using innovative imagery intelligence techniques, defector debriefs, agent networks and
communications intercepts, combined with extremely aggressive on-site inspections, I was able,
by March 1998, to conclude that Iraqi concealment efforts were largely centered on protecting
Saddam Hussein from assassination, and had nothing to do with hiding WMD. This, too, was an
inconvenient finding, and led to the U.S. dismantling the apparatus of investigation I had so
carefully assembled over the course of four years.
It was never about the WMD -- Powell knew this. It was always about regime change.
Using UN as Cover for Coup Attempt
In 1991, Powell signed off on the incorporation of elite U.S. military commandos into the
CIA's Special Activities Staff for the purpose of using UNSCOM as a front to collect
intelligence that could facilitate the removal of Saddam Hussein. I worked with this special
cell from 1991 until 1996, on the mistaken opinion that the unique intelligence, logistics and
communications capability they provided were useful to planning and executing the complex
inspections I was helping lead in Iraq.
This program resulted in the failed coup attempt in June 1996 that used UNSCOM as its
operational cover -- the coup failed, the Special Activities Staff ceased all cooperation with
UNSCOM, and we inspectors were left holding the bag. The Iraqis had every right to be concerned
that UNSCOM inspections were being used to target their president because, the truth be told,
they were.
Nowhere in Powell's presentation to the Security Council, or in any of his efforts to recast
that presentation as a good intention led astray by bad intelligence, does the reality of
regime change factor in. Regime change was the only policy objective of three successive U.S.
presidential administrations -- Bush 41, Clinton, and Bush 43.
Powell was a key player in two of these. He knew. He knew about the existence of the CIA's
Iraq Operations Group. He knew of the successive string of covert "findings" issued by U.S.
presidents authorizing the CIA to remove Saddam Hussein from power using lethal force. He knew
that the die had been cast for war long before Bush 43 decided to engage the United Nations in
the fall of 2002.
Powell Knew
Powell knew all of this, and yet he still allowed himself to be used as a front to sell this
conflict to the international community, and by extension the American people, using
intelligence that was demonstrably false. If, simply by drawing on my experience as an UNSCOM
inspector, I knew every word he uttered before the Security Council was a lie the moment he
spoke, Powell should have as well, because every aspect of my work as an UNSCOM inspector was
known to, and documented by, the CIA.
It is not that I was unknown to Powell in the context of the WMD narrative. Indeed, my name
came up during an
interview Powell gave to Fox News on Sept. 8, 2002, when he was asked to comment on a quote
from my speech to the Iraqi Parliament earlier that month in which I stated:
"The rhetoric of fear that is disseminated by my government and others has not to date been
backed up by hard facts that substantiate any allegations that Iraq is today in possession of
weapons of mass destruction or has links to terror groups responsible for attacking the United
States. Void of such facts, all we have is speculation."
"We have facts, not speculation. Scott is certainly entitled to his opinion but I'm afraid
that I would not place the security of my nation and the security of our friends in the
region on that kind of an assertion by somebody who's not in the intelligence chain any
longer If Scott is right, then why are they keeping the inspectors out? If Scott is right,
why don't they say, 'Anytime, any place, anywhere, bring 'em in, everybody come in -- we are
clean?' The reason is they are not clean. And we have to find out what they have and what
we're going to do about it. And that's why it's been the policy of this government to insist
that Iraq be disarmed in accordance with the terms of the relevant UN resolutions."
UN inspectors in Iraq. (UN Photo)
Of course, in November 2002, Iraq did just what Powell said they would never do -- they let
the UN inspectors return without preconditions. The inspectors quickly exposed the fact that
the "high quality" U.S. intelligence they had been tasked with investigating was pure bunk.
Left to their own devices, the new round of UN weapons inspections would soon be able to give
Iraq a clean bill of health, paving the way for the lifting of sanctions and the continued
survival of Saddam Hussein.
Powell knew this was not an option. And thus he allowed himself to be used as a vehicle for
disseminating more lies -- lies that would take the U.S. to war, cost thousands of U.S. service
members their lives, along with hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, all in the name of regime
change.
Back to Robert Draper. I spent a considerable amount of time impressing upon him the reality
of regime change as a policy, and the fact that the WMD disarmament issue existed for the sole
purpose of facilitating regime change. Apparently, my words had little impact, as all Draper
has done in his article is continue the false narrative that America went to war on the weight
of false and misleading intelligence.
Draper is wrong -- America went to war because it was our policy as a nation, sustained over
three successive presidential administrations, to remove Saddam Hussein from power. By 2002 the
WMD narrative that had been used to support and sustain this regime change policy was
weakening.
Powell's speech was a last-gasp effort to use the story of Iraqi WMD for the purpose it was
always intended -- to facilitate the removal of Saddam Hussein from power. In this light, Colin
Powell's speech was one of the greatest successes in CIA history. That is not the story,
however, Draper chose to tell, and the world is worse off for that failed opportunity.
Scott Ritter is a former Marine Corps intelligence officer who served in the former Soviet
Union implementing arms control treaties, in the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert Storm,
and in Iraq overseeing the disarmament of WMD.
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those
ofConsortium News.
PleaseContributeto Consortium
News on its 25th Anniversary
I like this article, it says it all. I have also long harbored a theory that the US
intelligence are behind most of the worlds financial cyber-crime, systematically fleecing the
world to fund their many many operations around the world. They have the tech with Windows
back-doors, the motivation to hide 'off the book' operations and a proven lack of morals as
demonstrated during the Iran–Contra affair, many years ago. but what do I know. As Bill
Maher says, 'I can't prove it but I know it's true'.
John Ervin , Jul 16, 2020 11:59 PM Reply to
voxpox
The USA foreign policy shows a penchant for amoral deceptiveness of ALL other countries,
even best allies, chronically.
So that gives heft to Bill Maher's maxim. Perennial treaty busters and oath breakers, why would anyone trust? Fool me once etc.
That's at the core of my take on all USA has said about C-19(84). Been there, done that,
with 100 other false flags, always the same tune.
The boy who cried wolf: Uncle Scam. Always proven false after all the marbles are stolen. Or at some point down the road. If
not, it shall be, like the JFK fiasco. Like the lone holdout among nations on the Napalm Ban,
or sole rogue to drop an A bomb (75th Anniversary of that cowardly Holocaust coming up in a
few weeks.)
Lone, lone, lone. A sad little homeboy in the Land of the Lone Gunman. So many, though. Too many, for the
world's good .
~~~~~~~~~
Don't take it from me, though, I'm a total patriot, really, compared to Mr. Gonzo, Hunter
S. Thompson:
"America just a nation of 200 million used car salesmen with all the money we need to buy
guns and no qualms at all about using them on anybody else in the world who tries to make us
uncomfortable."
Hunter always said it like it is, at least at yhr time he saw it, he rode with the Hell's
Angels and wrote the 1st book about them, and wasn't much shy about calling a spade a
spade.
And. Like my own old man: another highly assisted apparent suicide.
Over the last ten years, foreign policy restraint has emerged as the biggest challenger to the U.S. foreign policy status quo.
The persistent failure of policies of endless war and the costly, aggressive pursuit of primacy have left an opening for the alternative
strategy that restraint represents.
As a result, it has also become a natural target for criticism from the defenders of U.S. hegemony. Much of this criticism has
been of the knee-jerk, dismissive variety that critics of American policies are all too familiar with, but there has been some more
serious engagement with the ideas of restrainers as well. Unfortunately, even the more serious engagement with pro-restraint arguments
tends to devolve into polemic.
Michael Mazarr recently wrote an
essay for
the summer issue of The Washington Quarterly in which he identifies what he sees as the failings of the restraint camp. It
is probably the fairest response to arguments for restraint so far, but it does not score any significant hits. It is frustrating
in that it cites the works of leading restrainers, but fails to reckon fully with what they are saying. Mazarr is familiar with restrainers'
arguments, and he makes a number of debaters' points about them, but he doesn't make a persuasive case against restraint.
He identifies what he considers to be restrainers' errors in a few broad categories: 1) a binary definition of the foreign policy
debate; 2) caricaturing U.S. foreign policy as an aggressive drive for primacy; 3) overstating the failures of U.S. post-Cold War
foreign policy; 4) inconsistency in prescription. The first three of these criticisms don't hold up, and the fourth is not a serious
objection to the views of a broad range of writers and analysts.
The first objection is that the restrainers' contrast between primacy/liberal hegemony and restraint is too simplistic. According
to Mazarr, this "overlooks a huge, untidy middle ground where the views of most U.S. national security officials reside and where
most U.S. policies operate." Here he appeals to the diversity of views among foreign policy professionals to counter restrainers'
objections to the current strategy of primacy without actually addressing the pitfalls of primacy that restrainers criticize.
It's not clear that the "huge, untidy middle ground" is as vast or as wild as he suggests. The vast majority of people in that
"middle ground" favor the continued maintenance of U.S. primacy or liberal hegemony. The fact that there is a narrow range of views
among adherents of the current strategy is not surprising. It also isn't terribly relevant to the objections that restrainers have
made against the strategy.
For restrainers, as Mazarr puts it, "the reigning concepts that guide America's role in the world embody a limitless drive for
supremacy and power that has produced an infatuation with militarism and a litany of interventions and wars." That is a fair summary
as far as it goes, but Mazarr never manages to refute this claim.
Consider each part and ask yourself if it rings true. Is the U.S. government guided by a belief that it should pursue supremacy
and power on the world stage? Yes, it is. This is what is euphemistically referred to as American "global leadership." This is as
close to an unquestioned assumption in mainstream foreign policy circles as there is. Has this produced an infatuation with militarism?
Our massive military budget, militarized foreign policy, and intrusive response to many foreign conflicts bear witness that this
is so. Not only is there a bias in favor of action in our debates, but action is almost always defined in terms of military options,
and choosing not to use military options is routinely ridiculed as "doing nothing." Has this infatuation with militarism resulted
in a litany of interventions and wars? We know it has and continues to do so. Mazarr claims that restrainers are using "extreme and
unconditional language" and set up "caricatures and straw people," but, if anything, most pro-restraint arguments are rather mild
in their description of the last few decades of unchecked militarism.
Have restrainers oversold the failure of post-Cold War U.S. foreign policy? It's possible, but I don't think it's true. If U.S.
"leadership" is judged on the terms set by its own advocates, how can we judge it as anything but a failure over the last thirty
years? Has it made the world more stable and secure? On the whole, it has not. The U.S. has been one of the most destabilizing actors
in the world for decades with its wars and interference in other nations' affairs. Has it reduced nuclear proliferation? It has not,
and its wars for regime change have made it more difficult to convince would-be nuclear weapons states to dismantle their weapons
programs.
The biggest effort that the U.S. made in the name of counter-proliferation was a terribly costly blunder and an attack on international
law. Has it reduced the incidence of terrorism? On the contrary, the "war on terror" has exacerbated and encouraged the spread of
jihadist terrorism in the world. Has the U.S. deterred great power competition? Far from it. Mazarr's defense of this record amounts
to saying that it was not as ideological and destructive as it might have been, which is not really much of a defense. Are restrainers
too extreme in their indictment of this record of failure? In light of the persistent denial and whitewashing of the disasters unleashed
by our policies, I would say that we have been too diplomatic.
Mazarr writes that "[t]he restraint literature downplays the often-powerful reluctance with which successive US administrations
have grappled with most decisions to intervene." He mentions Libya as an example of this "hesitancy," but neglects to add that the
internal debate over this lasted just a couple weeks before Obama ordered unauthorized military action to help bring down a foreign
government. Obama's reluctance could not have been that powerful if he chose to start a war against another government without Congressional
approval. When we consider how completely unrelated to U.S. vital interests the conflict in Libya was, the fact that the U.S. did
intervene when it had no particular reason to is proof that restrainers' complaints on this score are backed up by the record.
He touts the fact that the U.S. has "shunned" other opportunities for intervention as if the U.S. does not routinely meddle even
in those conflicts where it does not directly act. The U.S. didn't "act" in the Great Lakes crises in the late '90s and early 2000s
because it had outsourced that crisis to its clients in Uganda and Rwanda, who then proceeded to turn Congo into a charnel house.
The U.S. declined to go to WWIII over territorial disputes between Russia and its neighbors, but the escalation of those disputes
grew out of an incessant, U.S.-led drive to expand Euro-Atlantic institutions to Russia's doorstep. Each example Mazarr cites as
proof that the restrainers are overstating their case just reminds us that not all failures of U.S. foreign policy involve our direct
military intervention in a conflict. It doesn't prove that U.S. foreign policy hasn't failed during the last few decades.
In one of the oddest portions of the essay, he informs us that the U.S. has already adopted the restrainers' agenda with respect
to North Korea and Iran. That will come as news to us and to those two governments. It is misleading at best to claim that the Agreed
Framework and the JCPOA amount to "normalizing" relations with North Korea and ending our "grudge match" with Iran. The idea that
strong opposition to these agreements came only from "hawkish factions in two Republican administration" is simply wrong as a matter
of fact. The hawkish factions were just the loudest and most vehement of the opponents. Agreements like these might be helpful for
laying the groundwork for normal relations in the future, but they are just the start of what many restrainers are calling for.
Having failed to land any serious blows thus far, Mazarr turns to restrainers' prescriptions and points out that there is disagreement
about what U.S. policy should be in many places. Since restraint is a strategy that allows for a range of views about specific policies,
this is to be expected, especially when advocates of restraint have not yet been in a position to implement policy.
Earlier in the essay Mazarr complains that restrainers' language is too extreme and unconditional, and then later he disapproves
of restrainers' use of nuance:
Just which military interventions "do not enhance U.S. security"? Which areas are "of little strategic importance"? What is
an "unrealistic"goal, and how big does a defense budget have to become before it is "bloated"? This same adjectival approach to
analysis crops up again and again in the restraint literature.
These are not serious questions. Mazarr can easily learn from the scholars he is citing what they mean when they say these things,
but instead he quibbles about the reasonable qualifications that they are making. When they make unqualified statements, he condemns
them for lacking nuance, and then he accuses them of waffling when they make qualifications. Most restrainers have been very clear
that the U.S. has vital interests in Europe and East Asia, and that most other regions are not that important for our security. The
military budget's bloat is a function of an overly ambitious strategy that commits the U.S. to defend dozens of countries, most of
which do not need protection or could provide for their own defense. Unrealistic goals include, but are not limited to, compelling
North Korea to disarm, forcing Iran to abolish its nuclear program, and using sanctions to coerce other states into abandoning their
core interests.
Mazarr allows that "[p]roponents of restraint have played and continue to play a critical role in highlighting the risks of overweening
ambition," but he does not think the U.S. should significantly scale back its ambitions. He grants that "rethinking of many key assumptions
of U.S. national security policy is overdue, and proponents of restraint have delivered important warnings," but he doesn't rethink
any key assumptions and proceeds to reject many of these warnings as overwrought. He seems to see restrainers as an occasionally
useful check on the excesses of U.S. interventionism, but nothing more than that.
The failures of the last thirty years stem from an excessively ambitious role for the U.S. that no government could competently
execute. If we want to have a more successful and peaceful foreign policy than we have had for at least the last thirty years, we
need to have a much less ambitious and overreaching one. Restraint is the best answer currently available because it accepts that
the U.S. does not have to dominate and shape the world. It is that drive to dominate and dictate terms to other states that has so
often led the U.S. and other countries down the road to ruin. It is time to choose a different path.
Add to all this the US strategic policy of full spectrum dominance and all the economic wars unleashed by the US.
It appears that the US is moving to add North Stream 2 and Turkish Stream going to Europe on CATSAA. How is this not economic
aggression! In what universe is this right? USSR has built pipelines to Western Europe in the middle of the cold war. And the
State Department insists this is due to strategic considerations, having nothing to do with the US trying to sell LNG to Europe....
It is no wonder such news are not really making the news in the US, because that would really sound weird to any Joe 6 pack...
You can win all the intellectual arguments you want (and the arguments are easy to win, at least on any terms other than those
of a full-blown sociopath who isn't even bothering to hide it) - the people of influence and authority still get the wars they
crave.
Unless and until the United States either is utterly humiliated in a major war or faces economic collapse, nothing will change;
the people of influence and authority still are in charge.
Great comment. Given the 'charlie foxtrot' that has become the Middle East in the wake of Iraq II, Afghanistan and the GWOT
and the current economic and political situation in the U.S. in the wake of COVID-19 (whether you accept the MSM version or not),
"utter humiliation" has occurred. The problem is that the establishment will never admit this and the salient lesson is never
learned. You can use the Vietnam experience as an example.
The lesson of Vietnam, in my humble opinion, is that the U.S. is limited in its ability to project power and to engage in nation
building exercises. The narrative changed in the '80s when lack of political will became the primary culprit for U.S. defeat in
South East Asia rather than the more complicated array of factors that made the war unwinnable from the beginning. Regardless,
in the mid-80s Sec. Def. Caspar Weinberger consolidated the Vietnam lessons into a doctrine that fundamentally advocated restraint.
Arguably, the Weinberger doctrine resulted in the U.S. decision to terminate Iraq War I when it did out of recognition that the
U.S. was in no position to prosecute a full-blown invasion of Iraq and to administer the country post-Saddam.
Although it was entirely ignored by the neocons and by the author himself, the Powell Doctrine was based upon similar notions
of restraint. For example, Point 5 emphasizes that the consequences of military action have been thought out as a precondition
to military engagement.
And let us note the recent report that our "it's time we end the wars" leader has given those great peacemakers in the CIA
operations department the green light to effect cyberwar against Iran. Not hard to imagine who in the neighborhood will happily
assist in that.
Its why Trump is so hated by neocons and neoliberals alike. They both want war....particularly if the democrats are the ones
declaring the war and managing it but look at how much the neocons, the neoliberals, the war profiteers, the lobbyists...all work
to keep the federal money flowing toward war where it can easily be spent often without tracking and easily used for undocumented
bribes and payoffs and inside deals between US politicians like Biden and foreign governments like Ukraine or China.
The US is quite good at military destruction but you cant get new sewars, new water mains, new gas lines, new electrical plants,
new mass transit, new airports, new roads, new housing, preservation of wilderness, preservation of wetlands and estuaries, maintenance
of canals, and roads and bridges...etc. All the money is being siphoned off to foreign allies, foreign wars and if money is spent
domestically then it is spent on politicians skimming money off civilian projects and its spent on democratic constituencies like
Black Lives Matters, Planned Parenthood, Diversity, Immigration, Multiculturalism, affirmative action, teachers unions and other
govt unions, etc....its not spent on actual physical infrastructure projects.
For example, in Iraq we were good at destroying Saddam's Republican Guard, blowing up cities, and dismantling the Ba'athist
infrastructure. We weren't good at convincing Iraqis that the U.S. invasion and western paternalism were truly in their best interest.
It's the same reason that Vietnamization ultimately failed and why the ARVN and RVN government quickly collapsed in a matter
of months in 1975 despite the human cost and billions in economic and military aid being poured into the country. It's probably
why most believe that an actual American withdrawal from Afghanistan will inevitably result in a return to Taliban control, again
despite trillions being poured into the country.
So true. Be they Republicans or Democrats neither seems able to end the wars we are in or admit the economic sanctions are
not working. Perhaps the elections of Social Democrats will change the arguments.
Eric Weinstein, managing director of Thiel Capital and hsot of The Portal podcast, has
gone scorched earth on the New York Times following the Tuesday resignation of journalist
Bari Weiss.
Weinstein describes how The Times has morphed into an activist rag - refusing to cover
"news" unpaletable to their narrative, while ignoring key questions such as whether Jeffrey
Epstein's sex-trafficking ring was "intelligence related."
Jump into Weinstein's Twitter thread by clicking on the below tweet, or scroll down for your
convenience.
At that moment Bari Weiss became all that was left of the "Paper of Record." Why? Because the
existence of Black Racists with the power to hunt professors with Baseball Bats and even
redefine the word 'racism' to make their story impossible to cover ran totally
counter-narrative.
At some point after 2011, the NYT gradually stopped covering the News and became the News
instead. And Bari has been fighting internally from the opinion section to re-establish
Journalism inside tbe the NYT. A total reversal of the Chinese Wall that separates news from
opinion.
This is the paper in 2016 that couldnt be interested in the story that millions of Americans
were likely lying to pollsters about Donald Trump.
The paper refusing to ask the CIA/FBI if Epstein was Intelligence related.
The paper that can't report that it seeks race rioting:
I have had the honor of trying to support both @bariweiss at the New York Times and
@BretWeinstein in their battles simply to stand alone against the internal mob mentality. It is
THE story all over the country. Our courageous individuals are being hunted at work for
dissenting.
Before Bari resigned, I did a podcast with her. It was chilling. I'd make an innocuous
statement of simple fact and ask her about it. She'd reply " That is obviously true but I'm
sorry we can't say that here. It will get me strung up ." That's when I stopped telling her to
hang on.
So what just happened? Let me put it bluntly: What was left of the New York Times just
resigned from the New York Times. The Times canceled itself. As a separate Hong Kong exists in
name only, the New New York Times and affiliated "news" is now the chief threat to our
democracy.
This is the moment when the passengers who have been becoming increasingly alarmed, start to
entertain a new idea: what if the people now in the cockpit are not airline pilots? Well the
Twitter Activists at the @nytimes and elsewhere are not journalists.
What if those calling for empathy have a specific deadness of empathy?
Those calling for justice *are* the unjust?
Those calling "Privilege" are the privileged?
Those calling for equality seek to oppress us?
Those anti-racists are open racists?
The progressives seek regress?
The journalists are covering up the news?
Try the following exercise: put a minus sign in front of nearly every banner claim made by
"the progressives".
Q: Doesn't that make more sense?
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Those aren't the pilots you imagine. And we are far closer to revolution than you think.
Bari and I agree on a lot but also disagree fiercely. And so I have learned that she is
tougher than tough. But these university and journalistic workplaces are now unworkable. They
are the antithesis off what they were built to stand for. It is astounding how long she held
out.
Read her letter. I have asked her to do a make-up podcast & she has agreed. Stay tuned
If you don't want to be surprised again by what's coming understand this: just as there has
been no functioning president, there's now no journalism. We're moving towards a 🌎 of
pure activism.
Prepare to lose your ability to call the police & for more autonomous zones where kids
die so that Govenors & Mayors can LARP as Kayfabe revolutionaries . Disagree with Ms Weiss
all you want as she isn't perfect. But Bari is a true patriot who tried to stand alone. Glad
she's out.
We are not finished by a long shot. What the Intellectual Dark Web tried to do MUST now be
given an institutional home.
Podcast with Bari on The Portal to come as soon as she is ready.
Stay tuned. And thanks for reading this. It is of the utmost importance.
Thank you all. 🙏
P.S. Please retweet the lead tweet from this thread if you understand where we are.
Appreciated.
On the campaign trail, Joe Biden has boasted of his role in transforming Colombia and Central America through ambitious
economic and security programs. Colombians and Hondurans tell The Grayzone about the damage his plans did to their societies.
By Max Blumenthal
While campaigning for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination this year, former Senator and Vice President Joseph Biden
has touted the crucial role he played in designing US mega-development and drug war campaigns that transformed the
socio-political landscape of large swaths of Latin America.
"I was one of the architects of Plan Colombia," Biden boasted in a July 5 interview with CNN, referring to the multi-billion
dollar US effort to end Colombia's civil war with a massive surge of support for the country's military. According to Biden,
the plan was a panacea for Colombia's problems, from "crooked cops" to civil strife.
But Biden's plan for Colombia has contributed directly to the country's transformation into a hyper-militarized bastion of
right-wing rule, enhancing the power and presence of the notoriously brutal armed forces while failing miserably in its
anti-narcotic and reformist objectives.
This year alone, more than 50 human rights defenders
were
killed in Colombia
in the first four months of 2019, while coca production is close to record levels. And as Colombian
peace activists lamented in interviews with The Grayzone, the US is still in complete control of Bogotá's failed anti-drug
policy, thanks largely to Plan Colombia.
Biden has also pumped up his role in an initiative called the Alliance for Prosperity, which was applied to the Northern
Triangle of Central America. The former vice president was so central to the program's genesis that it was informally known as
"Plan Biden."
Marketed as an answer to the crisis of child migration, Biden's brainchild channeled $750 million through a right-wing
government installed by a US-orchestrated military coup to spur mega-development projects and privatize social services.
The Grayzone visited Honduras in July and documented, through interviews with human rights defenders, students, indigenous
activists, and citizens from all walks of life, how the Alliance for Prosperity helped set the stage for a national rebellion.
In recent months, teachers, doctors, students, and rural campesinos have been in the streets protesting the privatization
plans imposed on their country under the watch of Biden and his successors.
The gutting of public health services, teacher layoffs, staggering hikes in electricity prices, and environmentally
destructive mega-development projects are critical factors in mass migration from Honduras. And indeed, they are immediate
byproducts of the so-called "Biden plan."
"Biden is taking credit for doing something constructive to stop the migration crisis and blaming the concentration camps [on
the US-Mexico border] on Trump. But it's Biden's policies that are driving more people out of Central America and making human
rights defenders lives more precarious by defending entities that have no interest in human rights," explained Adrienne Pine,
a professor of anthropology at American University and leading researcher of the social crisis in Honduras, in an interview
with The Grayzone.
"So $750 million US taxpayer dollars that were allocated to supposedly address child migration are actually making things
worse," Pine added. "It started with unaccompanied minors and now you have children in cages. Largely thanks to Biden."
'I was one of the architects of Plan Colombia'
In an
interview
with CNN on July 5
, Biden was asked if he favored decriminalizing the entry of Latin American migrants to the United
States. Responding with a definitive "no," Joe Biden stated that he would be "surging folks to the border to make those
concrete decisions" about who receives asylum.
Biden argued that he had the best record of addressing the root causes of the migration crisis, recalling how he imposed a
solution on Central America's migration crisis. "You do the following things to make your country better so people don't
leave, and we will help you do that, just like we did in Colombia," he said.
"What did we do in Colombia? We went down and said, okay, and I was one of the architects of Plan Colombia," Biden continued.
"I said, here's the deal. If you have all these crooked cops, all these federal police, we're sending our FBI down, you let us
put them through a lie detector test, let us tell you who you should fire and tell you the kind of people you should hire.
They did and began to change. We can do so much if we're committed."
With the arrogance of a pith-helmeted high colonial official meting out instructions on who to hire and fire to his docile
subjects, Biden presided over a plan that failed miserably in its stated goals, while transforming Colombia into a
hyper-militarized bastion of US regional influence.
Plan Colombia: 'They come and ask for bread, and you give them stones'
Plan Colombia was originally conceived by Colombian President Andrés Pastrana in 1999, as an alternative development and
conflict resolution plan for his war-torn country. He considered calling it the "Plan for Colombia's Peace."
The proposal was quickly hijacked by the Bill Clinton administration, with Joe Biden lobbying in the Senate for an iron-fisted
militarization plan. "We have an obligation, in the interests of our children and the interests of the hemisphere, to keep the
oldest democracy in place, to give them a fighting chance to keep from becoming a narcostate," Biden
said
in
a June 2000 floor speech.
When Plan Colombia's first formal draft was published, it was done so in English, not Spanish. The original spirit of
peace-building was completely sapped from the document by Biden, whose vigorous wheeling-and-dealing ensured that almost 80
percent of the $7.5 billion plan went to the Colombian military. 500 US military personnel were promptly dispatched to Bogota
to train the country's military.
"If you read the original Plan Colombia, not the one that was written in Washington but the original Plan Colombia, there's no
mention of military drives against the FARC rebels," Robert White, the former number two at the US embassy in Bogota,
complained
in 2000
. "Quite the contrary. [Pastrana] says the FARC is part of the history of Colombia and a historical phenomenon, he
says, and they must be treated as Colombians."
White lamented how Washington had abused the trust of the Colombians: "They come and ask for bread, and you give them stones."
Plan Colombia was largely implemented under the watch of the hardline right-wing President Álvaro Uribe. In 1991, Uribe was
placed on a US Drug Enforcement Agency list of "
important
Colombian narco-traffickers
," in part due to his role in helping drug kingpin Pablo Escobar's obtain licenses for landing
strips while Uribe was the head of Colombia's Civil Aeronautics Department.
Under Uribe's watch, toxic chemicals were sprayed by military forces across the Colombian countryside, poisoning the crops of
impoverished farmers and displacing millions.
Biden
with former Colombian President Alvaro Uribe at the Concordia Summit in June 2017
Six years after Bill Clinton initiated Plan Colombia, however, even US drug czar John Walters was
forced
to quietly admit
in a letter to the Senate that the price of cocaine in the US had declined, the flow of the drug into the
US had risen, and its purity had increased.
Meanwhile, a
UN
Office of Drugs and Crime report
found that coca cultivation reached record levels in Colombia in 2018. In other words,
billions of dollars have been squandered, and a society already in turmoil has been laid to waste.
For the military and right-wing paramilitary forces that have shored up the rule of leaders like Uribe and the current
ultra-conservative Colombian president, Ivan Duque, Plan Colombia offered a sense of near-total impunity.
The depravity of the country's military was put on bold display when the so-called
"false
positives" scandal
was exposed in 2008. The incident began when army officers lured 22 rural laborers to a far-away
location, massacred them, and then dressed them in uniforms of the leftist FARC guerrillas.
Victims
of Colombia's "false positives" scandal, where laborers were massacred to justify Plan Colombia funding
It was an overt attempt to raise the FARC body count and justify the counter-insurgency aid flowing from the US under Plan
Colombia. The officers who oversaw the slaughter were paid bounties and given promotions.
Colombian academics Omar Eduardo Rojas Bolaños and Fabián Leonardo Benavides demonstrated in a
meticulous
study
that the "false positives" killings reflected "a systematic practice that implicates the commanders of brigades,
battalions and tactical units" in the deaths of more than 10,000 civilians. Indeed, under Plan Colombia, the incident was far
from an isolated atrocity.
Colombian
activist Santiago Salinas in Bogotá (Photo: Ben Norton)
Forfeiting Colombia's national sovereignty
In an interview in Bogotá this May, The Grayzone's Ben Norton asked Colombian social leader Santiago Salinas if there was any
hope for progressive political transformation since the ratification of Plan Colombia.
An organizer of the peace group
Congreso
de los Pueblos
, Salinas shrugged and exclaimed, "I wish." He lamented that many of Colombia's most pivotal decisions were
made in Washington.
Salinas pointed to drug policy as an example. "It seems like the drug decisions about what to do with the drugs, it has
nothing to do with Colombia.
"There was no sovereign decision on this issue. Colombia does not have a decision," he continued. It was the Washington
that wrote the script for Bogota. And the drug trade is in fact a key part of the global financial system, Salinas pointed
out.
But Biden was not finished. After 15 years of human misery and billions of wasted dollars in Colombia, he set out on a
personal mission to export his pet program to Central America's crime and corruption-ravaged Northern Triangle.
Biden eyes Central America, selling mass privatization
In his July sit-down with CNN, Joe Biden trumpeted his Plan Colombia as the inspiration for the Alliance for Prosperity he
imposed on Central America. Channeling the spirit of colonial times once again, he bragged of imposing Washington's policies
on the governments of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.
"We'll make a deal with you," Biden recalled telling the leaders of these countries. "You do the following things to make your
country better so people don't leave, and we will help you do that."
Biden announced his bold plan on the editorial pages of the New York Times in January 2015. He called it "a joint plan for
economic and political reforms, an
alliance
for prosperity
." Sold by the vice president as a panacea to a worsening migration crisis, the Alliance for Prosperity was
a boon for international financial institutions which promised to deepen the economic grief of the region's poor.
The Alliance for Prosperity "treated the Honduran government as if it were a crystal-clear, pure vessel into which gold could
be poured and prosperity would flow outward," explained Dana Frank, a professor of history at the University of California,
Santa Cruz, and the author of the book,
The
Long Honduran Night
.
"In reality, the Plan would further enrich and strengthen the political power of the very same elites whose green, deliberate
subversion of the rule of law, and destruction of natural resources and of Indigenous and campesino land rights, were
responsible for the dire conditions the proposal ostensibly addressed," Frank added.
In Honduras, the government had no capacity or will to resist Biden's plan. That is because the country's elected president,
Juan
Manuel Zelaya
, had been removed in 2009 in a coup orchestrated by the United States.
As
Zelaya
told The Grayzone's Anya Parampil
, the Obama administration was infuriated by his participation in ALBA, a regional
economic development program put forward by Venezuela's then-President Hugo Chavez that provided an alternative to neoliberal
formulas like the so-called "Biden Plan."
Following the military coup, a corporate-friendly administration was installed to advance the interests of international
financial institutions, and US trainers arrived in town to hone the new regime's mechanisms of repression.
Under the auspices of the Central American Regional Security Initiative, the FBI was dispatched to
oversee
the training
of FUSINA, the main operational arm of the Honduran army and the base of the Military Police for Public Order
(PMOP) that patrols cities like an occupation force.
In an October 2014 cable, the US embassy in Tegucigalpa acknowledged that the PMOP was riven with corruption and prone to
abuse, and attempted to distance itself from the outfit, even though it operated under the umbrella of FUSINA.
The creation by the US embassy in Honduras of a special forces unit known as the Tigres has added an additional layer of
repressive muscle. Besides
arresting
activists,
the Tigres reportedly
helped
a
drug kingpin escape after he was detained during a US investigation.
While violent crime surged across Honduras, unemployment
more
than doubled
. Extreme poverty surged, and so too did the government's security spending.
To beef up his military, President Juan Orlando Hernández dipped into the social programs that kept a mostly poor population
from tumbling into destitution.
Chart
on Honduran budget priorities by the Center for Economic and Policy Research, 2017
As
Alex
Rubinstein reported for The Grayzone
, the instability of post-coup Honduras has been particularly harsh on LGTTBI
(Lesbian, Gay, Trans, Travesti, Bisexual, and Intersex) Hondurans. More than 300 of them
have
been killed
since 2009, a dramatic spike in hate crimes reinforced by the
homophobic
rhetoric
of the right-wing Evangelical Confraternity that represents the civil-society wing of the ultra-conservative
Hernandez government.
As the
social
chaos enveloped Honduran society
, migration to the US-Mexico border began to surge to
catastrophic
levels
. Unable to make ends meet, some Hondurans sent their children alone to the border, hoping that they would temporary
protective or refugee status.
By 2014, the blowback of the Obama administration's coup had caused a national emergency. Thousands of Hondurans were winding
up in cages in detention camps run by the US Department of Homeland Security, and many of them were not even 16 years old.
That summer, Obama went to Congress for $3.7 billion in emergency funds to ramp up border militarization and deport as many
unaccompanied Central American minors as possible.
Biden used the opportunity to
rustle
up an additional billion dollars
, exploiting the crisis to fund a massive neoliberal project that saw Honduras as a base
for international financial opportunity. His plan was quickly ratified, and the first phase of the Alliance for Prosperity
began.
From
the IADB's sanitized survey of the Alliance for Prosperity
Energy industry rush dooms indigenous communities and human rights defenders
The implementation of the Alliance for Prosperity was overseen by the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB), a US-dominated
international financial institution based in Washington, DC that supports corporate investment in Latin America and the
Caribbean.
A
graphic
on
the IADB's website outlined the plan's objectives in anodyne language that concealed its aggressively neoliberal agenda.
For instance, the IADB promised the "fostering [of] regional energy integration." This was a clear reference to Plan Pueblo
Panama, a region-wide neoliberal development
blueprint
that
was conceived as a boon to the energy industry. Under the plan, the IADB would raise money from Latin American taxpayers to
pay for the expansion of power lines that would carry electricity from Mexico all the way to Panama.
Honduras, with its rivers and natural resources, provided the project with a major hub of energy production. In order for the
country's energy to be traded and transmitted to other countries, however, the International Monetary Fund mandated that its
national electricity company be privatized.
Since the implementation of that component of "Plan Biden," energy costs have
begun
to surge
for residential Honduran consumers. In a country with a 66 percent poverty rate, electricity privatization has
turned life from precarious to practically impossible.
Rather than languish in darkness for long hours with unpaid bills piling up, many desperate citizens have journeyed north
towards the US border.
As intended, the Alliance for Prosperity's regional energy integration plan has spurred an influx of multi-national energy
companies to Honduras. Hydro-electric dams and power plants began rising up in the midst of the lush pine forests and winding
rivers that define the Honduran biosphere, pushing many rural indigenous communities into a life-and-death struggle.
This July, The Grayzone traveled to Reitoca, a remote farming community located in the heart of the Honduran "dry sector." The
indigenous Lenca residents of this town depend on their local river for fish, recreation, and most importantly, water to
irrigate the crops that provide them with a livelihood. But the rush on energy investment brought an Italian-Chilean firm
called Progelsa to the area to build a massive hydro-electric dam just upstream.
Reitoca
community leader Wilmer Alonso by the river threatened by a major hydro-electric project (Photo: Ben Norton)
Wilmer Alonso, a member of the Lenca Indigenous Council of Reitoca, spoke with The Grayzone, shaking with emotion as he
described the consequences of the dam for his community.
"The entire village is involved in this struggle," Alonso said. "Everyone knows the catastrophe that the construction of this
hydro-electric plant would create."
He explained that, like so many foreign multi-nationals in Honduras, Progelsa employs an army of private thugs to intimidate
protesters: "The private company uses the army and the police to repress us. They accuse us of being trespassers, but they are
the ones trespassing on our land."
US reinforces 'factors that generate violence the most in our society'
The Alliance for Progress also provided the backdrop for the assassination of the renowned Honduran environmentalist and
feminist organizer Berta Cáceres.
On March 3, 2016, Cáceres was gunned down in her home in rural Honduras. A towering figure in her community with a presence on
the international stage, Cáceres had been leading the fight against a local dam project overseen by DESA, a powerful Honduran
energy company
backed
by the United States Agency for International Development
(USAID) and run by powerful former military officers.
The representative that DESA sent to sign its deal with USAID, Sergio Rodríguez, was later
accused
of
masterminding Cáceres' murder, alongside military officials and former company employees.
In March 2018, the Honduran police
arrested
DESA's
executive president, Roberto David Castillo Mejía, accusing him of "providing logistics and other resources to one of the
material authors" of the assassination. Castillo was a
West
Point graduate
who worked in the energy industry while serving as a Honduran intelligence officer.
This July, The Grayzone visited the family of Berta Cáceres in La Esperanza, a town nestled in the verdant mountains of
Intibucá. Cáceres' mother, Doña Berta, lives there under 24-hour police guard paid for by human rights groups.
The Cáceres household is bristling with security cameras, and family members get around in armored cars. In her living room,
we met Laura Zúñiga Cáceres of the Civic Council of Indigenous and Popular Organizations of Honduras (COPINH), the human
rights group that her mother Berta founded.
Laura
Zuniga Caceres of COPINH in the home where Berta Caceres was raised (Photo: Ben Norton)
"The violence in Honduras generates migrant caravans, which tears apart society, and it all has to do with all of this
extractivism, this violence," Zúñiga Caceres told The Grayzone. "And the response from the US government is to send more
soldiers to our land; it is to reinforce one of the factors that generates violence the most in our society."
"We are receiving reports from our comrades that there is a US military presence in indigenous Lenca territory," she added.
"For what? Humanitarian aid? With weapons. It's violence. It's persecution."
Gutting public healthcare, driving more migration
The Alliance for Prosperity also commissioned the privatization of health services through a deceptively named program called
the Social Protection Framework Law, or la Ley Marco de Protección Social.
Promoted by Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández as a needed reform, the scheme was advanced through a classic shock
doctrine-style episode: In 2015, close associates of Hernández
siphoned
some $300 million from the Honduran Institute for Social Services
(IHSS) into private businesses, starving hospitals of
supplies and causing several thousand excess deaths, mostly among the poor.
With the medical sector in shambles, Hondurans were then forced to seek healthcare from the private companies that were to
provide services under Hernandez's "Social Protection" plan.
"The money that was robbed [in the IHSS scandal] was used to justify the Ley Marco Proteccion Social," Karen Spring, a
researcher and coordinator for the Honduras Solidarity Network, told The Grayzone. "The hospitals were left in horrible
conditions with no human capital and they were left to farm out to private hospitals."
"When Hondurans go to hospitals, they will be told they need to go to a private company, and through the deductions in their
jobs they will have to pay a lot out of pocket," Spring said. "Through the old universal system you would be covered no matter
what you had, from a broken arm to cancer. No more."
In response, Hondurans poured out into the streets, launching the March of Torches – the first major wave of continuous
protests against Hernandez and his corrupt administration.
In March 2015, in the middle of the crisis, Joe Biden rushed down to Guatemala City to embrace Hernández and restore
confidence in the Alliance for Prosperity.
"I come from a state that, in fact, is the corporate capital of America. More corporations are headquartered there than
anyplace else,"
Biden
boasted
, with Hernández and the presidents of Guatemala and El Salvador standing by his side. "They want to come here.
Corporate America wants to come."
Joseph
Biden embraces Juan Orlando Hernandez in Guatemala City, February 2016
Emphasizing the need for more anti-corruption and security measures to attract international financial investment, Biden
pointed to Plan Colombia as a shining model – and to himself as its architect. "Today Colombia is a nation transformed, just
as you hope to be 10 to 15 years from now," the vice president proclaimed.
Following Biden's visit, the privatization of the Honduran economy continued apace -- and so did the corruption, the
repression, and the unflinching support from Washington.
Hondurans take to the streets, wind up in US-style supermax prisons
By 2017, the movement in Honduras that had galvanized against the US-orchestrated 2009 coup saw its most immediate opportunity
for political transformation at the ballot box. President Hernández was running for re-election, violating a constitutional
provision on term limits. His opponent, Salvador Nasrallah, was a popular broadcast personality who provided a centrist
consensus choice for the varied elements that opposed the country's coup regime.
When voting ended on November 26, Nasrallah's victory appeared certain, with exit polls showing him comfortably ahead by
several points. But suddenly, the government announced that a power outage required the suspension of vote counting. Days
later, Hernández was declared the victor by about 1 percent.
The fraud was so transparent that the
Organization
of American States
(OAS), normally an arm of US interests in Latin America, declared in a
preliminary
report
that "errors, irregularities and systemic problems," as well as "extreme statistical improbability," rendered the
election invalid.
But the United States recognized the results anyway, leaving disenfranchised Hondurans with protest as their only recourse.
"Hondurans tried to change what happened in their country through the 2017 elections, not just Hernández but all the
implementation of all these policies that the Biden plan had funded and implemented all these years since the coup," explained
Karen Spring, of the Honduras Solidarity Network.
"They tried to change that reality through votes and when the elections turned out to be a fraud, tons of people had no choice
but to take to the streets."
At the front lines of the protests in 2017 was Spring's longtime partner, the Honduran activist Edwin Espinal. Following a
protest in November of that year where property damage took place, Espinal was arrested at gunpoint at his home and accused of
setting fire to the front door of a hotel. He fervently denied all charges, accusing the government of persecuting him for his
political activism.
In fact, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights had placed a protective measure on Espinal in 2010 in response to
previous attempts to legally railroad him.
The government placed Espinal in pre-trial detention in La Tolva, a US-style maximum security prison normally reserved for
violent criminals and narco-traffickers. Last October, Espinal and Spring
were
married
in the jail while surrounded by masked guards.
Karen
Spring and Edwin Espinal marry in La Tolva in October 2018 (Photo: Karen Spring)
"Since the Biden plan, contractors have been coming down to build these US-style maximum security prisons," Spring said.
"That's where my husband Edwin Espinal is being held."
"They say the company is Honduran but there's no way Hondurans could have built that without US architects or US construction
firms giving them the plans," she added. "I've been in the prison and it's like they dumped a US prison in the middle of
Honduras."
Reflecting on her husband's persecution, Spring explained, "Edwin wanted to stay in his country to change the reality that
caused mass migration. He's one of the people who's faced consequences because he went to the streets. And he's faced
persecution for years because he's one of the Hondurans who wanted to change the country by staying and fighting. Berta
Caceres was another."
"Hondurans wanted to use their votes to change the country and now they're voting with their feet," she continued. "So if
Biden's plan really addressed the root causes of the migrant crisis, why aren't people asking why migration is getting worse?
Hondurans are voting on the Biden plan by fleeing and saying your plan didn't work and it made our situation worse by fleeing
to the border."
Max Blumenthal is an award-winning journalist and the author of several books, including best-selling
Republican
Gomorrah
,
Goliath
,
The
Fifty One Day War
, and
The
Management of Savagery
. He has produced print articles for an array of publications, many video reports, and
several documentaries, including
Killing
Gaza
. Blumenthal founded The Grayzone in 2015 to shine a journalistic light on America's state of perpetual war
and its dangerous domestic repercussions.
thegrayzone.com
That scientific debate soon turned into a geopolitical one, however. EU farmers are
overwhelmingly dependent on North and West Africa for phosphate where, because of the natural
conditions, there is usually a cadmium level far higher than 20mg/kg. At the same time,
phosphate coming from Russia has far lower natural levels of the metal.
Southern European countries feared that switching phosphate supplies away from Africa
to Russia could severely undermine volatile North African economies and trigger social
problems
One of the countries that has strongly opposed the new labeling rules is Poland -- a
country that historically wants to avoid commercial dependence on Russia but also has its own
national fertilizer business and has invested in a Senegalese phosphate mine
####
Plenty more at the link.
We support the environment as long as it benefits our trade partners and is poitically
balanced in our favor.
This looks like the european industry is waving the 'Russia Bad' flag because it cannot
counter the technical aspects and more environmental policies coming out of the EU.
They are also arguing in favor of less transparency and less information for farmers which
is suspect because their fear is that low cadmium fertilizer (from Russia/wherever) may get
tax-breaks to promote its use.
Rather than figure out a way to adapt and help their partners, their first reaction is to
throw poo at the walls.
The Vatican may be the most influential element on US foreign policy, even more so than
Israel whose interests are not nearly as global. Via the Saker:
In can be argued that the Vatican's interest simply aligns with the "deep state" or it can
be argued that the Vatican is part of the deep state. Indeed the Vatican predates the "deep
state" by centuries and may be the first transational empire.
In any case, the Vatican has been the key player in major international operations from
Poland to Argentina to S Vietnam. Of course, lets not forget their unforgettable role in WW
II and the war against Serbia and the Soviet Union.
The posted article is well worth the long read. The Vatican has gotten a free pass in the
West for far too long with their mass rape of children, organizers of genocide, buddy-buddy
with organized crime and crooked bingo operations. Their role in Ukraine was particularly
eye-opening for me.
I would imagine that the Pope is absolutely fuming about that Russian military cathedral.
My take? That cathedral was built, in part, as a message to the Holy See that if they mess
with Russia or its church, the response will be swift and final.
"Today the Department of State is updating the public guidance for CAATSA authorities
to include Nord Stream 2 and the second line of TurkStream 2. This action puts investments or
other activities that are related to these Russian energy export pipelines at risk of US
sanctions. It's a clear warning to companies aiding and abetting Russia's malign influence
projects and will not be tolerated. Get out now or risk the consequences".
Pompeo speaking at a press conference today.
CAATSA -- Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act
So Russia and Turkey are "adversaries" of the USA?
In what way?
Do these states wish to wage war against the USA?
Is it adversarial to United States interest to compete economically with the hegemon?
Who cares? Really, is Pompeo still scary? If he has a functioning brain, he should realize
that all these blatant efforts to reserve markets for America by sanctioning all its
competitors out of the picture is having the opposite effect, and frightening customers away
from becoming dependent on American products which might be withheld on a whim when America
wants political concessions. 'Will not be tolerated' – what a pompous ass. Sanction
away. The consequence is well-known to be seizure of assets held in the United States or an
inability to do business in the United States. That will frighten some into submission
– like the UK, which was threatened with the cessation of intelligence-sharing with the
USA (sure you can spare it?) if it did not drop Huawei from its 5G networks. But others will
take prudent steps to limit their exposure to such threats, in the certain knowledge that if
they work, they will encourage the USA to use the technique again.
There's no question that Obama was slick, polished and well-spoken. However, as to this
idea of holding his feet to the fire, it doesn't explain why he got so cozy with Goldman
Sachs figures; went after Edward Snowden and did little to stem the dark tide of the war on
terror. I think he was a sell-out from the get-go.
And while this article makes a compelling case for Biden's loss of mental acuity, if
Donald Trump throws those barbs, there are
plenty of filmed segments of his own loss of words, his word salads, his nasal breathing,
possible use of inhaled drugs, and overall cognitive decline. Add in that many psychiatrists
have gone on record to discuss his malignant narcissism and clinical (dangerous) mental
illness.
A British court decision unmasks new evidence of FBI abuses in the Russia collusion
probe.
Warby's lengthy ruling unearthed a gem of new evidence to answer the question: Steele
kept his own notes of what he told FBI agents the first time he met them on July 5, 2016 in
London to discuss his anti-Trump Russia research.
And, Warby revealed, the notes make clear that Steele told his FBI handlers from the
get-go that the dossier's "ultimate client were (sic) the leadership of the Clinton
presidential campaign."
And after Trump won the election, the judge added, Steele disclosed he gave copies of
his dossier to longtime Clinton friend Strobe Talbot in hopes it would get to the top of the
State Department
####
Plenty more at the link.
BiDumb has to win in November to make all this go away.
the police have so far arrested a total of 9216 people, 1979 people have been or are being
dealt with by the judicial process, of which 252 people have to bear the legal consequences. Mr
Hu said there were many young people and many students among those arrested, and "we expect a
large number of young people to enter the correctional facility in the foreseeable future."
"
Mr Hu said the number of teenagers jailed two years after they were released from prison had
fallen from 24.2 per cent in 2007 to 9.8 per cent in 2017...
Prisoners wave goodbye to family members Picture source: Hong Kong Report
According to Hong Kong's Wen Report, Hu Yingming ... criticized some people in the community
for advocating the use of violence to solve problems and downplay the impact of imprisonment:
"In my 30 years of working in the Correctional Services Department, I have never seen anyone
with imprisonment as a life goal." Prison is not a paradise, it is not a place for the public
to enhance or exercise, it will not add color to the page of life, leaving prison after the
head will not have any aura. "
Hu Yingming reminded that imprisonment is only an indelible mark in life, the prison food
and clothing and living are very different from the outside...
This article is an exclusive manuscript of the Observer Network and may not be reproduced
without authorization.
Again, probably not an urgent problem unless some existing Chinese aircraft in service are
on their last legs and urgently must be replaced. In which case they could go with Airbus if
the situation could not wait. China has options. Boeing does not.
The west loves to portray the Chinese as totally without ethics, and if you have a product
they can't make for themselves, they will buy it from you only until they have figured out
how to make it themselves, and then fuck you, Jack. I don't see any reason to believe the
Chinese value alliances less than the west does, or are any more incapable of grasping the
value of a give-and-take trade policy. The west – especially the United States –
favours establishing a monopoly on markets and then using your inability to get the product
anywhere else as leverage to force concessions you don't want to make; is that ethical? China
must surely see the advantages of a mutually-respectful relationship with Russia, considering
that country not only safeguards a significant length of its border from western probing, but
supplies most of its energy. There remain many unexplored avenues for technical, engineering
and technological cooperation. At the same time, Russia is not in a subordinate position
where it has to endure being taken advantage of.
Trade is hard work, and any partner will maneuver for advantage, because everyone in
commerce likes market share and money. But Washington has essentially forgotten how to
negotiate on mutually-respectful terms, and favours maneuvering its 'partners' into
relationships in which the USA has an overwhelmingly dominant position, and then announcing
it is 'leveling the playing field'. Which means putting its thumb on the scale.
Must. Pass. Foreign. Relations. Policy. Past. USDoS. First. Well that is
unforgiveable for the Masters of the Universe(TM). No-one knows exactly what's in it except
that it is substantial. Still, the USDoS is having a public aneurism tells us that they care
a lot.
Every time you "impose costs" on another country, you make more enemies and inspire more
end-around plays which take you as an economic player out of that loop. And by and by what
you do is of no great consequence, and your ability – your LEGAL ability, I should
interject – to 'impose costs' is gone.
Sooner or later America's allies are going to
refuse to recognize its extraterritorial sanctions, which it has no legal right to impose; it
gets away with it by threatening costs in trade with the USA, which is a huge economy and is
something under its control.
But that practice causes other countries to gradually insulate
themselves against exposure, and one day the cost of obeying will be greater than the
cost of saying "Go fuck yourself".
After neocons in Washinton adopted Magnitsky act all bets for US-Russia cooperation are off.
And that in a long run will hurt the USA too.
Notable quotes:
"... Every time you "impose costs" on another country, you make more enemies and inspire more end-around plays which take you as an economic player out of that loop. And by and by what you do is of no great consequence, and your ability – your LEGAL ability, I should interject – to 'impose costs' is gone. ..."
Every time you "impose costs" on another country, you make more enemies and inspire
more end-around plays which take you as an economic player out of that loop. And by and by
what you do is of no great consequence, and your ability – your LEGAL ability, I should
interject – to 'impose costs' is gone. Sooner or later America's allies are going
to refuse to recognize its extraterritorial sanctions, which it has no legal right to impose;
it gets away with it by threatening costs in trade with the USA, which is a huge economy and
is something under its control. But that practice causes other countries to gradually
insulate themselves against exposure, and one day the cost of obeying will be greater than
the cost of saying "Go fuck yourself".
The New York Times goes a little further, stressing that the agreement would entail an
economic and military partnership: "It calls for joint training and exercises, joint research
and weapons development and intelligence sharing -- all to fight "the lopsided battle with
terrorism, drug and human trafficking and cross-border crimes." This would give Iran access
to some fairly high-tech systems, perhaps fighter aircraft and training and tech support, but
of that part of the package, I would rate intelligence sharing the highest. It would
potentially give Iran a heads-up on what the USA is planning in the region before it even is
briefed to Congress – Washington leaks like a sieve, and while it is often intentional,
it happens when it is not desired as well.
Washington's policy now consists of little more than frantically papering over cracks as
they appear; its ability to direct the world is gone and its ability to influence it is
deteriorating by the day as it becomes more and more intensely disliked, and everyone's
enemy. Perversely, this brings war closer as a possibility, as threats of it are no longer an
effective deterrent to partnerships and exchanges the USA does not like. More and more of
those threatened are taking the attitude of "Put up or shut up". Trade deals outside
Washington's influence increase those countries' insulation against US sanctions, and perhaps
it is beginning to dawn on the western banking cartel that it is in imminent danger of being
isolated itself, like a fleck of grit that irritates an oyster and finds itself encased in
nacre.
Beijing follows through on its promised retaliation for Washington's move to hold
individuals to account
Senators Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio among those facing sanctions in latest tit-for-tat
move
####
More at the link.
What springs to mind is that Groucho Marx quote: "I refuse to join any club that would
have me as a member."
That the US sanctions China with an act named after a dodgy Russian book-keeper working
for a thief is all kinds of wrong, but as we all know, the ends justify the means. Hamsters
are happy.
Jonathan Guyer, managing editor of The American Prospect, has an unbelievably
well-reported piece on
the making of a Washington national security consultancy, starring two high placed Obama-era
officials and one of the Imperial City's more successful denizens -- Michele Flournoy.
Flournoy may not be a household name anywhere but the Beltway, but when she met Sergio
Aguirre and Nitin Chadda (Chiefs of staff to UN Ambassador Samantha Power and Secretary of
Defense Ash Carter respectively) she was already trading lucratively on her stints in two
Democratic administrations. In fact, according to Guyer, by 2017 she was pulling nearly a half
a million dollars a year a year wearing a number of hats: senior advisor for Boston Consulting
Group (where she helped increase their defense contracts to $32 million by 2016), founder and
CEO of the Democratic leaning Center for a New American Security, senior fellow at Harvard's
Belfer Center, and a member of various corporate boards.
Hungry to get their own consulting business going after Hillary Clinton's stunning loss in
2016, according to Guyer, Aguirre and Chadda approached Flournoy for her starpower inside the
Blob. Flournoy did not want "to have a firm with her name on it alone," so they sought and
added Tony Blinken, former Under Secretary of State and "right hand man" to Joe Biden for 20
years. WestExec Advisors, named after the street alongside the West Wing of the White House,
was born. "The name WestExec Advisors trades on its founders' recent knowledge of the highest
echelons of decision-making," writes Guyer. "It also suggests they'll be walking down WestExec
toward 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue someday soon."
Soon the firm was raking in corporate contracts and the high sums that go with it. They
weren't lobbying per se (wink, wink) but their names and connections provided the grease on the
skids their clients needed to make things happen in Washington. They shrewdly partnered with a
private equity group and a Google affiliate. Before long, Guyer says, they did not need to
market: CEO's were telling other CEO's to give them a call. More:
The founders told executives they would share their "passion" for helping new companies
navigate the complex bureaucracy of winning Pentagon contracts. They told giant defense
contractors how to explain cutting-edge technologies to visitors from Congress. Their
approach worked, and clients began to sign up.
One was an airline, another a global transportation company, a third a company that
makes drones that can almost instantly scan an entire building's interior. WestExec would
only divulge that it began working with "Fortune 100 types," including large U.S. tech;
financial services, including global-asset managers; aerospace and defense; emerging U.S.
tech; and nonprofits.
The Prospect can confirm that one of those clients is the Israeli
artificial-intelligence company Windward.
To say that the Flournoy helped WestExec establish itself as one of the most successful of
the Beltway's defense and national security consultancies is an understatement. For sure,
Flournoy has often been underestimated -- she is not flamboyant, nor glamorous, and is
absolutely unrecognizable outside of the Washington market because she doesn't do media (though
she is popular on
the think tank conference circuit ). She's a technocrat -- smart and efficient and highly
bred for Washington's finely tuned managerial class. She is a courtier for sure, but she is no
sop. She has staying power, quietly forging relationships with the right people and not trying
too hard to make a name or express ideas that might conflict with doctrine. She no doubt
learned much in two stints in the Pentagon, which typically chews up the less capable,
greedier, more narcissistic neophytes (not to mention idealists). She's not exactly known as a
visionary, however, and one has to wonder which hat she is wearing when she expounds on current
defense threats, like
this piece about beefing up the Pentagon budget to confront China .
But what does it all mean? Flournoy has been at the forefront of strategy and policy in two
administrations marked by overseas interventions (Clinton from 1993 to 2000) and Obama (2009 to
2012). All of her aforementioned qualities have helped her to personally succeed and profit --
especially now, no doubt helping weapons contractors get deals on the Hill, as Guyer susses out
in his piece, not to mention how well-placed she would be for an incoming Biden Administration.
But has it been in the best interest of the country? I think not. For this, she is queen of the
Blob.
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But elite is as elite does. She went from Beverly Hills High School to Harvard to Oxford,
and then back to Harvard, before landing a political appointment in the Clinton Administration.
In between government perches, she did consulting and started CNAS in hopes of creating a
shadow national security council for Hillary Clinton. When Clinton didn't get the nomination,
Flournoy and her colleagues supported Obama and helped populate his administration,
supporting the military surge in Afghanistan and prolonging the war. She was called the
"mastermind"
behind Obama's Afghan strategy, which we now know was a failure, an effort at futility and
prolonging the inevitable. In fact, we know now that most of the war establishment was
lying through its teeth . But that hasn't stopped her from getting clients. They pay for
her influence, not her ability to win wars.
Queen of the Blob, Queen of Business as Usual -- a business, as we well know from Guyer's
excellent reporting, that pays off bigtime. But it has never paid off for the rest of America.
But really, why should she care? She was never really with "us" to begin with.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kelley Beaucar Vlahos, executive editor, has been writing for TAC since 2007, focusing on
national security, foreign policy, civil liberties and domestic politics. She served for 15
years as a Washington bureau reporter for FoxNews.com, and at WTOP News in Washington from
2013-2017 as a writer, digital editor and social media strategist. She has also worked as a
beat reporter at Bridge News financial wire (now part of Reuters) and Homeland Security
Today, and as a regular contributor at Antiwar.com. A native Nutmegger, she got her start
in Connecticut newspapers, but now resides with her family in Arlington, Va.
I wish that you would cover this equally in both parties; the near entire senior level of
the political apparatus (apart from the few individuals truly invested in the best for all
Americans) has become corrupted informing the policies, or lack thereof; whether implemented,
ignored, or written into law.
We really need to get these "Blob" people out of our government. Electing Trump didn't fix
the problem, and judging by this article, electing Biden won't either. Half of them people
aren't even recognizably American. They're global elites, and they'll continue to use
Americans and what's left of America to further their globalist agenda. With someone like
Flournoy, selling powerful US technology to known spies and thieves like the Israelis, who
take our tech, copy it, and sell it to enemies like China, only scratches the surface of
what's going on. She should be in prison after all the damage she's done to America, not
looking forward to yet another national security role in which she can get more Americans
killed, wreck more foreign countries, and waste and steal more billions of taxpayer
money.
Ms. Flournoy is an example of the type of competent high level staffer of which the Trump
Administration is devoid. Do you think that Mr. Fluornoy that those who work for her would
have had anything overturned at the Supreme Court because they were too lazy to complete the
paperwork?
"Ms. Flournoy is an example of the type of competent high level staffer of which the Trump
Administration is devoid."
I have to agree that Trump's administration is devoid of competent people, but don't
forget that it was incompetents like Flournoy that got Trump elected.
If you want to ID the individual most likely for President Trump winning, look up Joel
Benenson. He was Hilary Clinton's chief of strategy and was convinced that Trump could not
win any of the blue wall states. Ms. Fluornoy had nothing to do with that. Mr. Fluornoy would
have been the Secretary of Defense in a Hillary Clinton Administration and probably would
have been more competent that the current Secretary of Defense.
You would have done better just to critique her article in Foreign Affairs. As it is, you
sound like you're mad at Michele because she makes more money than you do (presumably).
I think that it is a bit unfair, given the fact that the odds are stack the way they are.
Ms. Vlahos has dedicated many years (they are so many she only whispers the number) on issues
related with foreign policy. The path she has chosen is the harder path, the ethical, and
moral one, which was never going to pay. If Ms. Vlahos is incensed, I bet that it is not
because of the money, but because she sees that in Washington DC, only crime and wanton
murder pays. She is accusing Ms Flournoy that she is a sellout to the crime syndicate, like a
cop that has started herself supporting the drug trafficking.
You should know that people believe in more things than only making money. Ms. Flournoy it
seems, has decided that she wants a piece of the cake and to hell with this absurd idea of
"arms to plowshares"....
Ms. Valhos can speak for herself. No one should project onto others their values. But it
does seem that Valhos does make a point that Flournoy does not have any guiding philosophy .
Except to be in a position to make a fine living from her contacts.
Could be that Flournoy is more greedy than not. She sure has the resume that would get her
into any job which she wanted to interview for. And she paid her dues also.
When one looks at Valhos's resume it likewise is impressive. She too it seems to be proud
of her connection to the elites. We should not condem either. We all want our children to
excell. Unless Flournoy is an unindicted co conspirator, this article is just a piece of
fluff. Too much time on Valhos's hands perhaps?
While I don't have anything else to do, I had hoped to read some good dirt. Alas all I got
was one high achieving person carping bout another person of similar achievement. Bless them
both.
The dirt presented is facilitating arms contracts. By peddling the need of strong military
and war. Being a merchant of death, which Ms. Vlahos doesn't seem to be, disqualifies Ms.
Flournoy entirely. of anything.
Not sure what you mean " poorly for it". I tend not to get wrapped around the axle . But
like it when someone comments on me personally. Lost perspective in old age. Would like to
know more what you mean. Unless you just want to be mean
But really, why should she care? She was never really with "us" to begin with.
That's a bit harsh don't you think? I remember that time on September 11, 2001, I was in
the New York area when it happened, I even had a close acquaintance who died in the Twin
Towers. I remember when America was united in its blood lust, it its ravenous quest for
revenge, ... revenge on anything and anyone. When America's vengeful eye was set on the
Taliban government of Afghanistan, it was off to the races. Left and Right, liberal and
conservative, Democrat and Republican, ... all were united in avenging 9/11 on the evil
Taliban and Afghan tribal peoples for harboring OBL. And I'm sure both you Miss Vlahos and
Miss Flournoy were united as well in wanting someone to pay ... am I right? So don't give me
this BS about 'us' and 'them' okay? America is a democracy, the American people get the
government they vote for, they get the President, Senators and Members of Congress they vote
for, that means they also get the flunkies, hangers on and entourages of think tankers and
careerists they vote for. Understand? You get what you deserve, you don't get to whine and
complain when you're leaders are incompetent and corrupt okay? So don't give me this 'us and
them' nonsense and absolve yourself of the blood lust you once had all those years ago on
September 11, 2001.
No, liberals were not for taking it out on the Afghan tribal peoples. We were for getting
those responsible, and sorry no, we didn't include the Afghan tribal people in on that too,
despite any sympathies some of them may have had for AQ.
We had no 'blood lust' and we don't believe in collective punishment.
Did you just say liberals "don't believe in collective punishment"? I'm gonna give you the
benefit of the doubt and assume you're not lock-step in support of the #BLM and Critical Race
Theory...
But your other point about liberals being anti-war is also flawed. Just connect the
foreign intervention (not just wars, but also funding to foreign opposition groups) with some
humanitarian urgency (think of those Afghan women!) and liberals have always advocated for
the same foreign policies than neoconservatives.
"...I'm sure both you Miss Vlahos and Miss Flournoy..."
It's been decades since I've seen the word "Miss" used in print - except when I write to
my granddaughter. In my profession, I write to women all the time, and although it used to be
that unmarried ones were quite accepting of - and indeed expecting to receive - missives from
me addressing them as such, I would be embarrassed to use that appellation when addressing
adult women today in a professional or unacquainted capacity. Now, I only use it for women
who wish it - old women, unmarried Catholic women and irascible old-school lesbians.
Ah, yes. Highly educated, multiple degrees, cultivated....and extremely dangerous. All of
that wonderful education dedicated to wanton killing and influence peddling. These people,
the hidden professionals of pull, are the most difficult to fight because unlike a politician
or a bureaucrat they are nearly invisible. She can only be effective if she is not seen. To
her, public exposure is toxic. So expose away! Make her name known to everyone.
"... Glorifying war is disturbing but so is the normalization of war. Most do not realize that large standing armies and large police forces were unknown/unusual only a century ago. ..."
"... And very few understand the mentality of the power-elite or how they have secreted themselves and their objectives behind gated communities, political divisiveness, and unaccountable 'national security' bullshit (more like 'war strategy'). ..."
Glorifying war is disturbing but so is the normalization of war. Most do not
realize that large standing armies and large police forces were unknown/unusual only a
century ago.
And very few understand the mentality of the power-elite or how they have secreted
themselves and their objectives behind gated communities, political divisiveness, and
unaccountable 'national security' bullshit (more like 'war strategy').
The ideologies of the Empire are: neoConservativism(a form of aristocracy);neoLiberalism(a form of facism); and Zionism(a form of
colonialism).
In short, a combination of the worst inclinations in the Western tradition.
P
resident Donald Trump's third National Security Advisor opens his memoir with this quote from the
Duke of Wellington at Waterloo: 'Hard Pounding, this, gentlemen. Let's see who will pound the longest.' And
pound for pound, that's the (nearly) 500 page memoir in a nutshell. Unremitting pounding is both the theme
and the style. As John Bolton urged the White House to take a 'harder line" on Iran and North Korea, Trump's
chief of staff "urged me to keep pounding away in public, which I assured him I would.' China 'pounded away
during my tenure, sensing weakness at the top.' As with Bolton's mission, so too with America's statecraft,
that must 'keep moving and keep firing, like a big grey battleship.'
From his infamous unsubtle moustache to his bellicosity,
Bolton traffics on a self-image of straight shooter who sprints towards gunfire. He does not set out to
offer a meditation on a complex inner life. This image is also slightly misleading. For all the barrage,
Bolton turns out to be a more conflicted figure, especially when his supporting fire is most called upon.
The Room Where it
Happened
is Bolton's account of his part in
the power struggles within Trump's almost medieval court, his attempt to steer the executive branch towards
the right course, unmasked supremacy everywhere, and his failure and disillusion with Trump's chaotic,
self-serving and showbiz-driven presidency.
The
room where it happened: A White House memoir, by John Bolton
The memoir itself is a non-trivial political event.
Other reviewers have assailed it for being turgid. Bolton, though, has at least done the state some service
by habitually recording and recounting every meeting. This is an important record of an important eighteen
months packed with the escalating brinksmanship with Iran, an impeachment inquest, the return of great power
competition and a fierce struggle to control the policy levers in Washington itself. For that detail,
especially when contrasted with the exhausting melodrama of the era, Bolton deserves a little credit. The
Trump administration's determined effort to suppress it on the grounds of classified information suggests
there is substance to Bolton's allegations of corruption and turmoil at the heart of government.
It is also, though, a work of self-vindication. Bolton's
life is an adversarial one. A former attorney, he became a policy advocate and a Republican Party
institution, consistently taking the hardest of lines. He was ever drawn to aggressive combatants – like
Hillary Clinton, in his formative years he supported Barry Goldwater. He interned for Vice-President Spiro
Agnew, the "number one hawk." As a measure of Bolton's faith that war works and that co-existence with
"rogue states" is impossible, he advocated attacking a heavily (and nuclear)-armed North Korea in 2018, an
adversary that lies in artillery range of Seoul and thousands of Americans as effective hostages, and
offered up a best-case scenario in doing so.
Bolton brought to government a world view that was
dug-in and entrenched. For Bolton, the world is hostile, and to survive America must be strong (wielding and
brandishing overwhelming force) at all times. Enemy regimes cannot be bargained with or even co-existed with
on anything less than maximalist terms dictated by Washington. The US never gives an inch, and must demand
everything. And if those regimes do not capitulate, America must topple or destroy them: Iran, Syria, Libya,
Venezuela, Cuba, Yemen and North Korea, and must combat them on multiple fronts at once. In doing so,
America
itself must remain unfettered with an absolutely free hand, not nodding even hypocritically to law or custom
or bargaining.
If Bolton's thoughts add up to anything, it is a general
hostility, if not to talking, certainly to diplomacy – the art of giving coherence and shape to different
instruments and activities, above all through compromise and a recognition of limits. The final straw for
Bolton was Trump's cancelling an airstrike on Iran after it shot down a drone. An odd hill to die on, given
the graver acts of corruption he as witness alleges, but fitting that the failure to pull the trigger for
him was Trump's most shocking misdemeanour.
What is intended to be personal strength and clarity
comes over as unreflective bluster
This worldview is as personal as it is geopolitical.
Importantly for Bolton, in the end he fights alone, bravely against the herd. He fights against other
courtiers, even fellow hawks, who Bolton treats with dismissive contempt – Nikki Haley, Steve Mnuchin, Mike
Pompeo, or James Mattis who like Bolton, champions strategic commitments and views Iran as a dangerous
enemy, but is more selective about when to reach for the gun. The press is little more than an "hysterical"
crowd. Allies like South Korea, who must live as neighbours with one of the regimes Bolton earmarks for
execution, and who try conciliatory diplomacy occasionally, earn slight regard. Critics, opponents or those
who disagree are 'lazy,' 'howling' or 'feckless.'
For a lengthy work that distils a lifetime's experience,
it is remarkably thin regarding the big questions of security, power and order. The hostile world for him
contains few real limits other than failures of will. He embraces every rivalry and every commitment, but
explanations are few and banal. 'While foreign policy labels are unhelpful except to the intellectually
lazy,' he says, 'if pressed, I like to say my policy was "pro-American".' Who is lazy, here?
The purpose of foreign policy, too, is largely absent.
Armed supremacy abroad, and power-maximisation, seems to be the end in itself, regardless of what is has
wrought at home. This makes his disdain for Trump's authoritarian ways especially obtuse: what does he think
made possible an imperial presidency in the first place?
There's little room for principled or reasonable
disagreement. What is intended to be personal strength and clarity comes over as unreflective bluster, in a
town where horse-trading and agility matter. Unintentionally, it is a warning to anyone who seeks to be
effective as well as right, and to those of us who debate these questions.
The most provocative part of the book comes at the end,
and points to a man more conflicted than his self-image of the straight shooter. Bolton issues an extended,
uneasy defence of his decision not to appear as a witness before the House impeachment inquiry against a
president he believed to be corrupt. Having celebrated the need to "pound away" with inexhaustible energy,
it turned out his ammunition was low. 'I was content to bide my time. I believed throughout, as the line in
Hamilton
goes,
that "I am not throwing away my shot".' Drawing on a characteristic claim to certainty, 'it would have made
no significant difference in the Senate outcome.' How can he know this? And even if the odds were long, was
there not – for once – a compelling basis in civic virtue to be that relentless grey battleship, pounding
away? He now hopes "history" will remember Trump as a one-term president. History needs willing agents.
Other reviews have honed in on Bolton's decision to
delay his revelations for a book pay-day. But consider another theme – the war-hawk who is in fact torn and
agonised around combat when it comes to himself. It echoes his retrospective rationale for not fighting in
Vietnam, a war he supported, and (as he has recorded) the detailed efforts he made to avoid service in that
tragic theatre after being drafted. It was, he decided, bound to fail given that the anti-war Democrats
would undermine the cause, a justification he later sheepishly regretted.
So twice the advocate of forceful confrontation refused
the call to show up, generously awarding to himself a rationale for non-intervention that relieves him of
commitment. He refuses to extend that same exonerating, prudential logic to his country, when it debates
whether to wade in to conflict abroad. Neither does he extend it to other Americans who think the nation,
like Bolton, might be better off sometimes holding its fire, biding its time, dividing its enemies, and
keeping its powder dry.
Given that Bolton failed in the end to attend the "room
where it happened", his title is unwittingly ironic. In his favour, Bolton's testy defence of his absence at
least suggests something. In contrast with the front cover of another
forthcoming,
Trump-era memoir
, he retains a modest
capacity for embarrassment.
The Europeans collectively have 11 times the GDP and three times the population of Russia.
Germany has the world's fourth largest economy, alone two and a half times the size of
Russia's.
Yet the Europeans affect to be helpless, vulnerable to attack by a revived Red Army. No
European government spends much more than two percent of GDP on the military, not even the
Baltic States and Poland, which squeal the most frequently and loudly about evil hordes massing
just over the border. At least France and Great Britain have competent forces, though not
directed at Moscow. Germany devotes just 1.38 percent of its GDP to a military far from
battle-ready. Italy and Spain barely bother to maintain armed forces. And then there are
nations like Luxembourg.
So why is it America's responsibility to protect countries well able to defend themselves
but not interested in doing so? Worse, why are U.S. policymakers constantly reassuring the
Europeans that no matter how little they do Washington will always be there, ready to save
them? Why have lawmakers, elected to represent the American people, turned NATO into a defense
dole for what Ronald Reagan today might call foreign welfare queens?
To his credit, President Donald Trump has sharply criticized allies which prefer to leave
the heavy lifting to Washington. Alas, his methods are dubious and have had little effect.
Their small increases in military spending began before he was elected. His officials have
thwarted his policies by increasing U.S. support for NATO, even expanding the alliance to such
military behemoths as Montenegro and North Macedonia.
Most bizarre is Congress's determination to always stand with European officials, who, in
sharp contrast, put their own nations first. Legislators constantly ignore the plight of
American taxpayers, who are expected to keep funding prosperous, populous allies which believe
they have better things to do than enlarging and improving their militaries. Like preserving
largescale social welfare programs at U.S. expense.
For instance, the president's determination to pull 9500 U.S. personnel out of Germany
caused congressmen, Republicans and Democrats alike, to go, well, completely nuts. In their
view the president was inviting Vladimir Putin to invade Europe and conquer most of the known
world. They imagined that a new Dark Ages was descending, the world was about to end, and the
lion was poised to eat the lamb.
So, naturally, leading lawmakers are scheming to block the move, in order to ensure that the
Europeans need never be bothered to take care of themselves. Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) and Rep.
Mac Thornberry (R-Tex.) have proposed barring the use of funds to remove any troops. That is,
at a time of budget crisis they want to keep more U.S. money flowing into Germany ,
rewarding a government dedicated to focus on its economy and society while expecting Americans
to do the military defending.
Who do Romney and Thornberry believe they are representing? Why do they care more about
German than American taxpayers?
Republicans also are taking the lead in the Democratic-controlled House to sacrifice
American interests for foreign governments. For instance, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyoming), daughter
of "I had other priorities" Dick Cheney, who avoided serving in Vietnam before plotting
numerous wars for today's young, backed a Democratic proposal to limit further withdrawals from
Afghanistan, where Americans have been engaged in a nearly 20-year nation-building mission. The
measure passed by a 45 to 11 vote: members of both countries seem determined to keep Americans
forever fighting in Central Asia. They care more for the corrupt, incompetent regime in Kabul
than America service members and taxpayers. In contrast, the president, despite his halting,
inconsistent policy, better represents this nation's interests.
The opposition to the president's plan for getting out of Afghanistan was modest compared to
the hysteria that consumed Washington when he ordered U.S. forces home from Syria.
Unsurprisingly, though unfortunately, legislators took the lead in opposing his plan to focus
on the interests of Americans.
For instance, Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill) complained that Trump's refusal to keep the U.S.
forever entangled in another nation's civil war, tragic but irrelevant to American security,
was "weak." Sen. Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY) pushed a resolution criticizing the
president. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell issued the standard yet mindless response to every
proposal to disengage from anywhere: the president should "exercise American leadership." House
Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel, apparently (and thankfully) defeated in the
recent primary by a young progressive, similarly complained that "At President Trump's hands,
American leadership has been laid low." For all of them, "American leadership" apparently
requires engaging in perpetual war on behalf of foreign governments and interests, irrespective
of the human and financial cost to this nation.
It is hard to imagine a deployment more antithetical to U.S. security. In Syria Americans
are occupying a foreign nation, expected to oust the incumbent government, fight jihadists
created by Washington's invasion of the country next door, force out personnel from Iran and
Russia invited in by the legitimate government to battle insurgents supported by the U.S., and
forever protect ethnic fighters considered to be an existential threat by the neighboring
state, a NATO ally. All this is to be done through an illegal intervention, lacking both
domestic and international legal authority. Yet the congressmen so determined to block the
president are unwilling to commit themselves and vote to authorize the deployment. Apparently
they fear having to justify their bizarre behavior to their constituents who are paying the
price of their perverted priorities. A cynic might think U.S. legislators to be both policy
morons and political cowards.
Congress has similarly sought to inhibit any effort by the president to withdraw troops from
South Korea. Last year's National Defense Authorization Act set a floor for U.S. troop
deployments in the Republic of Korea. The 2020 NDAA raised the number, essentially prohibiting
any reduction in current deployments. According to Congress, the Pentagon must forever provide
a specific level of military welfare for one of the world's most prosperous and industrialized
states.
Americans should ask when legislators will be as solicitous of American military personnel
and taxpayers as of the ROK government. The South enjoys roughly 53 times the economic strength
and twice the population of North Korea. If Seoul needs more troops for its defense, why
doesn't it raise them ? Why are Americans expected to pay for what South Koreans should be
doing?
Of course, the president is not innocent of the temptation to do the bidding of foreign
leaders instead of the American people. He appears to be in essentially full thrall of several
foreign dictators and other master manipulators, including Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan,
Egypt's Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu, and Saudi Arabia's Mohamed bin
Salman.
In the last case Congress has taken the unusual stance of challenging the president for his
unnatural obeisance to a foreign ruler. The U.S. continues to arm and assist the Saudi royals
in their murderous campaign of aggression against their neighbor, Yemen, in order to reinstall
a pliant regime prepared to carry out Saudi policy. The war has resulted in a humanitarian
catastrophe in what already was one of the world's poorest nations. The Saudi intervention also
triggered a sectarian war, giving Iran an excellent opportunity to bleed the ineffective Saudi
military, which has proved to be competent at little more than bombing weddings and funerals,
destroying apartments and markets, and slaughtering civilians. It is difficult to imagine an
intervention more antithetical to American interests. Here, unusually, Congress is on the right
side.
Candidate George W. Bush advocated a "humble foreign policy," a position he forgot after
9/11. Instead, he decided to try to reorder the world, determined to create a liberal, modern
state in Central Asia and turn Iraq into the sort of de facto colony that Neoconservatives
imagined a proper Arab nation should be. The result was little short of a catastrophe.
The next president should turn genuine humility into policy. And challenge Congress to
abandon its pretensions of global social engineering, ignoring differences in history,
interest, geography, religion, ethnicity, culture, and more. Instead of playacting as 535
secretaries of state, legislators should focus on protecting America, its territory,
population, prosperity, and liberties.
A good starting point would be to stop treating the Defense Department as another welfare
agency, only for foreign governments. America's wealthy friends should do what serious nations
have down throughout history: defend themselves.
Doug Bandow is a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute. A former Special Assistant to
President Ronald Reagan, he is author of Foreign Follies: America's New Global Empire.
..
"Three weeks into the war, Marine Sgt. Ed Chin got the order: Help the Iraqis celebrating in
Baghdad's Firdos Square topple the statue of Saddam Hussein.
"My captain comes over and he's got like this package. He hands it to me and he's like, he
tells me there's an American flag in there and when I get up there, you know, he's like, show
the boys the colors," said Chin.
Are you seriously incapable of making a connection regarding the hypocrisy of the US
Govt/US military wrapping an American Flag on the Saddam Statue and destroying it for a media
photo op while cheering about it? And the condemnation of the US Govt declaring statues
should not be destroyed?
Do you see no insanity regarding the US Regime illegally invading and destroying another
Nation and its statues (war crime w/millions dead)? The very same Nation celebrating a "bad"
Iraqi statue being destroyed is suddenly disgusted when its own statues are being destroyed
by its own people?
My point is obvious if you can step back from your myopic view. The US is a mentally ill
Nation ridden with hypocrisy. I personally do not put much merit into statues, cultural
idolatry comes to mind, just as foolish as religious idolatry.
So what are your thoughts on the destruction of the Saddam statue sanctioned by the US
govt and military?
@114 I expect V will be along at some point but here are my thoughts on the Saddam
statue.....
The US is ridden with hypocrisy as you say ....no surprise there. The statue was actually
pulled down by a rentamob of Iraqi Saddam haters while American troops high-fived each
other.
They wouldn't see anything wrong with pulling the statue down because Saddam was a 'bad
guy' and an American enemy.
Those same troops would probably not feel the same way about Confederate generals.....who
just happened to be Americans who kept slaves and picked the losing side. They would be seen
as major figures in American history.
That is how a lot of Americans would justify it. Of course it is rank hypocrisy..
Now only complete idiot agrees with Albright "We stand tall and we see further than other
countries into the future, and we see the danger here to all of us"
"Iran will have to respond, 4 attacks in less than 2 weeks is really taking the piss and
makes them look weak. Quite a reversal from the Iran that was seizing tankers, acting on its
threats and dictating the tempo of escalation."
Posted by: Et Tu | Jul 5 2020 23:07 utc | 56
...
Iran is playing Chess, the US are still trying to find the checkerboard yelling "King
Me".
US military policy has been misguided for decades based on militarism as economic
profiteering, not on the life or death principle of a Nation under attack.
Pure Propaganda-
"SECRETARY ALBRIGHT: But 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. I know that the American men and women in uniform
are always prepared to sacrifice for freedom, democracy and the American way of life.
MR. LAUER: Secretary of State Madeleine Albright." Interview on NBC-TV "The Today Show"
with Matt Lauer
Columbus, Ohio, February 19, 1998
...
1997 The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives -Zbigniew
Brzezinski.
War profiteering, stealing resources and destroying other nations/economies is not much of
a Grand long term Strategy. Iran is preparing, organizing and waiting- the Iranian Red Flag
of "Revenge" for Soleimani is flying while Americans burn their own flag.
"... the essential backdrop for the timing of this story. It really reveals how completely decayed mainstream media is as an institution, that none of these reporters protested the story, didn't see fit to do any independent investigation into it. At best they would print a Russian denial which counts for nothing in the US, or a Taliban denial which counts for nothing in the US. And then and this gets into the domestic political angle because so much of Russiagate, while it's been crafted by former or current intelligence officials, depends on the Democratic Party and it punditocracy, MSNBC and mainstream media as a projection megaphone, as its Mighty Wurlitzer. ..."
"... That took place in this case because, according to this story, Donald Trump had been briefed on Putin paying bounties to the Taliban and he chose to do nothing. Which, of course Trump denies, but that counts for nothing as well. But, again, there's been no independent confirmation of any of this. And now we get into the domestic part, which is that this new Republican anti-Trump operation, The Lincoln Project, had a flashy ad ready to go almost minutes after the story dropped. ..."
"... They're just, like, on meth at Steve Schmidt's political Batcave, just churning this material out. But I feel like they had an inkling, like this story was coming. It just the coordination and timing was impeccable. ..."
"... And The Lincoln Project is something that James Carville, the veteran Democratic consultant, has said is doing more than any Democrat or any Democratic consultant to elect Joe Biden. ..."
"... the Carter Administration, at the urging of national security chief Zbigniew Brzezinski, had enacted what would become Operation Cyclone under Reagan, an arm-and-equip program to arm the Afghan mujahideen. The Saudis put up a matching fund which helped bring the so-called Services Bureau into the field where Osama bin Laden became a recruiter for international jihadists to join the battlefield. And, you know, the goal was, in the words of Brzezinski, as he later admitted to a French publication, was to force the Red Army, the Soviet Red Army, to intervene to protect the pro-Soviet government in Kabul, which they proceeded to do. ..."
"... What he means is by basically paying bounties, which the US was literally doing along with its Gulf allies, to exact the toll on the allies of Assad, Russia. So, let's just say it's true, according to your question, let's just say this is all true. It would be a retaliation for what the United States has done to Russia in areas where it was actually legally invited in by the governments in charge, either in Kabul or Damascus. And that's, I think, the kind of ironic subtext that can hardly be understated when you see someone like Dan Rather wag his finger at Putin for paying the Taliban as proxies. But, I mean, it's such a ridiculous story that it's just hard to even fathom that it's real. ..."
"... just kind of neocon resistance mind-explosion, where first John Bolton was hailed as this hero and truthteller about Trump. ..."
"... And then you have this and it, you know, today as you pointed out, Chuck Todd, "Chuck Toddler", welcomes on Meet the Press John Bolton as this wise voice to comment on Donald Trump's slavish devotion to Vladimir Putin and how we need to escalate. ..."
"... This is what Russiagate has done. It's taken one of the most Strangelovian, psychotic, dangerous, bloodthirsty, sadistic monsters in US foreign policy circles and turned him into a sober-minded, even heroic, truthteller. ..."
Max Blumenthal breaks down the "Russian bounty" story's flaws and how it aims to prolong the
war in Afghanistan -- and uses Russiagate tactics to continue pushing the Democratic Party to
the right
Multiple US media outlets, citing anonymous intelligence officials, are claiming that Russia
offered bounties to kill US soldiers in Afghanistan, and that President Trump has taken no
action.
Others are contesting that claim. "Officials said there was disagreement among
intelligence officials about the strength of the evidence about the suspected Russian
plot," the New York Times reports. "Notably, the National Security Agency, which specializes in
hacking and electronic surveillance, has been more skeptical."
"The constant flow of Russiagate disinformation into the bloodstream of the Democratic Party
and its base is moving that party constantly to the right, while pushing the US deeper into
this Cold War," Blumenthal says.
Guest: Max Blumenthal, editor of The Grayzone and author of several books, including his
latest "The Management of Savagery."
TRANSCRIPT
AARON MATÉ: Welcome to Pushback, I'm Aaron Maté. There is a new supposed
Trump-Russia bombshell. The New York Times and other outlets reporting that Russia has
been paying bounties to Afghan militants to kill US soldiers in Afghanistan. Trump and the
White House were allegedly briefed on this information but have taken no action.
Now, the story has obvious holes, like many other Russiagate bombshells. It is sourced to
anonymous intelligence officials. The New York Times says that the claim comes from
Afghan detainees. And it also has some logical holes. The Taliban have been fighting the US and
Afghanistan for nearly two decades and never needed Russian payments before to kill the
Americans that they were fighting; [this] amongst other questions are raised about this story.
But that has not stopped the usual chorus from whipping up a frenzy.
RACHEL MADDOW, MSNBC: Vladimir Putin is offering bounties for the scalps of American
soldiers in Afghanistan. Not only offering, offering money [to] the people who kill Americans,
but some of the bounties that Putin has offered have been collected, meaning the Russians at
least believe that their offering cash to kill Americans has actually worked to get some
Americans killed.
FORMER VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: Donald Trump has continued his embarrassing campaign
of deference and debasing himself before Vladimir Putin. He had has [sic] this information
according to The Times, and yet he offered to host Putin in the United States and sought
to invite Russia to rejoin the G7. He's in his entire presidency has been a gift to Putin, but
this is beyond the pale.
CHUCK TODD, NBC: Let me ask you this. Do you think that part of the that the
president is afraid to make Putin mad because maybe Putin did help him win the election and he
doesn't want to make him mad for 2020?
SENATE MINORITY LEADER CHUCK SCHUMER: I was not briefed on the Russian military
intelligence, but it shows that we need in this coming defense bill, which we're debating this
week, tough sanctions against Russia, which thus far Mitch McConnell has resisted.
Joining me now is Max Blumenthal, editor of The Grayzone, author of The Management of
Savagery . Max, welcome to Pushback. What is your reaction to this story?
MAX BLUMENTHAL: I mean, it just feels like so many other episodes that we've
witnessed over the past three or four years, where American intelligence officials basically
plant a story in one outlet, The New York Times , which functions as the media wing of
the Central Intelligence Agency. Then no reporting takes place whatsoever, but six reporters,
or three to six reporters are assigned to the piece to make it look like it was some
last-minute scramble to confirm this bombshell story. And then the story is confirmed again by
The Washington Post because their reporters, their three to six reporters in, you know,
capitals around the world with different beats spoke to the same intelligence officials, or
they were furnished different officials who fed them the same story. And, of course, the story
advances a narrative that the United States is under siege by Russia and that we have to
escalate against Russia just ahead of another peace summit or some kind of international
dialogue.
This has sort of been the general framework for these Russiagate bombshells, and of course
they can there's always an anti-Trump angle. And because, you know, liberal pundits and the,
you know, Democratic Party operatives see this as a means to undermine Trump as the election
heats up. They don't care if it's true or not. They don't care what the consequences are.
They're just gonna completely roll with it. And it's really changed, I think, not just US
foreign policy, but it's changed the Democratic Party in an almost irreversible way, to have
these constant "quote-unquote" bombshells that are really generated by the Central Intelligence
Agency and by other US intelligence operations in order to turn up the heat to crank up the
Cold War, to use these different media organs which no longer believe in reporting, which see
Operation Mockingbird as a kind of blueprint for how to do journalism, to turn them into keys
on the CIA's Mighty Wurlitzer. That's what happened here.
AARON MATÉ: What do you make of the logic of this story? This idea that the
Taliban would need Russian money to kill Americans when the Taliban's been fighting the US for
nearly two decades now. And the sourcing for the story, the same old playbook: anonymous
intelligence officials who are citing vague claims about apparently what was said by Afghan
detainees.
MAX BLUMENTHAL: This story has, as I said, it relies on zero reporting. The only
source is anonymous American intelligence officials. And I tweeted out a clip of a former CIA
operations officer who managed the CIA's operation in Angola, when the US was actually fighting
on the side of apartheid South Africa against a Marxist government that was backed up by Cuban
troops. His name was John Stockwell. And Stockwell talked about how one-third of his covert
operations staff were propagandists, and that they would feed imaginary stories about Cuban
barbarism that were completely false to reporters who were either CIA assets directly or who
were just unwitting dupes who would hang on a line waiting for American intelligence officials
to feed them stories. And one out of every five stories was completely false, as Stockwell
said. We could play some of that clip now; it's pretty remarkable to watch it in light of this
latest fake bombshell.
JOHN STOCKWELL: Another thing is to disseminate propaganda to influence people's
minds, and this is a major function of the CIA. And unfortunately, of course, it overlaps into
the gathering of information. You, you have contact with a journalist, you will give him true
stories, you'll get information from him, you'll also give him false stories.
OFF-CAMERA REPORTER: Can you do this with responsible reporters?
JOHN STOCKWELL: Yes, the Church Committee brought it out in 1975. And then Woodward
and Bernstein put an article in Rolling Stone a couple of years later. Four hundred
journalists cooperating with the CIA, including some of the biggest names in the business.
MAX BLUMENTHAL: So, basically, I mean, you get the flavor of what someone who was in
the CIA at the height of the Cold War I mean, he did the same thing in Vietnam. And the
playbook is absolutely the same today. These this story was dumped on Friday in The New York
Times by "quote-unquote" American intelligence officials, as a breakthrough had been made
in Afghan peace talks and a conference was finally set for Doha, Qatar, that would involve the
Taliban, which had been seizing massive amounts of territory.
Now, it's my understanding, and correct me if I'm wrong, that the Taliban had been fighting
one of the most epic examples of an occupying army in modern history, just absolutely chewing
away at one of the most powerful militaries in human history in their country for the last 19
years, without bounties from Vladimir Putin or
private-hotdog-salesman-and-Saint-Petersburg-troll-farm-owner Yevgeny Prigozhin , who always comes up
in these stories. It's always the hotdog guy who's doing everything bad from, like, you know,
fake Facebook ads to poisoning Sergei Skripal or whatever.
But I just don't see where the Taliban needs encouragement from Putin to do that. It's their
country. They want the US out and they have succeeded in seizing large amounts of territory.
Donald Trump has come into office with a pledge to remove US troops from Afghanistan and ink
this deal. And along comes this story as the peace process begins to advance.
And what is the end-result? We haven't gotten into the domestic politics yet, but the
end-result is you have supposedly progressive senators like Chris Murphy of Connecticut
attacking Trump for not fighting Russia in Afghanistan. I mean, they want a straight-up proxy
war for not escalating. You have Richard Haass, the president of the Council on Foreign
Relations, someone who's aligned with the Democratic Party, who supported the war in Iraq and,
you know, supports just endless war, demanding that the US turn up the heat not just in
Afghanistan but in Syria. So, you know, the escalatory rhetoric is at a fever pitch right now,
and it's obviously going to impact that peace conference.
Let's remember that three days before Trump's summit with Putin was when Mueller chose to
release the indictment of the GRU agents for supposedly hacking the DNC servers. Let's remember
that a day before the UN the United Nations Geneva peace talks opened on Syria in 2014 was when
US intelligence chose to feed these shady Caesar photos, supposedly showing industrial
slaughter of Syrian prisoners, to The New York Times in an investigation that had been
funded by Qatar. Like, so many shady intelligence dumps have taken place ahead of peace summits
to disrupt them, because the US doesn't feel like it has enough skin in the game or it just
simply doesn't want peace in these areas.
So, that's what happened here. That's really, I think, the essential backdrop for the timing
of this story. It really reveals how completely decayed mainstream media is as an institution,
that none of these reporters protested the story, didn't see fit to do any independent
investigation into it. At best they would print a Russian denial which counts for nothing in
the US, or a Taliban denial which counts for nothing in the US. And then and this gets into the
domestic political angle because so much of Russiagate, while it's been crafted by former or
current intelligence officials, depends on the Democratic Party and it punditocracy, MSNBC and
mainstream media as a projection megaphone, as its Mighty Wurlitzer.
That took place in this
case because, according to this story, Donald Trump had been briefed on Putin paying bounties
to the Taliban and he chose to do nothing. Which, of course Trump denies, but that counts for
nothing as well. But, again, there's been no independent confirmation of any of this. And now
we get into the domestic part, which is that this new Republican anti-Trump operation, The
Lincoln Project, had a flashy ad ready to go almost minutes after the story dropped.
THE LINCOLN PROJECT AD: Now we know Vladimir Putin pays a bounty for the murder of
American soldiers. Donald Trump knows, too, and does nothing. Putin pays the Taliban cash to
slaughter our men and women in uniform and Trump is silent, weak, controlled. Instead of
condemnation he insists Russia be treated as our equal.
MAX BLUMENTHAL: I mean, maybe they're just really good editors and brilliant
politicians who work overtime. They're just, like, on meth at Steve Schmidt's political Batcave, just churning this material out. But I feel like they had an inkling, like this story
was coming. It just the coordination and timing was impeccable.
And The Lincoln Project is something that James Carville, the veteran Democratic consultant,
has said is doing more than any Democrat or any Democratic consultant to elect Joe Biden.
They're always out there doing the hard work. Who are they? Well, Steve Schmidt is a former
campaign manager for John McCain 2008. And you look at the various personnel affiliated with
it, they're all McCain former McCain aides or people who worked on the Jeb and George W. Bush
campaigns, going back to Texas and Florida. This is sort of the corporate wing of the
Republican Party, the white-glove-country-club-patrician Republicans who are very pro-war, who
hate Donald Trump.
And by doing this, by them really taking the lead on this attack, as you pointed out, Aaron,
number one, they are sucking the oxygen out of the more progressive anti-Trump initiatives that
are taking place, including in the streets of American cities. They're taking the wind out of
anti-Trump more progressive anti-Trump critiques. For example, I think it's actually more
powerful to attack Trump over the fact that he used, basically, chemical weapons on American
peaceful protesters to do a fascistic photo-op. I don't know why there wasn't some call for
congressional investigations on that. And they are getting skin in the game on the Biden
campaign. It really feels to me like this Lincoln campaign operation, this moderate Republican
operation which is also sort of a venue for neocons, will have more influence after events like
this than the Bernie Sanders campaign, which has an enormous amount of delegates.
So, that's what I think the domestic repercussion is. It's just this constant it's the
constant flow of Russiagate disinformation into the bloodstream of the Democratic Party and its
base that's moving that party constantly to the right, while pushing the US deeper into this
Cold War that only serves, you know, people who are associated with the national security state
who need to justify their paycheck and the budget of the institutions that employ them.
AARON MATÉ: Let's assume for a second that the allegation is true, although, you
know, you've laid out some of the reasons why it's not. Can you talk about the history here,
starting with Afghanistan, something you cover a lot in your book, The Management of
Savagery, where the US aim was to kill Russians, going right on through to Syria, where
just recently the US envoy for the coalition against ISIS, James Jeffery, who handles Syria,
said that his job now is to basically put the Russians in a quagmire in Syria.
JAMES JEFFREY: This isn't Afghanistan. This isn't Vietnam. This isn't a quagmire. My
job is to make it a quagmire for the Russians.
MAX BLUMENTHAL: Yeah, I mean, it feels like a giant act of psychological and
political projection to accuse Russia of using an Islamist militia in Afghanistan as a proxy
against the US to bleed the US into leaving, because that's been the US playbook in Central
Asia and the Middle East since at least 1979. I just tweeted a photo of Dan Rather in
Afghanistan, just crossing the Pakistani border and going to meet with some of the Mujahideen
in 1980. Dan Rather was panned in The New York in The Washington Post by Tom
Toles [Tom Shales], who was the media critic at the time, as "Gunga Dan," because he was so
gung-ho for the Afghan mujahideen. In his reports he would complain about how weak their
weaponry was, you know, how they needed more how they needed more funding. I mean, you could
call it bounties, but it was really just CIA funding.
DAN RATHER: These are the best weapons you have, huh? They only have about twenty
rounds for this?
TRANSLATOR: That's all. They have twenty rounds. Yes, and they know that these are
all old weapons and they really aren't up to doing anything to the Russian weaponry that's
around. But that's all they have, and this is why they want help. And he is saying that America
seems to be asleep. It doesn't seem to realize that if Afghanistan goes and the Russians go
over to the Gulf, that in a very short time it's going to be the turn of the United States as
well.
DAN RATHER: But I'm sure he knows that in Vietnam we got our fingers burned. Indeed,
we got our whole hands burned when we tried to help in this kind of situation.
TRANSLATOR [translating to the Afghan man and then his reply]: Your hands were burned
in Vietnam, but if you don't agree to help us, if you don't ally yourself with us, then all of
you, your whole body will be burnt eventually, because there is no one in the world who can
really fight and resist as well as the as much and as well as the Afghans are.
DAN RATHER: But no American mother wants to send her son to Afghanistan.
TRANSLATOR [translating to the Afghan man and then his reply]: We don't need
anybody's soldiers here to help us, but we are being constantly accused that the Americans are
helping us with weapons. What we need, actually, are the American weapons. We don't need or
want American soldiers. We can do the fighting ourselves.
MAX BLUMENTHAL: And a year or several months before, the Carter Administration, at
the urging of national security chief Zbigniew Brzezinski, had enacted what would become
Operation Cyclone under Reagan, an arm-and-equip program to arm the Afghan mujahideen. The
Saudis put up a matching fund which helped bring the so-called Services Bureau into the field
where Osama bin Laden became a recruiter for international jihadists to join the battlefield.
And, you know, the goal was, in the words of Brzezinski, as he later admitted to a French
publication, was to force the Red Army, the Soviet Red Army, to intervene to protect the
pro-Soviet government in Kabul, which they proceeded to do.
And then with the introduction of
the Stinger missile, the Afghan mujahideen, hailed as freedom fighters in Washington, were able
to destroy Russian supply lines, exact a heavy toll, and forced the Red Army to leave in
retreat. They helped create what's considered the Soviet Union's Vietnam.
So that was really but the blueprint for what Russian for what Russia is being accused of
now, and that same model was transferred over to Syria. It was also actually proposed for Iraq
in the Iraq Liberation Act in 1998. Then Senate Foreign Relations chair Jesse Helms actually
said that the Afghan mujahideen should be our model for supporting the Iraqi resistance. So,
this kind of proxy war was always on the table. Then the US did it in Syria, when one out of
every $13 in the CIA budget went to arm the so-called "moderate rebels" in Syria, who we later
found out were 31 flavors of jihadi, who were aligned with al-Qaeda's local affiliate Jabhat
al-Nusra and helped give rise to ISIS. Michael Morell, I tweeted some video of him on Charlie
Rose back in, I think, 2016. He's the former acting director for the CIA, longtime deputy
director. He said, you know, the reason that we're in Syria, what we should be doing is causing
Iran and Russia, the two allies of Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, to pay a heavy
price.
MICHAEL MORELL: We need to make the Iranians pay a price in Syria. We need to make
the Russians pay a price. The other thing
CHARLIE ROSE: We make them pay the price by killing killing Russians?
MICHAEL MORELL: Yes.
CHARLIE ROSE: And killing Iranians.
MICHAEL MORELL: Yes, covertly. You don't tell the world about it, right? You don't
stand up at the Pentagon and say we did this, right? But you make sure they know it in Moscow
and Tehran.
MAX BLUMENTHAL:What he means is by basically paying bounties, which the US was
literally doing along with its Gulf allies, to exact the toll on the allies of Assad, Russia.
So, let's just say it's true, according to your question, let's just say this is all true. It
would be a retaliation for what the United States has done to Russia in areas where it was
actually legally invited in by the governments in charge, either in Kabul or Damascus. And
that's, I think, the kind of ironic subtext that can hardly be understated when you see someone
like Dan Rather wag his finger at Putin for paying the Taliban as proxies. But, I mean, it's
such a ridiculous story that it's just hard to even fathom that it's real.
AARON MATÉ: Let me read Dan Rather's tweet, because it's so it speaks to just
how pervasive Russiagate culture is now. People have learned absolutely nothing from it.
Rather says, "Reporters are trained to look for patterns that are suspicious, and time and
again one stands out with Donald Trump. Why is he so slavishly devoted to Putin? There is a
spectrum of possible answers ranging from craven to treasonous. One day I hope and suspect we
will find out."
It's like he forgot, perhaps, that Robert Mueller and his team spent three years
investigating this very issue and came up with absolutely nothing. But the narrative has taken
hold, and it's, as you talked about before, it's been the narrative we've been presented as the
vehicle for understanding and opposing Donald Trump, so it cannot be questioned. And now it's
like it's a matter of, what else is there to find out about Trump and Russia after Robert
Mueller and the US intelligence agencies looked for everything they could and found nothing?
They're still presented as if it's some kind of mystery that has to be unraveled.
MAX BLUMENTHAL: And it was after, like, a week of just kind of neocon resistance
mind-explosion, where first John Bolton was hailed as this hero and truthteller about Trump.
Then Dick Cheney was welcomed into the resistance, you know, because he said, "Wear a mask." I
mean, you know, his mask was strangely not spattered with the blood of Iraqi children. But, you
know, it was just amazing like that. Of course, it was the Lincoln project who hijacked the
minds of the resistance, but basically people who used to work on Cheney's campaign said, "Dick
Cheney, welcome to the resistance." I mean, that was remarkable. And then you have this and it,
you know, today as you pointed out, Chuck Todd, "Chuck Toddler", welcomes on Meet the
Press John Bolton as this wise voice to comment on Donald Trump's slavish devotion to
Vladimir Putin and how we need to escalate.
CHUCK TODD, NBC: Let me ask you this. Do you think that part of the that the
president is afraid to make Putin mad because maybe Putin did help him win the election and he
doesn't want to make him mad for 2020?
MAX BLUMENTHAL: I mean, just a few years ago, maybe it was two years ago, before
Bolton was brought into the Trump NSC, he was considered just an absolute marginal crank who
was a contributor to Fox News. He'd been forgotten. He was widely hated by Democrats. Now here
he is as a sage voice to tell us how dangerous this moment is. And, you know, he's not being
even brought on just to promote his book; he's being brought on as just a sober-minded foreign
policy expert on Meet the Press . That's where we're at right now.
AARON MATÉ: Yeah, and when his critique of Trump is basically that Trump was not
hawkish enough. Bolton's most the biggest critique Bolton has of Trump is, as he writes about
in his book, is when Trump declined to bomb Iran after Iran shot down a drone over its
territory. And Bolton said that to him was the most irrational thing he's ever seen a president
do.
MAX BLUMENTHAL: Well, Bolton was mad that Trump confused body bags with missiles,
because he said Trump thought that there would be 150 dead Iranians, and I said, "No, Donald,
you're confused. It will be 150 missiles that we're firing into Iran." Like that's better!
Like, "Oh, okay, that makes everything all right," that we fire a hundred missiles for one
drone and maybe that wouldn't that kill possibly more than 150 people?
Well, in Bolton's world this was just another stupid move by Trump. If Bolton were, I mean,
just, just watch all the interviews with Bolton. Watch him on The View where the only
pushback he received was from Meghan McCain complaining that he ripped off a Hamilton
song for his book The Room Where It Happened , and she asked, "Don't you have any
apology to offer to Hamilton fans?" That was the pushback that Bolton received. Just
watch all of these interviews with Bolton and try to find the pushback. It's not there. This is
what Russiagate has done. It's taken one of the most Strangelovian, psychotic, dangerous,
bloodthirsty, sadistic monsters in US foreign policy circles and turned him into a
sober-minded, even heroic, truthteller.
AARON MATÉ: And inevitably the only long-term consequence that I can see here is
ultimately helping Trump, because, if history is a pattern, these Russiagate supposed
bombshells always either go nowhere or they get debunked. So, if this one gets forcefully
debunked, because I think it's quite possible, because Trump has said that he was never briefed
on this and they'll have to prove that he's lying, you know. It should be easy to do. Someone
could come out and say that. If they can't prove that he's lying, then this one, I think, will
blow up in their face. And all they will have done is, at a time when Trump is vulnerable over
the pandemic with over a hundred thousand people dead on his watch, all these people did was
ultimately try to bring the focus back to the same thing that failed for basically the entirety
of Trump's presidency, which is Russiagate and Trump's supposed―and non-existent in
reality―subservience to Vladimir Putin.
MAX BLUMENTHAL: But have you ever really confronted one of your liberal friends who
maybe doesn't follow these stories as closely as you do? You know, well-intentioned liberal
friend who just has this sense that Russia controls Trump, and asked them to really defend that
and provide the receipts and really explain where the Trump administration has just handed the
store to Russia? Because what we've seen is unprecedented since the height of the Cold War, an
unprecedented deterioration of US-Russia relations with new sanctions on Russia every few
months. You ask them to do that. They can't do it. It's just a sense they get, it's a feeling
they get. And that's because these bombshells drop, they get reported on the front pages under
banners of papers that declare that "democracy dies in darkness," whose brand is something that
everybody trusts, The New York Times , The Washington Post , Woodward and
Bernstein, and everybody repeats the story again and again and again. And then, if and when it
gets debunked, discredited or just sort of disappears, a few days later everybody forgets about
it. And those people who are not just, like, 24/7 media consumers but critical-minded media
consumers, they're left with that sense that Russia actually controls us and that we must do
something to escalate with Russia. So, that's the point of these: by the time the
disinformation is discredited, the damage has already been done. And that same tactic was
employed against Jeremy Corbyn in the UK, to the point where so many people were left with the
sense that he must be an antisemite, although not one allegation was ever proven.
AARON MATÉ: Yeah, and now to the point where, in the Labour Party―we
should touch on this for a second―where you had a Labour Party member retweet an article
recently that mentioned some criticism of Israel and for that she was expelled from her
position in the shadow cabinet.
MAX BLUMENTHAL: Yeah, well, you know, as a Jew I was really threatened by that
retweet [laughter]. I don't know about you.
I mean, this is Rebecca Long Bailey. She's one of the few Corbynites left in a high position
in Labour who hasn't been effectively burned at the stake for being a, you know, Jew hater who
wants to throw us all in gas chambers because she retweets an interview with some celebrity I'd
never heard of before, who didn't even say anything that extreme. But it really shows how the
Thought Police have taken control of the Labour Party through Sir Keir Starmer, who is someone
who has deep links to the national security state through the Crown Prosecution Service, which
he used to head, where he was involved in the prosecution of Julian Assange. And he has worked
with The Times of London, which is a, you know, favorite paper of the national security
state and the MI5 in the UK, for planting stories against Jeremy Corbyn. He was intimately
involved in that campaign, and now he's at the head of the Labour Party for a very good reason.
I really would recommend everyone watching this, if you're interested more in who Keir Starmer
really is, read "Five Questions for [New Labour Leader] Sir Keir Starmer" by Matt Kennard at
The Grayzone. It really lays it out and shows you what's happening.
We're just in this kind of hyper-managed atmosphere, where everything feels so much more
controlled than it's ever been. And even though every sane rational person that I know seems to
understand what's happening, they feel like they're not allowed to say it, at least not in any
official capacity.
AARON MATÉ: From the US to Britain, everything is being co-opted. In the US
it's, you know, genuine resistance to Trump, in opposition to Trump, it gets co-opted by the
right. Same thing in Britain. People get manipulated into believing that Jeremy Corbyn, this
lifelong anti-racist is somehow an antisemite. It's all in the service of the same agenda, and
I have to say we're one of the few outlets that are pushing back on it. Everyone else is
getting swept up on it and it's a scary time.
We're gonna wrap. Max, your final comment.
MAX BLUMENTHAL: Well, yeah, we're pushing back. And I saw today Mint Press
[News], which is another outlet that has pushed back, their Twitter account was just
briefly removed for no reason, without explanation. Ollie Vargas, who's an independent
journalist who's doing some of the most important work in the English language from Bolivia,
reporting on the post-coup landscape and the repressive environment that's been created by the
junta installed with US help under Jeanine Áñez, his account has been taken away on
Twitter. The social media platforms are basically under the control of the national security
state. There's been a merger between the national security state and Silicon Valley, and the
space for these kinds of discussions is rapidly shrinking. So, I think, you know, it's more
important than ever to support alternative media and also to really have a clear understanding
of what's taking place. I'm really worried there just won't be any space for us to have these
conversations in the near future.
AARON MATÉ: Max Blumenthal, editor of The Grayzone, author of The Management
of Savagery , thanks a lot.
By middle of last week
we observed of the Russian bounties to kill American troops in Afghanistan story that "at
this point this non-story looks to be dead by the weekend as it's already unraveled."
Indeed by Thursday and Friday, as more Congressional leaders received closed door
intelligence briefings on the allegations which originated with an anonymously sourced NY Times
report claiming Trump supposedly ignored the Russian op to target Americans, the very Democrat
and Republican lawmakers previously hyping it as a 'major scandal' went conspicuously silent
.
Recall too that John Bolton, busy with a media blitz promoting his book,
emerged to strongly suggest he had personal knowledge that Trump was briefed on the matter
. The former national security adviser called the Trump denial of being briefed "remarkable".
Well, look who is now appearing to sing a different tune. A week ago Bolton was all too wiling
to voluntarily say Trump had "likely" been briefed and that was a big scandal. The whole story
was indeed dead by the weekend:
Bolton: 'Fickle' Trump would sell out Israel for photo op with Iran's leaders
U.S. should consider sanctions if bounty reports true: Bolton
Bolton book hits shelves, bruises Trump's ego
Viral Finland PM quote about US being under Russian control 'not true' | #TheCube
Bolton's New Claims
Bolton Claims Trump Asked China's XI to Help Win Re-Election
Bolton book creates shockwaves
Senator Who Voted Against Bolton Testifying Is Now Angry Bolton Didn't Testify
Other reports said Bolton has been telling people he had personally
briefed the president :
Former national security adviser John Bolton told colleagues that he personally briefed
President Donald Trump about intelligence that Russia offered Afghan militants bounties to
kill American troops , U.S. officials told the Associated Press .
Bolton briefed Trump on the matter in March of 2019, according to the report, a year
earlier than previously
reported by The New York Times . The information was also included in at least one
presidential Daily Brief, according to the AP,
CNN and
The Times . The AP earlier reported that it was also
included in a second presidential Daily Brief earlier this year and that current national
security adviser Robert O'Brien discussed the matter with Trump.
His Sunday refusal to even address the question - again after he was all too willing to
speak to the issue a week ago when it was driving headlines - speaks volumes.
Now that even The Washington Post
awkwardly walked back the substance of much of its reporting on the 'Russian bounties'
story, Bolton has conveniently gone silent .
There is not much "real" left in the the USA. Usually what we see is just different flavors
of far right and right.
Money quote: "Ah, for the good old days when lefties could be treated as a deluded minority rather than a vanguard party of
globalist imperialists. pl"
Notable quotes:
"... As Johnstone recounts, after the Cold War liberals became bewitched by the prospect of waging wars for humanitarian ends. A generation of journalists and foreign policy experts including Samantha Power, Christiane Amanpour, Jamie Rubin, and Christopher Hitchens, would make the Balkans a proving ground for their liberal theories of preventative war, in the process throwing the ancient and venerable tradition of St. Augustine’s Just War theory on the trash heap and paving the way for what was to follow in the coming decades, including Iraq II, Libya, Syria and a global drone war and a “targeted” assassination program." ..."
"... In other words we are seeing the tight squeezing of the New Democrats (Wall-Street, Tech, humanitarian intervention) by the radical left (Green New Deal, UBI) and by the angry Trumpists. ..."
"... Samantha Power is Irish bred and London born. She was schooled in Dublin till her mother emigrated to the US. Christiane Amanpour is British-Iranian. As far as I can determine she never has had US citizenship. ..."
"... WTF were they smoking when they decided to promote war to secure human rights??? So why did we let these halfwits in the country? ..."
"... Kerry seems is the perfect example of Democrats’ hypocritical ‘opposition’ to pointless and futile wars. Not that anybody remembers, but it was the liberal Bill Clinton who went to war in Yugoslavia and defanged the anti-war wing of the party. After Clinton Democrats only raised their voices against Republican wars and now have taken to criticizing Trump for not being belligerent enough!!! ..."
"... The same white men who stood three years ago Charlottesville to prevent the toppling of statues could be the backbone of a new anti-war movement ..."
"... The New York Times is not revolutionary, not by a very long shot. Neither are all the big corporations and foundations who've donated generously to the cause of BLM. ..."
"... America is not in the middle of a revolution — it is a reactionary putsch. About four years ago, the sort of people who had acquired position and influence as a result of globalisation were turfed out of power for the first time in decades. They watched in horror as voters across the world chose Brexit, Donald Trump and other populist and conservative-nationalist options. ..."
"... The essential idea is that neither the non Trump wing of the American establishment (more properly Global establishment still anchored tenuously in DC) nor the Trump wing want the voters to discuss the economy - it's too hot a subject. ..."
"... Way too hot since the financial crisis of 2007-08 followed the working class jobs overseas and south of the border in the 90s and inequality exceeded that of the gilded age. No. But they will discuss racism (and gender). It divides the country further than ever, deflects focus on wealth disparity (the establishment has no intention of ever equalizing wealth even a bit) and presto - gives corporate America and media a new policing tool in the form of mandatory workshops and summary job dismissals even more unsubstantiated than many of those with #MeToo. It enhances the academic totalitarians of political correctness with corporate / employer totalitarianism of "learn your inclusivity lessons reeducation camp" or else. Unions disappeared long ago and now this. ..."
"... Yes the stupidity is ominous. They act as though there is no potential for repurcussion. It's very peculiar. ..."
As Johnstone recounts, after the Cold War liberals became bewitched by the prospect of waging wars for humanitarian ends.
A generation of journalists and foreign policy experts including Samantha Power, Christiane Amanpour, Jamie Rubin, and
Christopher Hitchens, would make the Balkans a proving ground for their liberal theories of preventative war, in the process
throwing the ancient and venerable tradition of St. Augustine’s Just War theory on the trash heap and paving the way for what
was to follow in the coming decades, including Iraq II, Libya, Syria and a global drone war and a “targeted” assassination
program."
This is a serious article addressing a serious problem. If the "left" sells out on war
issues as they have done the last 20 years or so, there is no pushback against the permanent
war system. Those one-time leftists who have sold out are no longer really leftists,
especially once they are relying on the corrupt permanent spy state for their information and
support.
Interesting and correct observation. Allow me to throw in my own two cents with regards to
the rise of what is defined as the "anti-Anti War left". I should note that there are eerily
similar parallels between the rise of the New Left in the 60s that was the mix of socialist
democrats, sexual revolutionaries, flower-power hippies, anti-imperialist/anti-war activists,
and identitarianists (Huey Netwon, Cesar Chavez, MLK) etc. and today's BLM, Antifa, 'woke'
types, third-gen feminists, broke millennials.
While the former's rise in the Democratic
Party led to the exodus of Neoconservatives (former Trotskyists, Socialist and Marxists) to
the Conservative movement, the latter is also moving the New Democrats to the Right, but the
problem is that the current Political Right is mostly controlled by the Trumpists so these
New Democrat types (Pelosi, Schumer, Schiff, Menendez, Biden etc.) are stuck between a hard
place and a rock.
In other words we are seeing the tight squeezing of the New Democrats
(Wall-Street, Tech, humanitarian intervention) by the radical left (Green New Deal, UBI) and
by the angry Trumpists.
Just to give you one example, last week a prototype New Democrat and long time congressman
(since 89) Elliot Engel of NY who fits well into this definition was defeated handily in the
NY-16 primaries by the Democratic Socialists of America endorsed candidate, Jamal Bowman. Mr.
Bowman, an African American is ideologically very similar to AOC, Tlaib, and Omar.
He won on
a platform of foreign policy endorsed by the left-zionists (ex-labor zionists) against the
likudnik right-wing zionist of Engles' which is very interesting since, Engel has been known
for his hawkish views on foreign policy and extremely pro-Israel and chaired the House
Foreign Affairs Committee recently.
Recently Sanders and the Democratic Socialists expressed their opposition to Bibi's
planned annexation of West-bank and adjacent Palestinian enclaves and threatened to to
cut-off the military aid to Israel if Bibi moved on with his plan.
Domestically, there are several seats up for re-election and especially two in Georgia and
Arizona Senate whose ppointed Republican candidates are in very shaky grounds versus their
democratic challengers. What is clear is that the New Democrat platforms are no longer
popular by the Democratic base and given recent events, it can be safely said that either the
most law and order and Trumpian candidates will win or the Democratic socialists endorsed
ones. So another problem for the New Dems.
Judging by my observation, the current trend is the alliance between the NeverTrumpers
(The Lincoln project, The Right Pac) like Bill Kristol and the
Reagan-to-Bush-43-neoconservatives (most of whom were Reagan Democrats in the late 70s and
80s themselves so nothing new for them) to push Trump out of office in their view before the
RNC in Aug and to make room for the New Democrats and also to restore their previous 20+
years of reigning over the Republican Party. If their plan becomes successful, in the post
2020 election we will see a political configuration resembling the 90s and early 2000s with
one major difference which is the introduction of several, in my opinion less that 10 seats
in the House reserved for the far-Left socialist Democrats.
And in terms of Foreign policy, everyone will get happy and the Blob/Borg think tank class
in D.C. will see business as usual as the Democratic Socialists will be "persuaded" to team
up with the New Democrats with regards to sending Troops to conduct humanitarian intervention
abroad (i.e. the Powell Doctrine) in exchange for domestic welfare programs, the
NeverTrumpers and the Republican hawks (Cotton, Graham, Rubio, Cruz, etc.) will have war
plans already written for them at AEI, Hudson and Heritage that focuses on China with the
help of the New Democrats and probably the Far-left.
Samantha Power is Irish bred and London born. She was schooled in Dublin till her mother
emigrated to the US. Christiane Amanpour is British-Iranian. As far as I can determine she
never has had US citizenship. Christopher Hitchens is English born, never visited America
unti he was 32. And even then kept his British citizenship for another 26 years, only
becoming a US citizen in 2007. Probably to take advantage of favorable US income tax on his
book earnings.
WTF were they smoking when they decided to promote war to secure human rights??? So why
did we let these halfwits in the country?
Seems to me we are better off by letting in a few more Sikh farmers from India or more
wannabee restaurant owners from Ethiopia. Or maybe even more wannabee bodega empresarios from
south of our border.
Anyone remember John Kerry, who criticized the anti-war movement and enlisted and served
in Vietnam, only to opportunistically turn against the war. As long as the winds blew
anti-war, he continued to posture that way. Then he reversed course, maybe sensing an SOS
opportunity, and voted for the War in Iraq, meanwhile posturing against it on the grounds
that it wasn’t being fought right!
Kerry seems is the perfect example of Democrats’ hypocritical
‘opposition’ to pointless and futile wars. Not that anybody remembers, but it was
the liberal Bill Clinton who went to war in Yugoslavia and defanged the anti-war wing of the
party. After Clinton Democrats only raised their voices against Republican wars and now have
taken to criticizing Trump for not being belligerent enough!!!
The "anti-antiwar left" is of course an oxymoron. In reality, they are neo-McCarthyites,
neocons, and Israel-firsters. Nothing new. They were never leftists to begin with and
certainly never will be.
To add onto the comments by Polish Janitor regarding Jamaal Bowman, I have this to say.
Just like AOC, he'll cuck out to Israel. He'll take the money and he'll probably take that
"educational" trip to Israel as well. While he's there, would anyone be surprised if he had a
hot time with some honey pie and they got him on Kodak? They'll only drop hints about the
stick, in the meantime, they'll be stuffing his face with carrots as he comes around to the
Zionist agenda.
The same white men who stood three years ago Charlottesville to prevent the toppling of
statues could be the backbone of a new anti-war movement, if only conservatives weren't
afraid of being called 'racist' by people who hate them anyway.
To better get one's bearings regarding what's going on I highly recommend this Spectator
article to the committee. Although BLM and other nefarious types referred to as Antifa
certainly do pass the anarchist test and Marxist test it's critical the committee understand
that the whole thing is being managed by a wing of the establishment.
The New York Times is
not revolutionary, not by a very long shot. Neither are all the big corporations and
foundations who've donated generously to the cause of BLM.
Editorial talents at NYT
instigated the wholesale rewriting of American history over a year ago with their fraudulent
1619 project which says American history began in that year with the importation of African
slaves.
But it's real thesis is that the revolution of 1776 (an inspiration to people
everywhere), was not undertaken to free the thirteen colonies from the tyranny of King
George - no - it was done for the sole reason of perpetuation of slavery because Washington
and other colonial land owners feared that the institution of slavery would be made illegal
by their then British overlords. I kid you not.
The NY Times. Pure revisionism of the worst
sort. But the ends which this revisionism serve, as do the subsequent BLM riots and mindless
iconoclasms, are revealed in this piece:
(This Revolution isn't What it Looks Like). Here's a brief excerpt - it's a management
device. Matt Taibbi has a treatment nearly as good but too diffuse and witty for these
purposes, under the title "Year Zero" on his blog, but it is behind a paywall. Many
illustrative exames though.
Spectator first few paragraphs..
Bear with this. What they're doing is designed to infuriate and disable critical
understanding as they proceed to carry the day in real time.
QUOTE:
America is not in the middle of a revolution — it is a reactionary putsch. About
four years ago, the sort of people who had acquired position and influence as a result of
globalisation were turfed out of power for the first time in decades. They watched in horror
as voters across the world chose Brexit, Donald Trump and other populist and
conservative-nationalist options.
This deposition explains the storm of unrest battering American cities from coast to coast
and making waves in Europe as well. The storm’s ferocity — the looting, the mobs,
the mass lawlessness, the zealous iconoclasm, the deranged slogans like #DefundPolice —
terrifies ordinary Americans. Many conservatives, especially, believe they are facing a
revolution targeting the very foundations of American order.
But when national institutions bow (or kneel) to the street fighters’ demands, it
should tell us that something else is going on. We aren’t dealing with a Maoist or
Marxist revolt, even if some protagonists spout hard-leftish rhetoric. Rather, what’s
playing out is a counter-revolution of the neoliberal class — academe, media, large
corporations, ‘experts’, Big Tech — against the nationalist revolution
launched in 2016. The supposed insurgents and the elites are marching in the streets
together, taking the knee together.
They do not seek a radically new arrangement, but a return to the pre-Trump, pre-Brexit
status quo ante which was working out very well for them. It was, of course, working out less
well for the working class of all races, who bore the brunt of their preferred policy mix:
open borders, free trade without limits, an aggressive cultural liberalism that corroded
tradition and community, technocratic ‘global governance’ that neutered democracy
and politics as such.
When national institutions bow to the street fighters’ demands, it tells us
something else is going on
...Did you realize that the Black Lives Matter group only has 14 local chapters in America
and 3 in Canada? I don't think there are many actual Antifa members out there either. Now of
course a few determined troublemakers can cause a lot of problems but still I can't see how
the country is in real danger.
Probably the real danger here is that these groups get moral support from nonradical
people for radical actions and policies. Right now there are a lot more people against
getting rid of the police than are for it. Now if that changed I would get worried. I have to
admit that I don't like the fact that we do not know who's funding the radicals and that many
are anonymous but I am not afraid of them. I can't imagine a situation in which they would
win and we would lose over time.
No it doesn't, not that I know of. It was the brainchild of Nikole Hannah-Jones working
since 2015 for the times, who received a 2020 Pulitzer prize for the project which initially
was presented in the Times magazine for the 400th anniversary of 1619 when it is claimed that
enslaved Africans first arrived to the American colonies. However it mushroomed into
something much larger and won the award. It was to investigate the legacy of slavery but with
its claim that the true founding of the United States was in 1619 rather than 1776, it drew
criticism from several historians. The controversy was conducted in Politico and on the pages
of the World Socialist Web Site. See here:
You will find links to several of the articles of the project, including: "America Wasn't
a Democracy Until Black Americans Made It One", essay by Nikole Hannah-Jones and "American
Capitalism Is Brutal. You Can Trace That to the Plantation", essay by Matthew Desmond.
I prefaced the intro to the Spectator article with mention of the Times award winning
project because it is vital cultural- historical background to what's transpired since George
Floyd incident of May 25.
My purpose was not to focus on that revisionist project though one
may investigate it at leisure, but the reactionary establishment counter coup to the 2016
election of which the events of May 25 et seq are the most recent chapter - chapters one and
two being Russiagate and impeachment.
Taibbi, in his latest which parallels the Spectator
piece, does think to mention it. The essential idea is that neither the non Trump wing of the
American establishment (more properly Global establishment still anchored tenuously in DC)
nor the Trump wing want the voters to discuss the economy - it's too hot a subject.
Way too
hot since the financial crisis of 2007-08 followed the working class jobs overseas and south
of the border in the 90s and inequality exceeded that of the gilded age. No. But they will
discuss racism (and gender). It divides the country further than ever, deflects focus on
wealth disparity (the establishment has no intention of ever equalizing wealth even a bit)
and presto - gives corporate America and media a new policing tool in the form of mandatory
workshops and summary job dismissals even more unsubstantiated than many of those with
#MeToo. It enhances the academic totalitarians of political correctness with corporate /
employer totalitarianism of "learn your inclusivity lessons reeducation camp" or else. Unions
disappeared long ago and now this.
From Taibbi:
It’s the Fourth of July, and revolution is in the air. Only in America would it look
like this: an elite-sponsored Maoist revolt, couched as a Black liberation movement whose
canonical texts are a corporate consultant’s white guilt self-help manual, and a New
York Times series rewriting history to explain an election they called wrong.
Much of America has watched in quizzical silence in recent weeks as crowds declared war on
an increasingly incoherent succession of historical symbols. Maybe you nodded as Confederate
general Albert Pike was toppled or even when Christopher Columbus was beheaded, but it got a
little weird when George Washington was emblazoned with “Fuck Cops” and set on
fire, or when they went after Ulysses S. Grant, abolitionist Colonel Hans Christian Heg,
“Forward,” (a seven-foot-tall female figure meant to symbolize progress), the
Portland, Oregon “Elk statue,” or my personal favorite, the former slave Miguel
de Cervantes, whose cheerful creations Don Quixote and Sancho Panza were apparently mistaken
for reals and had their eyes lashed red in San Francisco.
Was a What the Fuck? too much to ask? It was! In the space of a few weeks the level of
discourse in the news media dropped so low, the fear of being shamed as a deviationist so
high, that most of the weirder incidents went uncovered. Leading press organs engaged in
real-time Soviet-style airbrushing. Here’s how the Washington Post described a movement
that targeted Spanish missionary Junipero Serra, Abraham Lincoln (a “single-handed
symbol of white supremacy,” according to UW-Madison students), an apple cider press
sculpture, abolitionist Mathias Baldwin, and the first all-Black volunteer regiment in the
Civil War, among others:
Across the country, protesters have toppled statues of figures from America’s sordid
past — including Confederate generals — as part of demonstrations against racism
and police violence.
The New York Times, once the dictionary definition of “unprovocative,”
suddenly reads like Pol Pot’s Sayings of Angkar. Heading into the Fourth of July
weekend, the morning read for upscale white Manhattanites was denouncing Mount Rushmore,
urging Black America to arm itself, and re-positioning America alongside more deserving
historical parallels in a feature about caste systems:
For 150 years the US treated its defeated internal enemy with respect in the interest of
re-unification and reconciliation. Now that is gone destroyed by Marxist vanguard
conspiratorial parties like antifa and BLM and the the power hungry Democrat Party pols who
have made a deal with their soul mate extremists. Well, laissez les bon temps roulez!
Yes the stupidity is ominous. They act as though there is no potential for repurcussion.
It's very peculiar. Maybe they think oh well, there's been plenty of riots over the years.
What ever happened? Didn't we get OJ freed? Didn't they pass civil rights legislation back in
the day? And as for right now - aren't all the big people taking the knee - aren't
corporations endorsing us? Isn't Twitter censoring in our favor? The mayor of New York City -
wasn't he all set to paint a black lives matter mural onto 5th avenue opposite Trump tower
before postponing it to paint one in Harlem instead?
Yes, all true. I don't think they've detected how furious people are getting with their
behavior though. The tide is turning - CHAZ is gone, the conventions loom.
Long term I see nothing to be optimistic about. If Trump wins the counter coups will
continue. If Biden, with a female minority VP who may become President -- good luck. Remember
the Tea Party reaction ensuing on the heels of the first African American President? Reaction
will be quite as bad at least with Trump, his family and his base still very much on the
scene and infuriated.
But the oligarchs have seen their assets rise by hundreds of billions of dollars in a few
short months. The surviving owners consolidate. People will be forced to work for peanuts.
Evictions and repossessions are coming soon.
Last week Turkey brought two MIM-23 Hawk air defense systems to the al-Watiyah Airbase.
Last night they were bombed by either French, UAE, Egyptian or Russian mercenary airplanes.
Officially the LNA (Hafter) has taken responsibility for the bombing. Whoever did this had a
message to Turkey: Stop trying to break our red lines.
Thanks for the link to the Egypt/Libya article, b. It's a rare insight into the
often-hidden complexities behind armed conflict. Thanks too for Caitlin J's opinion of
AmeriKKKa's two Right-wing Crank parties. She makes it easier to laugh about their un-funny
antics.
Slightly off topic, but I think Caitlin could be onto something worthwhile with her Utopia
Prepper meme (whether she invented it or not). The way things are going, Hell could freeze
over before sanity emerges in Western Political circles. Prompted by her optimism, I intend
to devote an hour every Sunday afternoon to Utopia Prepping and contemplate the many
potential delights which a mildly more Utopian world would facilitate. There's way too much
negative thinking at present and it's NOT accidental. We'll never get to Utopia if we don't
plan what we'll do when we arrive...
Last week Turkey brought two MIM-23 Hawk air defense systems to the al-Watiyah Airbase. Last
night they were bombed by either French, UAE, Egyptian or Russian mercenary airplanes.
Officially the LNA (Hafter) has taken responsibility for the bombing. Whoever did this had a
message to Turkey: Stop trying to break our red lines.
Trump as wolf in sheep's clothing in his policy toward Russia. Any person who can appoint
Bolton as his national security advisor should be criminally prosecuted for criminal
incompetence. To say nothing about Pompeo, Haley and many others. Such a peacenik, my ***
The USA foreign policy is not controlled by the President. It is controlled by the "Deep state"
Notable quotes:
"... The dizzying, often contradictory, paths followed by Trump on the one hand and his hawkish but constantly changing cast of national security aides on the other have created confusion in Congress and among allies and enemies alike. To an observer, Russia is at once a mortal enemy and a misunderstood friend in U.S. eyes. ..."
"... But Trump has defended his perspective on Russia, viewing it as a misunderstood potential friend, a valued World War II ally led by a wily, benevolent authoritarian who actually may share American values, like the importance of patriotism, family and religion. ..."
"... despite Trump's rhetoric, his administration has plowed ahead with some of the most significant actions against Russia by any recent administration. ..."
"... Dozens of Russian diplomats have been expelled, diplomatic missions closed, arms control treaties the Russians sought to preserve have been abandoned, weapons have been sold to Ukraine despite the impeachment allegations and the administration is engaged in a furious battle to prevent Russia from constructing a new gas pipeline that U.S. lawmakers from both parties believe will increase Europe's already unhealthy dependence on Russian energy. ..."
When it comes to Russia, the Trump administration just can't seem to make
up its mind.
For the past three years, the administration has careered between President Donald Trump's
attempts to curry favor and friendship with Vladimir Putin and longstanding deep-seated
concerns about Putin's intentions. As Trump has repeatedly and openly cozied up to Putin, his
administration has imposed harsh and meaningful sanctions and penalties on Russia.
The dizzying, often contradictory, paths followed by Trump on the one hand and his hawkish
but constantly changing cast of national security aides on the other have created confusion in
Congress and among allies and enemies alike. To an observer, Russia is at once a mortal enemy
and a misunderstood friend in U.S. eyes.
Even before Trump took office questions about Russia abounded. Now, nearing the end of his
first term with a difficult
reelection ahead , those questions have resurfaced with a vengeance. Intelligence
suggesting Russia
was encouraging attacks on U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan by putting bounties on
their heads has thrust the matter into the heart of the 2020 campaign.
The White House says the intelligence wasn't confirmed or brought to Trump's attention, but
his vast chorus of critics are skeptical and maintain the president should have been
aware.
The reports have alarmed even pro-Trump Republicans who see Russia as a hostile global foe
meddling with nefarious intent in Afghanistan, the Middle East, Ukraine and Georgia, a waning
former superpower trying to regain its Soviet-era influence by subverting democracy in Europe
and the United States with disinformation and election interference .
Trump's overtures to Putin have unsettled longstanding U.S. allies in Europe, including
Britain, France and Germany, which have expressed concern about the U.S. commitment to the NATO
alliance, which was forged to counter the Soviet threat, and robust democracy on the
continent.
But Trump has defended his perspective on Russia, viewing it as a misunderstood potential
friend, a valued World War II ally led by a wily, benevolent authoritarian who actually may
share American values, like the importance of patriotism, family and religion.
Within the Trump administration, the national security establishment appears torn between
pursuing an arguably tough approach to Russia and pleasing the president. Insiders who have
raised concern about Trump's approach to Russia -- including at least one of his national
security advisers, defense secretaries and secretaries of state, but especially lower-level
officials who spoke out during impeachment -- have nearly all been ousted from their
positions.
Suspicions about Trump and Russia go back to his 2016 campaign. His appeal to Moscow to dig up his
opponent's emails , his plaintive suggestions that Russia and the United States should be
friends and a series of contacts between his advisers and Russians raised questions of
impropriety that led to special counsel Robert Mueller's
investigation . The investigation ultimately did not allege that anyone associated with the
campaign illegally conspired with Russia.
Mueller, along with the U.S. intelligence community, did find that Russia interfered with
the election, to sow chaos and also help Trump's campaign. But Trump has cast doubt on those
findings, most memorably in a 2018 appearance on stage with Putin in
Helsinki .
Yet despite Trump's rhetoric, his administration has plowed ahead with some of the most
significant actions against Russia by any recent administration.
Dozens of Russian diplomats have been expelled, diplomatic missions closed, arms control
treaties the Russians sought to preserve have been abandoned, weapons have been sold to Ukraine
despite the impeachment allegations and the administration is engaged in a furious battle to
prevent Russia from constructing a new gas pipeline that U.S. lawmakers from both parties
believe will increase Europe's already unhealthy dependence on Russian energy.
At the same time, Trump has compounded the uncertainty by calling for the withdrawal or
redeployment of U.S. troops from Germany, angrily deriding NATO allies for not meeting alliance
defense spending commitments, and now apparently ignoring dire intelligence warnings that
Russia was paying or wanted to pay elements of the Taliban to kill American forces in
Afghanistan.
On top of that, even after the intelligence reports on the Afghanistan bounties circulated,
he's expressed interest in inviting Putin back into the G-7 group of nations over the
objections of the other members.
White House officials and die-hard Trump supporters have shrugged off the obvious
inconsistencies, but they have been unable to staunch the swell of criticism and pointed
demands for explanations as Russia, which has vexed American leaders for decades, delights in
its ability to create chaos.
Looks like Liz Cheney words for Russians. Her action suggest growing alliance between Bush
repoblicans and neolibral interventionaistsof the Democratic Party. The alliance directed against
Trump.
Notable quotes:
"... As Boland explains, the amendment passed by the committee yesterday sets so many conditions on withdrawal that it makes it all but impossible to satisfy them: ..."
"... The longer that the U.S. stays at war in Afghanistan, the more incentives other states will have to make that continued presence more costly for the U.S. When the knee-jerk reaction in Washington to news of these bounties is to throw up obstacles to withdrawal, that gives other states another incentive to do more of this. ..."
"... Prolonging our involvement in the war amounts to playing into Moscow's hands. For all of their posturing about security and strength, hard-liners routinely support destructive and irrational policies that redound to the advantage of other states. This is still happening with the war in Afghanistan, and if these hard-liners get their way it will continue happening for many years to come. ..."
The immediate response to a story that U.S. forces were being targeted is to keep fighting a
losing conflict.
Barbara Boland
reported yesterday on the House Armed Services Committee's vote to impede withdrawal of
U.S. from Afghanistan:
The House Armed Services Committee voted Wednesday night to put roadblocks on President
Donald Trump's vow to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan, apparently in response to
bombshell report published by The New York Times Friday that alleges Russia paid dollar
bounties to the Taliban in Afghanistan to kill U.S troops.
It speaks volumes about Congress' abdication of its responsibilities that one of the few
times that most members want to challenge the president over a war is when they think he might
bring it to an end. Many of the members that want to block withdrawals from other countries
have no problem when the president wants to use U.S. forces illegally and to keep them in other
countries without authorization for years at a time. The role of hard-liner Liz Cheney in
pushing the measure passed yesterday is a good example of what I mean. The hawkish outrage in
Congress is only triggered when the president entertains the possibility of taking troops out
of harm's way. When he takes reckless and illegal action that puts them at risk, as he did when
he ordered the illegal assassination of Soleimani, the same members that are crying foul today
applauded the action. As Boland explains, the amendment passed by the committee yesterday
sets so many conditions on withdrawal that it makes it all but impossible to satisfy
them:
Crow's amendment adds several layers of policy goals to the U.S. mission in Afghanistan,
which has already stretched on for 19 years and cost over a trillion dollars. As made clear
in the Afghanistan Papers, most of these policy goals were never the original intention of
the mission in Afghanistan, and were haphazardly added after the defeat of al Qaeda. With no
clear vision for what achieving these fuzzy goals would look like, the mission stretches on
indefinitely, an unarticulated victory unachievable.
The immediate Congressional response to a story that U.S. forces were being targeted is to
make it much more difficult to pull them out of a war that cannot be won. Congressional hawks
bemoan "micromanaging" presidential decisions and mock the idea of having "535
commanders-in-chief," but when it comes to prolonging pointless wars they are only too happy to
meddle and tie the president's hands. When it comes to defending Congress' proper role in
matters of war, these members are typically on the other side of the argument. They are content
to let the president get us into as many wars as he might want, but they are horrified at the
thought that any of those wars might one day be concluded. Yesterday's vote confirmed that
there is an endless war caucus in the House, and it is bipartisan.
The original reporting of the bounty story is questionable for the reasons that Boland has
pointed out before, but for the sake of argument let's assume that Russia has been offering
bounties on U.S. troops in Afghanistan. When the U.S. keeps its troops at war in a country for
almost twenty years, it is setting them up as targets for other governments. Just as the U.S.
has armed and supported forces hostile to Russia and its clients in Syria, it should not come
as a shock when they do to the same elsewhere. If Russia has been doing this, refusing to
withdraw U.S. forces ensures that they will continue to have someone that they can target.
The longer that the U.S. stays at war in Afghanistan, the more incentives other states
will have to make that continued presence more costly for the U.S. When the knee-jerk reaction
in Washington to news of these bounties is to throw up obstacles to withdrawal, that gives
other states another incentive to do more of this.
Because the current state of debate about Russia is so toxic and irrational, our political
leaders seem incapable of responding carefully to Russian actions. It doesn't seem to occur to
the war hawks that Russia might prefer that the U.S. remains preoccupied and tied down in
Afghanistan indefinitely.
Prolonging our involvement in the war amounts to playing into Moscow's hands. For all of
their posturing about security and strength, hard-liners routinely support destructive and
irrational policies that redound to the advantage of other states. This is still happening with
the war in Afghanistan, and if these hard-liners get their way it will continue happening for
many years to come.
Daniel Larison is a senior editor at TAC , where he also keeps a solo blog . He has been published in
the New York Times Book Review , Dallas Morning News , World Politics Review , Politico
Magazine , Orthodox Life , Front Porch Republic, The American Scene, and Culture11, and was a
columnist for The Week . He holds a PhD in history from the University of Chicago, and resides
in Lancaster, PA. Follow him on Twitter .
One needs to mention the democratic deficit in the US. All the members voting yes are
representatives, they represent the people in their constituencies, and presumably vote for
what the majority in those constituencies would want, or past promises.
Any poll shows that Americans would rather have the troops brought back home, thank you very
much. But this is not what their representatives are voting for. Talk about democracy!
And what's the logic, if you make an accusation against someone you don't like it must be
true. Okay well then let's drone strike Putin. If you are going to be Exceptional and
consistent, Putin did everything Soleimani did so how can Liz Cotton argue for a different
punishment?
1. Killed U.S. troops in a war zone, 2. planning attacks on U.S. troops.
The entire Russian military plans for attacks all the time just like ours does but the
Neocons have declared that we are the only ones allowed to do that. Verdict, death penalty for
Putin.
Interesting, well reasoned article as usual from Mr. Larison. However, I have to say that I
don't see why Russia would want the US in Afghanistan indefinitely. In primis, they have a
strategic partnership with China (even though we've got to see how Russia will behave now when
there is the India-China rift), and China has been championing the idea of rebuilding the Silk
Road (brilliant idea if you ask me) so in this sense it's more reasonable to assume that they
might be aiming to get stability in the region rather than keep it in a state of unrest (as to
be strategic partners you need to have some kind of common strategy, or at least not a
completely different strategy). In 2018 they (Russia) actually were trying to organise a
mediation process which would have the Afghan Gvt. and the Talibans discuss before the US would
retire the troops, and it was very significative as they managed to get all the parties sitting
around a table for the very first time (even the US participated as an observer).
Secondly, Russia also has pretty decent relations with Iran (at least according to Iranian
press, which seems to be realistic as Russia is compliant to the JCPOA, is not aggressive
towards them, and they're cooperating in the Astana process for a political solution for Syria,
for example), and it wouldn't be so if Russia would pursue a policy which would aim to keep the
US in the Middle East indefinitely, as Iran's WHOLE point is that they want the US out of the
region, so if Russia would be trying to keep the US in the Middle East indefinitely, that would
seriously upset Iran.
Thirdly, Russia is one of the founders of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, which now
includes most of the states in Central Asia, China, India and Pakistan. The association never
made overt statements about their stance on the US's presence in the region; yet they've been
hinting that they don't approve of it, which is reasonable, as it is very likely that those
countries would all have different plans for the region, which might include some consideration
for human and economic development rather than constant and never-ending militarisation (of
course Pakistan would be problematic here, as the funds for the Afghan warlords get channeled
through Pakistan, which receives a lot of US money, so I don't know how they're managing this
issue).
Last but not least, I cannot logically believe that the Talibans, who've been coherent in
their message since the late 70's ("we will fight to the death until the invaders are defeated
and out of our national soil") would now need to be "convinced" by the Russians to defeat and
chase out the invader. This is just NOT believable at all. Afghanistan is called the Graveyard
of Empires for a reason, I would argue.
In any case I am pleased to see that at TAC you have been starting debunking the
Russia-narrative, as it is very problematic - most media just systematically misrepresents
Russia in order to justify aggressive military action (Europe, specifically Northern Europe, is
doing this literally CONSTANTLY, I'm so over it, really). The misrepresentation of Russia as an
aggressive wannabe-empire is a cornerstone of the pro-war narrative, so it is imperative to get
some actual realism into that.
As if the Afghan freedom fighters need additional incentive to eliminate the invaders? In
case Amerikans don't know, Afghans, except those on the US payroll, intensely despise Amerika
and its 'godless' ways. Amerikans forces have been sadistic, bombing Afghan weddings, funerals,
etc.
Even if the Russians are providing bounties to the Afghans, to take out the invaders, don't
the Amerikans remember the 80s when Washington (rightfully) supported the mujahedin with funds,
arms, Stinger missiles, etc.? Again, the US is on shaky ground because of the neocons.
Afghanistan is known through the ages to be the graveyard of empires. They have done it on
their own shedding blood, sweat, and tears. Also, the Afghan resistance have been principled
about Amerikans getting out before making deals.
"... As Johnstone recounts, after the Cold War liberals became bewitched by the prospect of waging wars for humanitarian ends. A generation of journalists and foreign policy experts including Samantha Power, Christiane Amanpour, Jamie Rubin, and Christopher Hitchens, would make the Balkans a proving ground for their liberal theories of preventative war, in the process throwing the ancient and venerable tradition of St. Augustine's Just War theory on the trash heap and paving the way for what was to follow in the coming decades, including Iraq II, Libya, Syria and a global drone war and a "targeted" assassination program." Carden ..."
"... Ah, for the good old days when lefties could be treated as a deluded minority rather than a vanguard party of globalist imperialists. pl ..."
"... . While the former's rise in the Democratic Party led to the exodus of Neoconservatives (former Trotskyists, Socialist and Marxists) to the Conservative movement, the latter is also moving the New Democrats to the Right, but the problem is that the current Political Right is mostly controlled by the Trumpists so these New Democrat types (Pelosi, Schumer, Schiff, Menendez, Biden etc.) are stuck between a hard place and a rock. In other words we are seeing the tight squeezing of the New Democrats (Wall-Street, Tech, humanitarian intervention) by the radical left (Green New Deal, UBI) and by the angry Trumpists. ..."
"... Recently Sanders and the Democratic Socialists expressed their opposition to Bibi's planned annexation of West-bank and adjacent Palestinian enclaves and threatened to to cut-off the military aid to Israel if Bibi moved on with his plan. ..."
"... Judging by my observation, the current trend is the alliance between the NeverTrumpers (The Lincoln project, The Right Pac) like Bill Kristol and the Reagan-to-Bush-43-neoconservatives (most of whom were Reagan Democrats in the late 70s and 80s themselves so nothing new for them) to push Trump out of office in their view before the RNC in Aug and to make room for the New Democrats and also to restore their previous 20+ years of reigning over the Republican Party. If their plan becomes successful, in the post 2020 election we will see a political configuration resembling the 90s and early 2000s with one major difference which is the introduction of several, in my opinion less that 10 seats in the House reserved for the far-Left socialist Democrats. ..."
"... And in terms of Foreign policy, everyone will get happy and the Blob/Borg think tank class in D.C. will see business as usual ..."
"Only "a few decades ago, "the Left" was considered the center of opposition to imperialism,
and champion of the right of peoples to self-determination."
Johnstone is part of a distinguished line of American expatriate writers, who, perhaps
because of an objectivity conferred by distance, saw their country more clearly than many of
their stateside contemporaries.
Members of the club include William Pfaff who for many years
wrote from Paris and the longtime Asia correspondent Patrick Lawrence . The Paris based Johnstone brings a
moral clarity to matters of war and peace that is, alas, too often absent from most
contemporary foreign affairs writing. Its near total absence on the Left during the Trump years
should be cause for reflection, and concern.
As Johnstone recounts, after the Cold War liberals became bewitched by the prospect of
waging wars for humanitarian ends. A generation of journalists and foreign policy experts
including Samantha Power, Christiane Amanpour, Jamie Rubin, and Christopher Hitchens, would
make the Balkans a proving ground for their liberal theories of preventative war, in the
process throwing the ancient and venerable tradition of St. Augustine's Just War theory on the
trash heap and paving the way for what was to follow in the coming decades, including Iraq II,
Libya, Syria and a global drone war and a "targeted" assassination program." Carden
---------------
Ah, for the good old days when lefties could be treated as a deluded minority rather than a
vanguard party of globalist imperialists. pl
This is a serious article addressing a serious problem. If the "left" sells out on war
issues as they have done the last 20 years or so, there is no pushback against the permanent
war system. Those one-time leftists who have sold out are no longer really leftists,
especially once they are relying on the corrupt permanent spy state for their information and
support.
Interesting and correct observation. Allow me to throw in my own two cents with regards to
the rise of what is defined as the "anti-Anti War left". I should note that there are eerily
similar parralels between the rise of the New Left in the 60s that was the mix of socialist
democrats, sexual revolutionaries, flower-power hippies, anti-imperialist/anti-war activists,
and identitarianists (Huey Netwon, Cesar Chavez, MLK) etc. and today's BLM, Antifa, 'woke'
types, third-gen feminists, broke millennials\
. While the former's rise in the Democratic
Party led to the exodus of Neoconservatives (former Trotskyists, Socialist and Marxists) to
the Conservative movement, the latter is also moving the New Democrats to the Right, but the
problem is that the current Political Right is mostly controlled by the Trumpists so these
New Democrat types (Pelosi, Schumer, Schiff, Menendez, Biden etc.) are stuck between a hard
place and a rock. In other words we are seeing the tight squeezing of the New Democrats
(Wall-Street, Tech, humanitarian intervention) by the radical left (Green New Deal, UBI) and
by the angry Trumpists.
Just to give you one example, last week a prototype New Democrat and long time congressman
(since 89) Elliot Engel of NY who fits well into this definition was defeated handily in the
NY-16 primaries by the Democratic Socialists of America endorsed candidate, Jamal Bowman. Mr.
Bowman, an African American is ideologically very similar to AOC, Tlaib, and Omar. He won on
a platform of foreign policy endorsed by the left-zionists (ex-labor zionists) against the
likudnik right-wing zionist of Engles' which is very interesting since, Engel has been known
for his hawkish views on foreign policy and extremely pro-Israel and chaired the House
Foreign Affairs Committee recently.
Recently Sanders and the Democratic Socialists expressed their opposition to Bibi's
planned annexation of West-bank and adjacent Palestinian enclaves and threatened to to
cut-off the military aid to Israel if Bibi moved on with his plan.
Domestically, there are several seats up for re-election and especially two in Georgia and
Arizona Senate whose pointed Republican candidates are in very shaky grounds versus their
democratic challengers. What is clear is that the New Democrat platforms are no longer
popular by the Democratic base and given recent events, it can be safely said that either the
most law and order and Trumpian candidates will win or the Democratic socialists endorsed
ones. So another problem for the New Dems.
Judging by my observation, the current trend is the alliance between the NeverTrumpers
(The Lincoln project, The Right Pac) like Bill Kristol and the
Reagan-to-Bush-43-neoconservatives (most of whom were Reagan Democrats in the late 70s and
80s themselves so nothing new for them) to push Trump out of office in their view before the
RNC in Aug and to make room for the New Democrats and also to restore their previous 20+
years of reigning over the Republican Party. If their plan becomes successful, in the post
2020 election we will see a political configuration resembling the 90s and early 2000s with
one major difference which is the introduction of several, in my opinion less that 10 seats
in the House reserved for the far-Left socialist Democrats.
And in terms of Foreign policy, everyone will get happy and the Blob/Borg think tank class
in D.C. will see business as usual as the Democratic Socialists will be "persuaded" to team
up with the New Democrats with regards to sending Troops to conduct humanitarian intervention
abroad (i.e. the Powell Doctrine) in exchange for domestic welfare programs, the
NeverTrumpers and the Republican hawks (Cotton, Graham, Rubio, Cruz, etc.) will have war
plans already written for them at AEI, Hudson and Heritage that focuses on China with the
help of the New Democrats and probably the Far-left.
In her recently published memoir, Circle in the
Darkness , the author and journalist Diana Johnstone recalls that only "a few decades
ago, "the Left" was considered the center of opposition to imperialism, and champion of the
right of peoples to self-determination."
Johnstone is part of a distinguished line of American expatriate writers, who, perhaps
because of an objectivity conferred by distance, saw their country more clearly than many of
their stateside contemporaries. Members of the club include William Pfaff who for many years
wrote from Paris and the longtime Asia correspondent Patrick Lawrence . The Paris based Johnstone brings a
moral clarity to matters of war and peace that is, alas, too often absent from most
contemporary foreign affairs writing. Its near total absence on the Left during the Trump years
should be cause for reflection, and concern.
As Johnstone recounts, after the Cold War liberals became bewitched by the prospect of
waging wars for humanitarian ends. A generation of journalists and foreign policy experts
including Samantha Power, Christiane Amanpour, Jamie Rubin, and Christopher Hitchens, would
make the Balkans a proving ground for their liberal theories of preventative war, in the
process throwing the ancient and venerable tradition of St. Augustine's Just War theory on the
trash heap and paving the way for what was to follow in the coming decades, including Iraq II,
Libya, Syria and a global drone war and a "targeted" assassination program.
At the time, Johnstone was one of the few who saw through the ruse, but, as she recalled,
she couldn't get her articles published in the liberal press. According to Johnstone, Hitchens
and Company saw to that. The wisdom of bombing Serbian civilians for 78 days in order to carve
out a Muslim enclave in the middle of Europe (which in short order would be overrun by the
Saudis, Albanian organized crime and human organ traffickers) was rarely questioned.
Indeed, among the bien-pensants , it was impermissible.
Today, skepticism of the mainstream narrative regarding both Russia and the war in Syria is
likewise deemed out of bounds by the Left. It is fair to say that a 3 year non-scandal,
Russiagate, ignited a cold war fever among liberals and self-styled progressives. Indeed,
liberals who once took principled stands against the Iraq war, such as Tom Dispatch and
Nation regular Bob Dreyfuss ,
transmogrified, after Trump's election, into frothing-at-the-mouth conspiracy theorists.
By my count, during the course of the three year Russiagate ordeal, Dreyfuss wrote at least
30 articles
promoting the most ludicrous of the Russiagate conspiracies, among them that Russia was " hiding
in your Facebook ," and that, variously, Paul Manafort, Felix Slater and/or General Michael
Flynn would, somehow, bring down Trump. That Dreyfuss would prove so credulous in the face of
what was so clearly an absurd distraction is perhaps not surprising given his
past ties to Lyndon Larouche .
Others, even less discerning than Dreyfuss, but far, far hungrier for attention, have
claimed that skeptics of the now discredited collusion conspiracy theory were themselves
guilty of indulging in, you guessed it, conspiracy theories of their own.
And so, if in the writings of Dreyfuss, TheNew York Times' Michelle Goldberg,
Mother Jones' David Corn, The Atlantic's Franklin Foer, New York
magazine's resident dolt Jonathan Chait, and many more besides, we can see the emergence of the
anti-anti-Cold War Left, there has also reemerged alongside it the very vocal and ravenously
unscrupulous anti-antiwar Left. And it is on the issue of the Syrian war on which the
anti-antiwar Left has coalesced, inexplicably arguing for the wholesale takeover of a secular
police state by the very same Islamist radicals who, if given the chance, would turn around and
immediately kill them on the grounds of apostasy.
In Syria, the protests that began in 2011 were quickly overtaken by armed jihadists whose
motto was "Christians to Beirut, Alawis to the grave." Before he was murdered by Syrian rebels,
the Jesuit missionary Father Frans vans der Lugt observed that "From the start the protest
movements were not purely peaceful. From the start I saw armed demonstrators marching along in
the protests, who began to shoot at the police first. Very often the violence of the security
forces has been a reaction to the brutal violence of the armed rebels."
But many prominent voices in mainstream liberal media outlets such as The New York
Times,TheWashington Post and VICE turned a blind eye to the atrocities
committed by the Islamist opposition in their hunger for a US-led regime change operation
against Bashar al-Assad. And the war fever extended from the mainstream to the progressive
Left.
On the pages and website of the New York Review of Books one searches for genuine
antiwar voices in vain. Instead what you most likely will come across are screeds such as the
one issued by Janine di Giovanni. In her rage for another US-led war in the Middle East, di
Giovanni channelled
the ghost of Joseph McCarthy and baselessly accused the antiwar journalist Max Blumenthal
of, you guessed it, being in league with (who else?) the Russian government.
And then there is The Intercept, funded by a shadowy billionaire with ties to the US Agency
for International Development, Pierre Omyidar. Under the editorship of former Nation
managing editor Betsy Reed, The Intercept has given space to some of the most strident
anti-antiwar voices including those of James Risen, Robert McKay and the British-born Mehdi
Hasan. Hasan's enthusiasm for a jihadi victory over the socialist, multi-confessional Syrian
state is perhaps not surprising given his past views in which he compared
non-believers to "animals."
In an April 2018
column for The Intercept, Hasan penned a hysterical open letter to those he deemed
"al-Assad apologists" for the crime of expressing skepticism regarding the latest round of
accusations of chemical weapons use by the Syrian regime. "To those of you on the anti-war far
left who have a soft spot for the dictator in Damascus: Have you lost your minds? Or have you
no shame?," cried Hasan. What followed was a lengthy iteration of Assad's crimes and then,
oddly, reassurances from Hasan that he too stands against no fly zones, arming the rebels and
regime change wars.
So what, we might be forgiven to ask, was the point? It was simply a tedious exercise in
moral preening. A speciality of the anti-antiwar Left.
Hasan's, example is instructive because, in his
obvious opportunism and sly fanaticism , he exemplifies everything
that a writer like Diana Johnstone is not and, by extension, much that is seriously wrong with
the anti-antiwar Left.
Worryingly, the anti-antiwar Left is not going away. Indeed, it has some powerful
allies-in-waiting should Joseph R. Biden win in November. In a recent
interview with CBS , Biden protege and former deputy secretary of state Antony Blinken
bemoaned the fact that the Obama administration's regime change efforts in Syria didn't go
nearly far enough.
Indeed, Biden's foreign policy team is stacked from one end to the other with regime change
and new cold war enthusiasts who, alas, will find plenty of support from the growing ranks of
the anti-antiwar Left. Those who find this development more than mildly depressing might do
worse than to take refuge in the work of genuine antiwar voices such as Diana Johnstone's.
Join
the debate on Facebook More articles by: JAMES W. CARDEN
James W. Carden writes about foreign affairs from Washington, DC. His work has appeared
in The American Conservative, American Affairs, The National Interest, and The
Nation where he is a contributing writer.
"... These failures have not been merely "policy mistakes" but have had profound consequences for our country, both in terms of blood unnecessarily wasted and trillions of dollars irretrievably lost. The very last thing we should do is defend a failed status quo and subvert new thinking. McMaster does both in his essay. ..."
"... We had won all that was militarily winnable on the ground in Afghanistan by the summer of 2002 and we should have withdrawn. Instead, we have refused to accept reality for eighteen additional years and we have lost thousands of American service members and trillions of American tax dollars to finance permanent failure. ..."
"... our interests are far better served by being an exemplar to the world rather than trying to force it to behave a certain way. ..."
"... The time has come to admit our foreign policy theories of the past two decades have utterly failed in their objective. We have not been made safer because of them and the price continually imposed on our service members is unnecessary and unacceptably high. ..."
In February 1991 I fought as a green 2 nd Lieutenant under then-Captain H.R.
McMaster, who would go on to win combat fame in 2005 Iraq and as Trump's National Security
Advisor. I watched McMaster provide exceptional leadership of our unit prior to war and watched
him perform brilliantly under fire during combat. It gives me no pleasure, therefore, to note
that his most recent work in Foreign Affairs has to be one of the most flawed analyses
I've ever seen.
McMaster's essay, " The
Retrenchment Syndrome ," is an attempted take-down of a growing number of experts who argue
American foreign policy has become addicted to the employment of military power. I, and other
likeminded advocates, argue this military-first foreign policy does not increase America's
security, but perversely undercuts it.
We advocate a foreign policy that elevates diplomacy, promotes the maintenance of a powerful
military that can defend America globally, and seeks to expand U.S. economic opportunity
abroad. This perspective takes the world as it is, soberly assesses America's policy successes
and failures of the past decades, and recommends sane policies going forward that have the best
chance to achieve outcomes beneficial to our country.
Adopting this new foreign policy mentality, however, requires an honest recognition that our
existing approach -- especially since 9/11 -- has at times been catastrophically bad for
America. The status quo has to be jettisoned for us to turn failure into success.
These failures have not been merely "policy mistakes" but have had profound consequences for
our country, both in terms of blood unnecessarily wasted and trillions of dollars irretrievably
lost. The very last thing we should do is defend a failed status quo and subvert new thinking.
McMaster does both in his essay.
McMaster grievously mischaracterizes the positions of those who advocate for a sane,
rational foreign policy. He tries to pin a pejorative moniker on restraint-oriented viewpoints
via the term "retrenchment syndrome."
Advocates for a restrained foreign policy, he says, "subscribe to the romantic view that
restraint abroad is almost always an unmitigated good." McMaster claims Obama's 2011
intervention in Libya failed not because it destabilized the country but because Washington
didn't "shape Libya's political environment in the wake of Qaddafi's demise." And he claims
Trump's desire to withdraw from Afghanistan "will allow the Taliban, al Qaeda, and various
other jihadi terrorists to claim victory."
In other words, the only policy option is to keep doing what has manifestly failed
for the past two decades. Just do it harder, faster, and deeper.
But the reality of the situation is rather different.
We had won all that was militarily winnable on the ground in Afghanistan by the summer of
2002 and we should have withdrawn. Instead, we have refused to accept reality for eighteen
additional years and we have lost thousands of American service members and trillions of
American tax dollars to finance permanent failure.
We should never have invaded Iraq in 2003. But once we realized the justification for the
war had been wrong, we should have rapidly withdrawn our combat troops and diplomatically
helped facilitate the establishment of an Iraqi-led state. Instead, we refused to acknowledge
our mistake, fought a pointless eight-year insurgency, and then instead of allowing Iraq to
solve its own problems when ISIS arose in 2014, unnecessarily went back to help Baghdad fight
its battles.
Likewise, the U.S. continues to fight or support never-ending combat actions in Syria,
Libya, Somalia, Niger, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and other lesser-known locations. There is no risk
to American national security in any of these locations that engaging in routine and perpetual
combat operations will solve.
Lastly, large portions of the American public -- and even greater percentages of service
members who have served in forever-wars -- are
against the continuation of these wars and do not believe they keep us safer. What would
make the country more secure, however, is adopting a realistic foreign policy that recognizes
the world as it truly is, acknowledges that the reason we maintain a world-class military is to
deter our enemies without having to fight, and recognizing that our interests are far better
served by being an exemplar to the world rather than trying to force it to behave a certain
way.
The time has come to admit our foreign policy theories of the past two decades have utterly
failed in their objective. We have not been made safer because of them and the price
continually imposed on our service members is unnecessary and unacceptably high. It is time to
abandon the status quo and adopt a new policy that is based on a realistic view of the world,
an honest recognition of our genuinely powerful military, and realize that there are better
ways to assure our security and prosperity.
Daniel L. Davis is a Senior Fellow for Defense Priorities and a former Lt. Col. in the
U.S. Army who retired in 2015 after 21 years, including four combat deployments. Follow him
@DanielLDavis1.
FBI does have strong levers on Trump. This is the essence of the "Deep State" concept --
intelligence agencies became unhinged and work as a powerful political actors.
Notable quotes:
"... Thank you Mina, yes that or the deep state throwing down the gauntlet. I don't think we can assume that Trump actually has control of the FBI. If he did he would likely have deep sixed the Democrazis through the Awan family spy and blackmail scam. But he didn't. They and Debbie Wasserman Shultz were protected/had dirt on DT. ..."
Maxwell's arrest makes me wonder if it is not about Trump throwing down the gauntlet?
Thank you Mina, yes that or the deep state throwing down the gauntlet. I don't think we can
assume that Trump actually has control of the FBI. If he did he would likely have deep sixed
the Democrazis through the Awan family spy and blackmail scam. But he didn't. They and Debbie
Wasserman Shultz were protected/had dirt on DT.
If the kiddy fiddlers get outed following Ghislaine dropping some of her likely thousands
of hours of home movies then that includes Trump and Biden.
In the fetid atmosphere of
accusations against pussy grabbers and finger f#ckers and hair sniffers neither could
survive. The pack will run rabid.
Is there a woman in the house? Yes, they cried AND she has experience!! Plus the campaign will be televised and it would be a virtual campaign because Covid. No
need to rig audience, the polls or the balllot.
Bolton is just "yet another MIC puppet", who has complete vacuum in his head as for morality
and decency. In other words he is a typical Washington psychopath. Like many sociopaths he is a
compulsive liar, undeniable careerist and self-promoter.
This week on Empire Has No Clothes, we spoke with Elizabeth Shackelford, a former Foreign
Service Officer and author of
The Dissent Channel: American Diplomacy in a Dishonest Age . Kelley Vlahos, Matt Purple
and I talked about demoralization in the department, the reasons for her resignation, U.S.
policy in South Sudan and Africa, and the need for greater accountability in our foreign
policy. We also covered John Bolton's new book, his outdated foreign policy views, and whether
anything he says can be trusted.
Listen to the episode in the player below, or click the links beneath it to subscribe using
your favorite podcast app. If you like what you hear, please give us a rating or review on
iTunes or Stitcher, which will really help us climb the rankings, allowing more people to find
the show.
So former tank repairman decided again managed to make a make a mark in world diplomacy
:-).
Notable quotes:
"... Mike Pompeo delivered an embarrassing, clownish performance at the U.N. on Tuesday, and his attempt to gain support for an open-ended conventional arms embargo on Iran was rejected the rest of the old P5+1: ..."
"... The Trump administration has abused our major European allies for years in its push to destroy the nuclear deal, and their governments have no patience with any more unilateral U.S. stunts. This is the result of two years of a destructive policy aimed solely at punishing Iran and its people. The administration's open contempt for international law and the interests of its allies has cost the U.S. their cooperation. ..."
"... Underscoring the absurdity of the Trump administration's arms embargo appeal were Pompeo's alarmist warnings that an end to the arms embargo would allow Iran to purchase advanced fighters that it would use to threaten Europe and India: ..."
"... This is a laughably unrealistic scenario. Even if Iran purchased advanced fighters, the last thing it would do is send them off on a suicide mission to bomb Italy or India. This shows how deeply irrational the Iran hawks' fearmongering is. Iran has already demonstrated an ability to launch precise attacks with drones and missiles in its immediate neighborhood, and it developed these capabilities while under the current embargo. ..."
"... The Secretary of State called on the U.N. to reject "extortion diplomacy." The best way to reject extortion diplomacy would be for them to reject the administration's desperate attempt to use America's position at the U.N. to attack international law. ..."
Mike Pompeo delivered an embarrassing, clownish performance at the U.N. on Tuesday, and his
attempt to
gain support for an open-ended conventional arms embargo on Iran was rejected the rest of the
old P5+1:
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called on Tuesday for an arms embargo on Iran to be
extended indefinitely, but his appeal fell flat at the United Nations Security Council, where
Russia and China rejected it outright and close allies of the United States were
ambivalent.
The Trump administration is more isolated than ever in its Iran obsession. The ridiculous
effort to invoke the so-called "snapback" provision of the JCPOA more than two years after
reneging on the agreement met with failure, just as most observers predicted months
ago when it was first floated as a possibility. As I said at the time, "The
administration's latest destructive ploy won't find any support on the Security Council. There
is nothing "intricate" about this idea. It is a crude, heavy-handed attempt to employ the
JCPOA's own provisions to destroy it." It was never going to work because all of the other
parties to the agreement want nothing to do with the administration's punitive approach, and
U.S. withdrawal from the JCPOA meant that it forfeited any rights it had when it was still part
of the deal.
Opposition from Russia and China was a given, but the striking thing about the scene at the
U.N. this week was that major U.S. allies
joined them in rebuking the administration's obvious bad faith maneuver:
The pointedly critical tone of the debate saw Germany accusing Washington of violating
international law by withdrawing from the nuclear pact, while Berlin aligned itself with
China's claim that the United States has no right to reimpose U.N. sanctions on Iran.
The Trump administration has abused our major European allies for years in its push to
destroy the nuclear deal, and their governments have no patience with any more unilateral U.S.
stunts. This is the result of two years of a destructive policy aimed solely at punishing Iran
and its people. The administration's open contempt for international law and the interests of
its allies has cost the U.S. their cooperation.
Underscoring the absurdity of the Trump administration's arms embargo appeal were Pompeo's
alarmist
warnings that an end to the arms embargo would allow Iran to purchase advanced fighters
that it would use to threaten Europe and India:
If you fail to act, Iran will be free to purchase Russian-made fighter jets that can
strike up to a 3,000 kilometer radius, putting cities like Riyadh, New Delhi, Rome, and
Warsaw in Iranian crosshairs.
This is a laughably unrealistic scenario. Even if Iran purchased advanced fighters, the last
thing it would do is send them off on a suicide mission to bomb Italy or India. This shows how
deeply irrational the Iran hawks' fearmongering is. Iran has already demonstrated an ability to
launch precise attacks with drones and missiles in its immediate neighborhood, and it developed
these capabilities while under the current embargo.
It has no need for expensive fighters, and
it is not at all certain that their government would even be interested in acquiring them. Pompeo's presentation was a weak attempt to exaggerate the potential threat from a state that
has very limited power projection, and he found no support because his serial fabrications
about Iran have rendered everything he says to be worthless.
The same administration that wants to keep an arms embargo on Iran forever has no problem
flooding the region with U.S.-made weapons and providing them to some of the worst governments
in the world. It is these client states that are doing the most to destabilize other countries
in the region right now. If the U.N. should be putting arms embargoes on any country, it should
consider imposing them on Saudi Arabia and the UAE to limit their ability to wreak havoc on
Yemen and Libya.
The Secretary of State called on the U.N. to reject "extortion diplomacy." The best way to
reject extortion diplomacy would be for them to reject the administration's desperate attempt
to use America's position at the U.N. to attack international law.
"... I agree that globalism is/will be heading into the dumpers, but I see no chance that US-based manufacturing is going to make any significant come-back. ..."
"... What market will there be for US-manufactured goods? US "consumers" are heavily in debt and facing continued downward pressures on income. ..."
"... There will certainly be, especially given the eye-opener of COVID-19, a big push to have medical (which includes associated tech) production capacities reinvigorated in the US. ..."
"... More "disposable" income goes toward medical expenditures. Less money goes toward creating export items; wealth creation only occurs through a positive increase in balance of trade. And on the opposite end of the spectrum, death, the US will likely continue, for the mid-term, to export weaponry; but, don't expect enough growth here to mean much (margins will drop as competition increases, so figure downward pressure on net export $$). ..."
"... the planet cannot comply with our economic model's dependency on perpetual growth: there can NOT be perpetual growth on a finite planet. US manufacturing requires, as it always has, export markets; requires ever-increasing exports: this is really true for all others. Higher standards of living in the US (and add in increasing medical costs which factor into cost of goods sold) means that the price of US-manufactured goods will be less affordable to peoples outside of the US. ..."
"... I'll also note that the notion of there being a cycle, a parabolic curve, in civilizations is well noted/documented in Sir John Glubb's The Fate of Empires and Search for Survival (you can find electronic bootlegged copies on the Internet)- HIGHLY recommended reading! ..."
"... All of this is pretty much reflected in Wall Street companies ramp-ups in stock-buy-backs. That's money that's NOT put in R&D or expansion. I'm pretty sure that the brains in all of this KNOW what the situation is: growth is never coming back. ..."
"... Make no mistake, what we're facing is NOT another recession or depression, it's not part of what we think as a downturn in the "business cycle," as though we'll "pull out of it," it's basically an end to the super-cycle ..."
"... We are at the peak (slightly past peak, but not far enough to realize it yet) and there is no returning. Per-capita income and energy consumption have peaked. There's not enough resources and not enough new demand (younger people, people that have wealth) to keep the perpetual growth machine going. ..."
I agree that globalism is/will be heading into the dumpers, but I see no chance that US-based manufacturing is going to
make any significant come-back.
The world's economy is in contraction. Although capital, what actual capital exists, will have to try and do something "productive,"
it is confronted by this fact, that everything is facing contraction. During times of contraction it's a game of acquisition rather
than expanding capacity: the sum total is STILL contraction; and the contraction WILL be a reduction in excess, excess manufacturing
and labor.
What market will there be for US-manufactured goods? US "consumers" are heavily in debt and facing continued downward pressures
on income. China is self-sufficient (enough) other than energy (which can be acquired outside of US markets). Most every other
country is in a position of declining wealth (per capita income levels peaked and in decline). And manufacturing continues to
increase its automation (less workers means less consumers).
There will certainly be, especially given the eye-opener of COVID-19, a big push to have medical (which includes associated
tech) production capacities reinvigorated in the US. One has to look at this in The Big Picture of what it means, and that's that
the US population is aging (and in poor health).
More "disposable" income goes toward medical expenditures. Less money goes toward
creating export items; wealth creation only occurs through a positive increase in balance of trade. And on the opposite end of
the spectrum, death, the US will likely continue, for the mid-term, to export weaponry; but, don't expect enough growth here to
mean much (margins will drop as competition increases, so figure downward pressure on net export $$).
Lastly, and it's the reason why global trade is being knocked down, is that the planet cannot comply with our economic model's
dependency on perpetual growth: there can NOT be perpetual growth on a finite planet. US manufacturing requires, as it always
has, export markets; requires ever-increasing exports: this is really true for all others. Higher standards of living in the US
(and add in increasing medical costs which factor into cost of goods sold) means that the price of US-manufactured goods will
be less affordable to peoples outside of the US.
And here too is the fact that other countries' populations are also aging. Years
ago I dove into the demographics angle/assessment to find out that ALL countries ramp and age and that you can see countries'
energy consumption rise and their their net trade balance swing negative- there's a direct correlation: go to the CIA's Factbook
and look at demographics and energy and the graphs tell the story.
I'll also note that the notion of there being a cycle, a parabolic
curve, in civilizations is well noted/documented in Sir John Glubb's The Fate of Empires and Search for Survival (you can find
electronic bootlegged copies on the Internet)- HIGHLY recommended reading!
All of this is pretty much reflected in Wall Street companies ramp-ups in stock-buy-backs. That's money that's NOT put in R&D
or expansion. I'm pretty sure that the brains in all of this KNOW what the situation is: growth is never coming back.
MANY years ago I stated that we will one day face "economies of scale in reverse." We NEVER considered that growth couldn't
continue forever. There was never a though about what would happen with the reverse "of economies of scale."
Make no mistake,
what we're facing is NOT another recession or depression, it's not part of what we think as a downturn in the "business cycle,"
as though we'll "pull out of it," it's basically an end to the super-cycle.
We will never be able to replicate the state of things
as they are. We are at the peak (slightly past peak, but not far enough to realize it yet) and there is no returning. Per-capita
income and energy consumption have peaked. There's not enough resources and not enough new demand (younger people, people that
have wealth) to keep the perpetual growth machine going.
The question I highlight is how would a diminished American Empire look like.
When the British Empire fell, it fell while causing two world wars - the greatest wars
humanity has ever seen. But the two world wars weren't waged in the name of religion: on the
contrary, they were pragmatic, secular wars, wars of Reason. Whatever its merits or demerits,
the WWs caused a sufficient trauma on the Western intelligentsia over the illuminist concept
of Reason that it turned a relativist, borderline nihilist corpus of intellectuals (what we
know today as the "postmodernism"). This gave, in part, a second chance to religion (in the
West's case, Christianism, which was the religion that was already there).
But now it's time for the USA to fall as the world empire. Now we see a world empire fall
under postmodernism, not Reason. On the contrary: the USA is consolidating itself as the
irrational empire. In this sense, I wonder: if the USA is to fail in its bid to remain the
world empire (against an openly rational power: Marxist/Socialist China).
When Europe emerged from WWII, it certainly emerged as a bunch of completely defeated
peoples willing to accept anything - literally anything - that would come from the USA. In
other words, it finally accepted it was part of the periphery of the world again. This
peripheral reality ossified both in the form of social-democracy (welfare state) and in the
form of the idea of a North Atlantic Civilization (Atlanticism), which we now refer to as
Western Civilization: Europe was Greece to the USA's Rome. It took dozens of millions of
dead, but Europe was finally put on its knees by the American and Soviet behemoths.
But, this time, there won't be an USSR to USA's Third Reich. China, best case scenario,
will be able to impose a multipolar order where the USA will still be able to impose itself
as one of the "poles" - certainly in the American Continent, probably also over Western
Europe and Oceania + Japan and South Korea. It will still be a first among equals.
In this hypothetical context, I imagine how would the American people come to terms with
this new - much less glorious - reality.
My hypothesis is that, if the USA would still be willing to revert multipolarity and
restore unipolarity, it would necessarily have to convert itself into a fundamentalist
Christian empire - much like the byzantine phase of the Roman Empire.
I discard the possibility of the USA collapsing overnight and peacefully a la USSR. Its
economic structure simply doesn't permit that. Worst case scenario, it would collapse under a
sequence of brutal and savage civil wars, leading to balkanization, resulting in what I like
to describe as a "Mad Max scenario".
It is normal for the Armed Forces of a given Nation-State to represent the ultimate
reserve of the traditions of said Nation-State. Nobody here doubts the PLA is the most
pro-Communist institution of the Popular Republic of China.
However, the post-war Western Democracies have a particularity: they are not reigned by a
unique ideology/doctrine; they are instead governed by what Arthur Schlesinger Jr. called a
"vital center", i.e. a confederation of ideologies that hate each other and perpetually
compete for power every electoral cycle (the so-called "political spectrum", which goes from
the Left to the Right). That leaves the Western throne inherently empty.
The post-war European countries found a curious solution to this problem: they put the
non-essential institutions of the State up to grabs in elections (which are still held today)
while reserving their Armed Forces to the hard-right and the far-right. This was done in
order to, at the same time, keep the illusion of democracy and keeping the nation safe from a
socialist revolution. That's why soldiers of the British Army were caught practicing target
shooting with Corbyn's portrait, and why, frequently, we read of neonazi cells within the
Bundeswehr.
That's why I think that, in order to keep the country safe from socialism (or, as the
American like to say, communism), the USG will gradually resort to the far-right to fill
their ranks in the Army and the police. I think this is a solution that will occur naturally
to the American elites, in a way that, in one generation space-time, even West Point will be
a far-right (Christian fundamentalist) nest.
The organisers projected an image of the cover of the Russian Constitution against the
background of Bill Clinton, Boris Yeltsin, and the inscription "1993. It was yours " Then
there is an image of the Russian people and the message "2020. It will be ours!", followed by
a call to come to vote, was projected on the building of the US Embassy. The light projection
was organised by the art group "Re:Venge".
https://www.stalkerzone.org/the-russian-constitution-was-projected-onto-the-us-embassy-building-in-moscow/
Ha, I really like this one ! Would have loved to watch 'das dumme Gesicht' (something like
>>stupid face<< but stronger. like the Germans say) of the latest Trump's edition
of silly ambassadors, lol !!!
"... Some countries like Italy (maybe Germany) are warming to Russia a little bit but Russia has a long way to go just to get back to their pre-2014 status with Europe. That is 'tightening their grip?'. I know, this is how propagandists speak. ..."
VK, re: Russia's grip on Europe is gradually tightening from the U.K.'s
INDEPENDENT
It's behind a paywall but I read just enough to be curious as to how someone could
possibly justify a clickbait title like that.
I suspect that the rest of the article is just
going to recap Russia's alleged sins in order to fan hatred but how can someone objectively
say that Russia is tightening its grip on Europe?
FUCKUS banned Russia from the Olympics on a bogus state sponsored steroid scam, no
reinstatement on horizon.
FUCKUS kicked Russia out of the now G7 and imposed a trade embargo that destroyed a large
commercial relationship w/Germany.
What is the 'overwhelming' evidence that the Russians poisoned the Skripal's, Novichok can be
made by just about anyone.
Some countries like Italy (maybe Germany) are warming to Russia a little bit but Russia
has a long way to go just to get back to their pre-2014 status with Europe. That is
'tightening their grip?'. I know, this is how propagandists speak.
This is an attempt to move Trump in the direction of more harsher politics toward Russia. So not Bolton's but Obama ears are
protruding above this dirty provocation.
Notable quotes:
"... According to the anonymous sources that spoke with the paper's reporters, the White House and President Trump were briefed on a range of potential responses to Moscow's provocations, including sanctions, but the White House had authorized no further action. ..."
"... Bolton is one of the only sources named in the New York Times article. Currently on a book tour, Bolton has said that he witnessed foreign policy malfeasance by Trump that dwarfs the Ukraine scandal that was the subject of the House impeachment hearings. But Bolton's credibility has been called into question since he declined to appear before the House committee. ..."
"... "Who can forget how 'successful' interrogators can be in getting desired answers?" writes Ray McGovern, who served as a CIA analyst for 27 years. Under the CIA's "enhanced interrogation techniques," Khalid Sheik Mohammed famously made at least 31 confessions, many of which were completely false. ..."
"... This story is "WMD [all over] again," said McGovern, who in the 1980s chaired National Intelligence Estimates and prepared the President's Daily Brief. He believes the stories seek to preempt DOJ findings on the origins of the Russiagate probe. ..."
"... The bungled media response and resulting negative press could also lead Trump to contemplate harsher steps towards Russia in order to prove that he is "tough," which may have motivated the leakers. It's certainly a policy goal with which Bolton, one of the only named sources in the New York Times piece, wholeheartedly approves. ..."
"... Not only did CIA et al.'s leak get even with Trump for years of insults and ignoring their reports (Trump is politically wounded by this story), but it also achieved their primary objective of keeping Putin out of the G7 and muzzling Trump's threats to withdraw from NATO because Russia is our friend (well his, anyway). ..."
"... Point 4: the whole point of the Talibans is to fight to the death whichever country tries to control and invade Afghanistan. They didn't need the Russians to tell them to fight the US Army, did they? ..."
"... Point 5: Russia tried to organise a mediation process between the Afghan government and the Talibans already in 2018 - so why would they be at the same time trying to fuel the conflict? A stable Afghanistan is more convenient to them, given the geographical position of the country. ..."
"... As much as I love to see everyone pile on trump, this is another example of a really awful policy having bad outcomes. If Bush, Obama, trump, or anyone at the pentagon gave a crap about the troops, they wouldn't have kept them in Afghanistan and lied about the fact they were losing the whole time. ..."
"... the idea is stupid. Russia doesn't need to do anything to motivate Afghans to want to boot the invaders out of their country, and would want to attract negative attention in doing so. ..."
"... Contrast with the CIA motivations for this absurd narrative. Chuck Schumer famously commented that the intelligence agencies had ways of getting back at you, and it looks like you took the bait, hook, line and sinker. ..."
"... And a fourth CIA goal: it undermines Trump's relationship with the military. ..."
"... Having failed in its Russia "collusion" and "Russia stole the election" campaigns to oust Trump, this is just the latest effort by the Deep State and mass media to use unhinged Russophobia to try to boost Biden and damage Trump. ..."
"... The contemporary left hate Russia , because Russia is carving out it own sphere of influence and keeping the Americans out, because it saved Assad from the western backed sunni head choppers (that the left cheered on, as they killed native Orthodox, and Catholic Christians). The Contempary left hate Russia because it cracks down on LGBT propaganda, banned porn hub, and return property to the Church , which the leftist Bolsheviks stole, the Contempaty left hate Russia because it cracked down on it western backed oligarchs who plundered Russia in the 90's. ..."
Bombshell report
published by The New York Times Friday alleges that Russia paid dollar bounties to the Taliban in Afghanistan to kill U.S
troops. Obscured by an extremely bungled White House press response, there are at least three serious flaws with the reporting.
The article alleges that GRU, a top-secret unit of Russian military intelligence, offered the bounty in payment for every U.S.
soldier killed in Afghanistan, and that at least one member of the U.S. military was alleged to have been killed in exchange for
the bounties. According to the paper, U.S. intelligence concluded months ago that the Russian unit involved in the bounties was also
linked to poisonings, assassination attempts and other covert operations in Europe. The Times reports that United States intelligence
officers and Special Operations forces in Afghanistan came to this conclusion about Russian bounties some time in 2019.
According to the anonymous sources that spoke with the paper's reporters, the White House and President Trump were briefed
on a range of potential responses to Moscow's provocations, including sanctions, but the White House had authorized no further action.
Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe said in a statement Saturday night that neither Trump nor Vice President Pence
"were ever briefed on any intelligence alleged by the New York Times in its reporting yesterday."
On Sunday night, Trump tweeted that not only was he not told about the alleged intelligence, but that it was not credible."Intel
just reported to me that they did not find this info credible, and therefore did not report it to me or @VP" Pence, Trump wrote Sunday
night on Twitter.
Ousted National Security Advisor John Bolton said on NBC's "Meet the Press" Sunday that Trump was probably claiming ignorance
in order to justify his administration's lack of response.
"He can disown everything if nobody ever told him about it," said Bolton.
Bolton is one of the only sources named in the New York Times article. Currently on a book tour, Bolton has said that
he witnessed foreign policy malfeasance by Trump that dwarfs the Ukraine scandal that was the subject of the House impeachment hearings.
But Bolton's credibility has been called into question since he declined to appear before the House committee.
The explanations for what exactly happened, and who was briefed, continued to shift Monday.
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany followed Trump's blanket denial with a statement that the intelligence concerning
Russian bounty information was "unconfirmed." She didn't say the intelligence wasn't credible, like Trump had said the day before,
only that there was "no consensus" and that the "veracity of the underlying allegations continue to be evaluated," which happens
to almost completely match the Sunday night statement from the White House's National Security Council.
Instead of saying that the sources for the Russian bounty story were not credible and the story was false, or likely false, McEnany
then said that Trump had "not been briefed on the matter."
"He was not personally briefed on the matter," she said. "That is all I can share with you today."
It's difficult to see how the White House thought McEnany's statement would help, and a bungled press response like this is communications
malpractice, according to sources who spoke to The American Conservative.
Let's take a deeper dive into some of the problems with the reporting here:
1. Anonymous U.S. and Taliban sources?
The Times article repeatedly cites unnamed "American intelligence officials." The Washington Post and The
Wall Street Journal articles "confirming" the original Times story merely restate the allegations of the anonymous
officials, along with caveats like "if true" or "if confirmed."
Furthermore, the unnamed intelligence sources who spoke with the Times say that their assessment is based "on interrogations
of captured Afghan militants and criminals."
That's a red flag, said John Kiriakou, a former analyst and case officer for the CIA who led the team that captured senior
al-Qaeda member Abu Zubaydah in Pakistan in 2002. "When you capture a prisoner, and you're interrogating him, the prisoner is going to tell you what he thinks you want to hear,"
he said in an interview with The American Conservative . "There's no evidence here, there's no proof."
Kiriakou believes that the sources behind the report hold important clues on how the government viewed its credibility.
"We don't know who the source is for this. We don't know if they've been vetted, polygraphed; were they a walk-in; were they
a captured prisoner?"
If the sources were suspect, as they appear to be here, then Trump would not have been briefed on this at all.
With this story, it's important to start at the "intelligence collection," said Kiriakou. "This information appeared in the
[CIA World Intelligence Review] Wire, which goes to hundreds of people inside the government, mostly at the State Department and
the Pentagon. The most sensitive information isn't put in the Wire; it goes only in the PDB."
"If this was from a single source intelligence, it wouldn't have been briefed to Trump. It's not vetted, and it's not important
enough. If you caught a Russian who said this, for example, that would make it important enough. But some Taliban detainees saying
it to an interrogator, that does not rise to the threshold."
2. What purpose would bounties serve?
Everyone and their mother knows Trump wants to pull the troops out of Afghanistan, said Kiriakou.
"He ran on it and he has said it hundreds of times," he said. "So why would the Russians bother putting a bounty on U.S. troops
if we're about to leave Afghanistan shortly anyway?"
That's leaving aside Russia's own experience with the futility of Afghanistan campaigns, learned during its grueling 9-year
war there in the 1980s.
The Taliban denies it accepted bounties from Russian intelligence.
"These kinds of deals with the Russian intelligence agency are baseless -- our target killings and assassinations were ongoing
in years before, and we did it on our own resources," Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Taliban, told The New York Times
. "That changed after our deal with the Americans, and their lives are secure and we don't attack them."
The Russian Embassy in the United States called the reporting
"fake news."
While the Russians are ruthless, "it's hard to fathom what their motivations could be" here, said Paul Pillar, an academic
and 28-year veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency, in an interview with The American Conservative. "What would they
be retaliating for? Some use of force in Syria recently? I don't know. I can't string together a particular sequence that makes
sense at this time. I'm not saying that to cast doubt on reports the Russians were doing this sort of thing."
3. Why is this story being leaked now?
According to U.S. officials quoted by the AP,
top officials in the White House "were aware of classified intelligence indicating Russia was secretly offering bounties to the Taliban
for the deaths of Americans" in early 2019. So why is this story just coming out now?
This story is "WMD [all over] again," said McGovern, who in the 1980s chaired National Intelligence Estimates and prepared the
President's Daily Brief. He believes the stories seek to preempt DOJ findings on the origins of the Russiagate probe.
The NYT story serves to bolster the narrative that Trump sides with Russia, and against our intelligence community estimates and
our own soldiers lives.
The stories "are likely to remain indelible in the minds of credulous Americans -- which seems to have been the main objective,"
writes McGovern. "There [Trump] goes again -- not believing our 'intelligence community; siding, rather, with Putin.'"
"I don't believe this story and I think it was leaked to embarrass the President," said Kiriakou. "Trump is on the ropes in the
polls; Biden is ahead in all the battleground states."
If these anonymous sources had spoken up during the impeachment hearings, their statements could have changed history.
But the timing here, "kicking a man when he is down, is extremely like the Washington establishment. A leaked story like this
now, embarrasses and weakens Trump," he said. "It was obvious that Trump would blow the media response, which he did."
The bungled media response and resulting negative press could also lead Trump to contemplate harsher steps towards Russia
in order to prove that he is "tough," which may have motivated the leakers. It's certainly a policy goal with which Bolton, one of
the only named sources in the New York Times piece, wholeheartedly approves.
Barbara Boland is TAC's foreign policy and national security reporter. Previously, she worked as an editor for the Washington
Examiner and for CNS News. She is the author of Patton Uncovered , a book about General George Patton in World War II, and her work
has appeared on Fox News, The Hill , UK Spectator , and elsewhere. Boland is a graduate from Immaculata University in Pennsylvania.
Follow her on Twitter @BBatDC .
Caitlin Johnstone was the first journalist to question this NYT expose' several days ago in her blog. After looking into
it, I had to agree with her that the story was junk reporting by a news source eager to stick it to Trump for his daily insults.
NYT must love the irony of a "fake news" story catching fire and burning Trump politically. After all, paying people to kill
their own enemies? That is a "tip," not a bounty. It is more of an intel footnote than the game-changer in international relations
as asserted by Speaker Pelosi on TV as she grabbed her pearls beneath her stylish COVID mask.
I was surprised that Ms. Boland could not think of any motivation for leaking the story right now given recent grousing
on the Hill about Trump's inviting Putin to G7 over the objections of Merkel and several other NATO heads of state. I even
posted a congratulatory message in Defense One yesterday to the US Intel community for mission accomplished.
Not only did CIA
et al.'s leak get even with Trump for years of insults and ignoring their reports (Trump is politically wounded by this story),
but it also achieved their primary objective of keeping Putin out of the G7 and muzzling Trump's threats to withdraw
from NATO because Russia is our friend (well his, anyway).
That "bounty" story never passed the smell test, even to my admittedly untrained nose. My real problem is that it's a story
in the first place, given that Trump campaigned on a platform that included bringing the boys home from sand hills like Afghanistan;
yet here we are, four years later, and we're still there.
Point 4: the whole point of the Talibans is to fight to the death whichever country tries to control and invade Afghanistan.
They didn't need the Russians to tell them to fight the US Army, did they?
Point 5: Russia tried to organise a mediation process between the Afghan government and the Talibans already in 2018 - so
why would they be at the same time trying to fuel the conflict? A stable Afghanistan is more convenient to them, given the
geographical position of the country.
This whole story is completely ridiculous. Totally bogus.
As much as I love to see everyone pile on trump, this is another example of a really awful policy having bad outcomes. If
Bush, Obama, trump, or anyone at the pentagon gave a crap about the troops, they wouldn't have kept them in Afghanistan and
lied about the fact they were losing the whole time.
Of course people are trying to kill US military in Afghanistan. If I lived in Afghanistan, I'd probably hate them too. And
let's not forget that just a few weeks ago the 82nd airborne was ready to kill American civilians in DC. The military is our
enemy too!
Moreover, the idea is stupid. Russia doesn't need to do anything to motivate Afghans to want to boot the invaders out of
their country, and would want to attract negative attention in doing so.
The purported bounty program doesn't help Russia, but the anonymous narrative does conveniently serve several CIA purposes:
1. It makes it harder to leave Afghanistan.
2. It keeps the cold war with Russia going along.
3. It damages Trump (whose relationship with the CIA is testy at best).
Then there's the question of how this supposed intelligence was gathered. The CIA tortures people, and there's no reason
to believe that this was any different.
1. Russia wants a stable Afghanistan. Not a base for jihadis.
2. The idea that Russia has to encourage Afghans to kill Invaders is a hoot. They don't ever do that on their own.
3. Not only do Afghans traditionally need no motivation to kill infidel foreign Invaders, but Russia would have to be incredibly
stupid to bring more American enmity on itself.
Contrast with the CIA motivations for this absurd narrative. Chuck Schumer famously commented that the intelligence agencies
had ways of getting back at you, and it looks like you took the bait, hook, line and sinker.
Either that, or you're just cynical. You'll espouse anything, however absurd and full of lies, as long as it damages Trump.
I don't have a clue if this bounty story is correct, but I can imagine plenty of reasons why the Russians would do it. It's
easy enough to believe it or believe it was cooked up by CIA as you suggest.
There will be one of these BS blockbusters every few weeks until the election. There are legions of buried-in democrat political
appointees that will continue to feed the DNC press. It will be non-stop. The DNC press is shredding the 1st amendment.
Not shredding the First Amendment, just shining light on the pitfalls of a right to freedom of speech. There are others
ramifications to free speech we consider social goods.
These aren't buried-in democrats. These people could care less which political party the President is a member of. They
only care that the President does what they say. Political parties are just to bamboozle the rubes. They are the real power.
The best defence that the WSJ and Fox News could muster was that the story wasn't confirmed as the NSA didn't have the same
confidence in the assessment as the CIA. "Is there anything else to which you would wish to draw my attention?" "To the curious
incident of the denial from the White House", "There was no denial from the White House". "That was the curious incident".
I note that Fox News had buried the story "below the scroll" on their home page - if they had though the story was fake,
the headlines would be screaming at MSM.
Pravda was a far more honest and objective news source than The New York Times is. I say that as someone who
read both for long periods of time. The Times is on par with the National Enquirer for credibility, with the
latter at least being less propagandistic and agenda-driven.
Having failed in its Russia "collusion" and "Russia stole the election" campaigns to oust Trump, this is just the latest
effort by the Deep State and mass media to use unhinged Russophobia to try to boost Biden and damage Trump.
The extent to which the contemporary Left is driven by a level of Russophobia unseen even by the most stalwart anti-Communists
on the Right during the Cold War is truly something to behold. I think at bottom it comes down to not liking Putin or Russia
because they refuse to get on board with the Left's social agenda.
The contemporary left hate Russia , because Russia is carving out it own sphere of influence and keeping the Americans out,
because it saved Assad from the western backed sunni head choppers (that the left cheered on, as they killed native Orthodox,
and Catholic Christians). The Contempary left hate Russia because it cracks down on LGBT propaganda, banned porn hub, and return
property to the Church , which the leftist Bolsheviks stole, the Contempaty left hate Russia because it cracked down on it
western backed oligarchs who plundered Russia in the 90's.
The Contempary left wants Russia to be Woke, Broke, Godless, and Gay.
The democrats are now the cheerleaders of the warfare -welfare state,, the marriage between the neolibs-neocons under the
Democrat party to ensure that President Trump is defeated by the invade the world, invite the world crowd.
"The Trumpies are right in that this was obviously a leak by the intel community designed to hurt Trump. But what do you
expect...he has spent 4 years insulting and belittling them. They are going to get their pound of flesh."
Intel community was behind an attempted coup of Trump. He has good reason not to trust them and insulting is only natural.
Hopefully John Durham will indict several of them
Interesting take. I certainly take anything anyone publishes based on anonymous sources with a big grain of salt,
especially when it comes from the NYT...
Control freaks that cannot even control their own criminal impulses!
...They suffer from god-complexes, since they do not believe in God, they feel an obligation to act as God, and decide the fates
of over 7 billion people, who would obviously be better off if the PICs were sent to the Fletcher Memorial Home for Incurable Tyrants!
"... The purpose of McMaster's essay is to discredit "retrenchers" -- that's his term for anyone advocating restraint as an alternative to the madcap militarism that has characterized U.S. policy in recent decades. Substituting retrenchment for restraint is a bit like referring to conservatives as fascists or liberals as pinks : It reveals a preference for labeling rather than serious engagement. In short, it's a not very subtle smear, as indeed is the phrase madcap militarism. But, hey, I'm only playing by his rules. ..."
"... The militarization of American statecraft that followed the end of the Cold War produced results that were bad for the United States and bad for the world. If McMaster can't figure that out, then he's the one who is behind the times. ..."
"... While Hillary was very clear on her drive against Russia, Trump promised the opposite, so many people had hopes for something on that. Nevertheless, he also promised to go against China and JPCOA, which many people forgot or thought not likely. But lo and behold, with Trump we ended up having the worst of both worlds ..."
"... just because of Trump's rhetoric against military adventurism, I would have voted for him. I would have been wrong, so now I am now extremely weary of any promises on this direction, but still hoped for Tulsi... ..."
H.R. McMaster looks to be one of those old soldiers with an aversion to following Douglas
MacArthur's advice to "just fade away."
The retired army three-star general who served an abbreviated term as national security
adviser has a memoir due out in September. Perhaps in anticipation of its publication, he has
now contributed a big think-piece to the new issue of Foreign Affairs. The essay is
unlikely to help sell the book.
The purpose of McMaster's essay is to discredit "retrenchers" -- that's his term for anyone
advocating restraint as an alternative to the madcap militarism that has characterized U.S.
policy in recent decades. Substituting retrenchment for restraint is a bit like
referring to conservatives as fascists or liberals as pinks : It
reveals a preference for labeling rather than serious engagement. In short, it's a not very
subtle smear, as indeed is the phrase madcap militarism. But, hey, I'm only playing by his
rules.
Yet if not madcap militarism, what term or phrase accurately describes post-9/11 U.S.
policy? McMaster never says. It's among the many matters that he passes over in silence. As a
result, his essay amounts to little more than a dodge, carefully designed to ignore the void
between what assertive "American global leadership" was supposed to accomplish back when we
fancied ourselves the sole superpower and what actually ensued.
Here's what McMaster dislikes about restraint: It is based on "emotions" and a "romantic
view" of the world rather than reason and analysis. It is synonymous with "disengagement" --
McMaster uses the terms interchangeably. "Retrenchers ignore the fact that the risks and costs
of inaction are sometimes higher than those of engagement," which, of course, is not a fact,
but an assertion dear to the hearts of interventionists. Retrenchers assume that the "vast
oceans" separating the United States "from the rest of the world" will suffice to "keep
Americans safe." They also believe that "an overly powerful United States is the principal
cause of the world's problems." Perhaps worst of all, "retrenchers are out of step with history
and way behind the times."
Forgive me for saying so, but there is a Trumpian quality to this line of argument: broad
claims supported by virtually no substantiating evidence. Just as President Trump is adamant in
refusing to fess up to mistakes in responding to Covid-19 -- "We've made every decision
correctly" -- so too McMaster avoids reckoning with what actually happened when the
never-retrench crowd was calling the shots in Washington and set out after 9/11 to transform
the Greater Middle East.
What gives the game away is McMaster's apparent aversion to numbers. This is an essay devoid
of stats. McMaster acknowledges the "visceral feelings of war weariness" felt by more than a
few Americans. Yet he refrains from exploring the source of such feelings. So he does not
mention casualties -- the number of Americans killed or wounded in our post-9/11
misadventures. He does not discuss how much those wars have cost , which, of course,
spares him from considering how the trillions expended in Afghanistan and Iraq might have been
better invested at home. He does not even reflect on the duration of those wars, which
by itself suffices to reveal the epic failure of recent U.S. military policy. Instead, McMaster
mocks what he calls the "new mantra" of "ending endless wars."
Well, if not endless, our recent wars have certainly dragged on for far longer than the
proponents of those wars expected. Given the hundreds of billions funneled to the Pentagon each
year -- another data point that McMaster chooses to overlook -- shouldn't Americans expect more
positive outcomes? And, of course, we are still looking for the general who will make good on
the oft-repeated promise of victory.
What is McMaster's alternative to restraint? Anyone looking for the outlines of a new grand
strategy in step with history and keeping up with the times won't find it here. The best
McMaster can come up with is to suggest that policymakers embrace "strategic empathy: an
understanding of the ideology, emotions, and aspirations that drive and constrain other actors"
-- a bit of advice likely to find favor with just about anyone apart from President Trump
himself.
But strategic empathy is not a strategy; it's an attitude. By contrast, a policy of
principled restraint does provide the basis for an alternative strategy, one that implies
neither retrenchment nor disengagement. Indeed, restraint emphasizes engagement, albeit through
other than military means.
Unless I missed it, McMaster's essay contains not a single reference to diplomacy, a
revealing oversight. Let me amend that: A disregard for diplomacy may not be surprising in
someone with decades of schooling in the arts of madcap militarism.
The militarization of American statecraft that followed the end of the Cold War produced
results that were bad for the United States and bad for the world. If McMaster can't figure
that out, then he's the one who is behind the times. Here's the truth: Those who support the
principle of restraint believe in vigorous engagement, emphasizing diplomacy, trade, cultural
exchange, and the promotion of global norms, with war as a last resort. Whether such an
approach to policy is in or out of step with history, I leave for others to divine.
Andrew Bacevich, TAC's writer-at-large, is president of the Quincy Institute for
Responsible Statecraft.
Surveys show over and over that the Americans overwhelmingly share Dr. Bacevich's views.
There was even hope that Trump will reign on the US military adventurism.
The fact that all this continues unabated and that the general is given space in the Foreign
Affairs is in our face evidence of the glaring democratic deficit existent in the US, and that
in fact democracy is nonexistent being long ago fully replaced by a de facto Oligarchy.
Doesn't matter what Dr. Bachevich writes or says or does. Unless and until the internal
political issues in the US are not addressed, the world will suffer.
While Hillary was very clear on her drive against Russia, Trump promised the opposite, so
many people had hopes for something on that. Nevertheless, he also promised to go against China
and JPCOA, which many people forgot or thought not likely. But lo and behold, with Trump we
ended up having the worst of both worlds...
and the tragedy is that even if Biden is elected,
that direction will not be reversed, or not likely. While I cannot vote, just because of
Trump's rhetoric against military adventurism, I would have voted for him. I would have been
wrong, so now I am now extremely weary of any promises on this direction, but still hoped for
Tulsi...
I always learn some thing here. For example imagine my surprise to learn the EU had a
reputation worth protecting. All you need to know about the EU is bitches will do what
bitches are told. This is just one more step on the road to war with China, is that really
what the citizens of the EU want? Are the people of the EU ready to die for the Trump and the
Republican party?
Don't like the cartoon, too apt to read as antisemitic in my opinion. The corrupt siren/whore
image better fits Saudi I think. And, the Oppositional Defiant Disorder kid madly brandishing
the scimitar is closer to Israel. The other kid would be better if somehow marked as salafi
(wahhabi) if not takfiri. The EU as family-friendly mutts is off-brand too: Pit bulls,
straining at the leash, slavering.
Think tanks, think tanks, think tanks. In 2009, the Brookings Institute's paper Which Path to
Persia, proposed offering Iran a very good deal and then sabotaging it. Good cop, Obama, bad
cop, Trump. Mission accomplished.
Only a matter of when and how.The warmongers have Trumps balls in a vice, he can't even
resign without making it worse by letting Pence take over.The art of the squeal,very high
pitched is whats happening in DC.
1st of all The UK was always going to side with DC over Iran. 2ndly for France and Germany
they probably aren't ready to put themselves plus their EU partners in the US doghouse for
Iran. When they break it will be a time of their own choosing.
Thanks b, for this detailed coverage of the 3 wimps' efforts to kill JCPOA. You did not
disappoint. Love the image showing mother residing in "occupied Palestine" .. (term coined by
MoA barfly)
I commented in the previous post, Russia warned of unintended consequences
LINK
Moscow is calling on the European parties to the Iran nuclear deal not to escalate tensions
and to abandon their decision to trigger the treaty's Dispute Resolution Mechanism, the
Russian Foreign Ministry said Tuesday. "We strongly urge the Eurotroika [of parties to the JCPOA] not to inflame tensions and
to abandon any steps which call the prospects of the nuclear deal's future into question.
Despite all the challenges it has faced, the JCPOA has not lost its relevance," the
ministry said in a statement.
Ex-US vice-president, Joseph Biden is also suspected of corruption, according to a
member of the Ukrainian parliament
KIEV, January 14. /TASS/. Ukraine's Supreme Anti-Corruption Court has obliged the
National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) to launch a probe into seizure of government power
and corruption suspicions. The cases mention the names of the United States' 44th
president, Barack Obama, former Ukrainian president, Pyotr Poroshenko and ex-US
vice-president, Joseph Biden, a member of the Ukrainian parliament from the Opposition
Platform - For Life party, Renat Kuzmin, said[.]
"investigate the suspicions over the seizure of government power in Ukraine and of the
embezzlement of state budget money and international financial assistance by members of the
Obama administration"
If it ever was possible to sign a treaty with the US and expect them to abide by it, it
hasn't been possible for a long time. Here as everywhere else, Trump merely openly proclaims
the systemic lawlessness he shares with the rest of the US political class. (His contemptuous
withdrawal from the JCPOA never has been one of the things the establishment and media
criticize him for.)
For as long as US imperial power lasts, anyone who doesn't want to be a poodle (or to get
regime-changed because they foolishly attempt to sit the fence) has to accept that there can
be no legitimate agreements with the US or its poodles. If you sign a treaty with them, you
have to view it exactly the same way you know they do, as nothing but propaganda, otherwise
not worth the paper it's written on. No doubt North Korea, if they were in any doubt before,
registered how Trump and the US media immediately proceeded to systematically lie about the
agreement they'd supposedly just concluded, before the ink was even dry.
Here's hoping that if Iran was in any doubt before, they too are getting the message: As
far as the US and Europe are concerned, the only purpose of the JCPOA is to serve as a weapon
against them.
Face it B, there will be blood. It's a matter of time. It's unavoidable. The empire will
force its own destruction - and perhaps the rest of humanity's. The demons of nihilism will
prevail.
(Sounds like I have been hearing death metal. I swear I did not. And I not under the
influence either.)
The Oct 2020 deadline is important for more than one reason- Irans application to the SCO is
being held up because of it. The SCO membership would obligate support from countries like
India in response to politically motivated sanctions.
Surprised at Germany since Merkel just met with Putin. When I read of this earlier this
morning, that it's based on lies was 100% clear, that the trio are feckless and deserve all
the social instability that will soon come their way. Why did I mention social instability:
"The Fed is considering a plan to allow them to lend cash DIRECTLY TO HEDGE FUNDS in order
to ease the REPO Crisis. [Emphasis original]
"Where is 'bailing out private investment funds' in their alleged 'dual mandate'?"
Which gets us back to the reason Iran's targeted: Because it lies outside the dollar
economy, refuses to engage in petrodollar recycling, and has a quasi-socialist economy with
no private banking. Plus, we now see that Iraq will pursue evicting NATO and Outlaw US Empire
forces and likely join the Arc of Resistance's/Iran's policies which are what the Outlaw US
Empire went to war over to begin with.
Obviously, Merkel doesn't have the political strength to nix Nordstream 2. Until she's
replaced by someone with greater vision, EU and German policy won't change toward Iran. IMO,
the trio don't amount to the level of poodles as they're known to have courage. The Trio
proudly display the fact that they're 100% Cowards.
@ realist 6. basically it boils down to giving Barry a foreign policy award like getting the
Nobel gong.
div> The EU is a hopeless craven vassal of the US. The US dropping out of
the JCPOA was the acid test which the EU has spectacularly failed. We are in a historical pivot
with the rise of the coalescing multifarious East which is forcing the EU to make a decision:
stay under the US wing, go it alone, or ally with the East. The EU seems to know it at least
should get more distance between itself and the US but every time there is a major geopolitical
event it starts to talk like it is going independent but then always drops back into the US
hand. How many times does this have to happen for us to admit what the EU is about?
The EU cannot lead in anything - it is a completely owned and operated US tool. It is a big
zero in providing humanity any help with the big problem of our time: the 'indispensable and
exceptional' supremacist US.
Posted by: AriusArmenian , Jan 14 2020 19:58 utc |
15
The EU is a hopeless craven vassal of the US. The US dropping out of the JCPOA was the acid
test which the EU has spectacularly failed. We are in a historical pivot with the rise of the
coalescing multifarious East which is forcing the EU to make a decision: stay under the US
wing, go it alone, or ally with the East. The EU seems to know it at least should get more
distance between itself and the US but every time there is a major geopolitical event it
starts to talk like it is going independent but then always drops back into the US hand. How
many times does this have to happen for us to admit what the EU is about?
The EU cannot lead in anything - it is a completely owned and operated US tool. It is a big
zero in providing humanity any help with the big problem of our time: the 'indispensable and
exceptional' supremacist US.
Posted by: AriusArmenian | Jan 14 2020 19:58 utc |
15
If we accept that EU nations lack sovereignty and go further to suggest that such nations are
more simulations than real, what would an analysis of such events as the fallout from the
demise of the JCPOA look like? How should one talk about international events when corporate
sovereignty and oligarchical decision making are the real? How would we describe this exact
context based not on the simulation but on the real workings of power?
Yes indeed! At least blighty knows the score! The leash is no place for the British bulldog.
When brexit is complete they will be free to crawl straight up muricas bum! Lol!
Haha, great drawing. This pile on the left is incomparable. But the picture is incomplete -
there is not enough proudly walking in front of the masters of a small Polish poodle with a
bone in his teeth.
Agree with Nemo, #1. This is a matter of sovereignty. At the moment, European countries
are not sovereign, and, btw, this is a kind of double non-sovereignty: the submission of a
separate European country to the Americans, plus the submission of the same country to a
Brussels bureaucracy called the EU leadership. What independent, bold decisions can we talk
about? None.
1) Allow CIA, corporations, media, to learn to topple nations
2) Use them to achieve geopolitical goals
3) Allow them to become self-directing and do the same to achieve corporate goals
4) They realize instead of your state using them, they can infiltrate and use the state
5) They realize they can topple your nation too for corporate goals
6) PROFIT
Pompeo is suggesting that Iran will spend tens of millions on planes, fly them unopposed
through the radar coverage of several countries, to let Iranian Kamikaze pilots crash them into
some temple in Nepal.
This does not make any sense. No foreign politician will be impressed by this 'argument'.
Pompeo's tweet is for consumption at home.
The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump introduced a long-awaited U.N. Security
Council (UNSC) draft resolution extending an arms embargo on Iran that is due to expire in
October, setting the stage for a great-power clash and likely veto in the U.N.'s principal
security body, according to a copy of the draft obtained by Foreign Policy .
...
If passed, the resolution would fall under Chapter VII of the U.N. charter, making it legally
binding and enforceable. But the U.S. measure, according to several U.N. Security Council
diplomats, stands little chance of being adopted by the 15-nation council.
...
Some council diplomats and other nonproliferation experts see the U.S. move as a way to score
political points at home , not to do anything about Iran's destabilizing activities in the
region.
"The skeptic in me says that the objective of this exercise is to go through the arms
embargo resolution, and when it fails, to use that as an excuse to get a snapback of the
embargo, and if and when that fails too, to use as a political talking point in the election
campaign ," said Mark Fitzpatrick, a former State Department nonproliferation official now at
the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Since China and Russia are almost certain
to ignore any U.N. arms embargo forced by U.S. maneuvers, the practical impact on Iran's
ability to cause mischief will be minimal, he said.
"It's not actually about stopping any arms from China and Russia, it's about winning a
political argument ," he said.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and the Chinese government's top diplomat, Wang Yi,
both wrote to the 15-member council and U.N. chief Antonio Guterres as the United States
threatens to spark a so-called sanctions snapback under the Iran nuclear deal, even though
Washington quit the accord in 2018.
Lavrov wrote in the May 27 letter, made public this week, that the United States was being
"ridiculous and irresponsible."
"This is absolutely unacceptable and serves only to recall the famous English proverb
about having one's cake and eating it," Lavrov wrote.
Washington has threatened to trigger a return of U.N. sanctions on Iran if the Security
Council does not extend an arms embargo due to expire in October under Tehran's deal with
world powers to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons.
...
Lavrov cited a 1971 International Court of Justice opinion, which found that a fundamental
principle governing international relationships was that "a party which disowns or does not
fulfill its own obligations cannot be recognized as retaining the rights which it claims to
derive from the relationship."
Despite the evident failure to convince others the U.S. continues make stupid
arguments :
Russia and China will be isolated at the United Nations if they continue down the "road to
dystopia" by blocking a U.S. bid to extend a weapons ban on Iran, U.S. Iran envoy Brian Hook
told Reuters ahead of his formal pitch of the embargo to the U.N. Security Council on
Wednesday.
...
"We see a widening gap between Russia and China and the international community," Hook said
in an interview with Reuters on Tuesday evening.
The U.S. has left the JCPoA deal and can not claim a right under that deal to snap back the
sanctions that the deal has lifted. It is the U.S. that is isolated. Even its allies do not
support the attempt:
"We firmly believe that any unilateral attempt to trigger UN sanctions snapback would have
serious adverse consequences in the UNSC," the foreign ministers of Britain, France, and
Germany said in a statement on June 19. "We would not support such a decision which would be
incompatible with our current efforts to preserve the JCPoA."
The Trump policy against Iran has failed. He has tried a 'maximum pressure' campaign to
blackmail Iran into more concessions. But despite sanctions and economic problems caused by
them Iran is not willing to talk with him. Its conditions for talks
are clear :
"We have no problem with talks with the U.S., but only if Washington fulfils its obligations
under the nuclear deal, apologies and compensates Tehran for its withdrawal from the 2015
deal," Rouhani said in a televised speech.
The U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, including the new sanctions against Syria under
the 'Ceasar's Law', have been helping Iran to
strengthen its position :
Iran is reaping huge benefits, including more robust allies and resistant strongholds as a
result of the US's flawed Middle Eastern policies. Motivated by the threat of the
implementation of "Caesar' Law", Iran has prepared a series of steps to sell its oil and
finance its allies, bypassing depletion of its foreign currency reserves.
Iranian companies found in Syria a paradise for strategic investment and offered the
needed alternative to a Syrian economy crippled by sanctions and nine years of war. Iran
considers Syria a fertile ground to expand its commerce and business like never before.
With Iran's influence growing and Russia making
inroads even with once staunch U.S. allies like Saudi Arabia it seems that real U.S.
influence in the Middle East is on a decisive downturn.
Whatever Pompous Pompeo says or tweets will not change that. But there's a sucker born every
minute. Some of those may still fall for the stuff he says.
--- Twice a year I ask readers of this blog to support my effort. Please consider contributing
.
Posted by b on June 24, 2020 at 17:10 UTC | Permalink
Obama did the JCPOA because he was forced to. The Syrian War was taking longer than
expected. The thinking in the early part of the war was that "the road to Tehran runs
through Damascus".
In fact, JCPOA was so never ratified by US Congress. That's why Trump could so easily end
US participation (as intended/expected). Iran has always been in the cross-hairs. The only
question is one of timing.
Obama also tried to milk the "Iran peace agreement" for public relations benefits but this
couldn't cover his warmongering and war crimes:
his failure to stop the wars in Iraq (Obama wanted to stay but Iraq demanded that US
troops be subject to US laws) and Afghanistan;
his free pass to CIA for rendition and torture (he actually outsourced it to other
countries) and his nonchalance regarding NSA spying;
his failure to close Guantanamo (yet another broken campaign promise);
his extra-legal bombing campaign in Libya (UN had only authorized a No-Fly Zone) -
spearheaded by his SecState Hillary Clinton;
his covert war in Syria (with John McCain's blessing);
his "wilful decision" to allow the rise of ISIS (which many now believe is
sponsored by CIA/Mossad/MIT/KSA).
@Emslander
Hannah Arendt noted the 'banality of evil' long ago. It's pretty common, sad to say.
The military is filled with 'ordinary' people who apparently have no qualms about
murdering anyone their 'superiors' point to and say, "Kill!" They are just following orders,
after all.
The number of 'evil players' is simply staggering, whether we want to admit it or not. And
yes, they DO drink watery beer and watch "Wheel of Fortune" and have bar-b-ques. John Wayne
Gacy comes to mind immediately. Who knows who our neighbors really are, deep down inside?
As for naming names, gosh, I seem to have lost my DARPA personnel directory of evil
geniuses, and my CIA directory of same as well.
(But as for who REALLY controls things and gives the orders, I think you may have nailed
it with Sister Aimee. And she was HOT in her day, and apparently knew how to have a good
time. Hallelujah, brother ..)
The banality of evil is often not known until revisionist historians are able to make
connections post facto. In the moment people do not have enough information to make informed
decisions.
"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."
For example, during the French Revolution most of the participants had no idea of what a
Jacobian was.
Or, during the Bolshevik Revolution, most participants had no idea of who Kuhn and Loeb
was.
Or, before WW1 was the machinations of the Milner Group known?
Or, before WW2, the machinations of Zionists to get Balfour.
Or, how Focus group had gotten to Churchill with loans.
Why the evil? It is usually hidden string pullers who are afraid of losing their vaunted
position in ruling hierarchy. They may actually think they are doing good, because doing good
is defined as "what is good for me, or my in-group."
Yes, Nudelman and her ilk are rabidly anti-Russian. But what they did in Ukraine revealed a
very different thing: globohomo elites are mentally degenerate, they cannot foresee even
immediate consequences of their moves.
There was a joke in Russia that for the coup in 2014 in Kiev Obama deserves a medal "For
the liberation of Crimea" (there was a medal of this name in WWII). There was another joke,
that Ukraine without Crimea is like a purebred stallion without balls.
Neocons planned to make Ukraine a battering rum against Russia. They did not understand
that a log rotten through and through cannot serve as a battering ram. Now they are stuck
with that wreck ("you break it – you own it" rule) and don't know what to do with it.
Previous US administration and DNC big shots (Biden, Pelosi, Schiff, and Co) used it mostly
as a rout of stealing US taxpayers' money. Current administration does not seem to have even
this use for it. The US keeps proving the age-old wisdom that when you see your enemy
committing suicide, do not interfere. Putin appears to have a huge stock of popcorn.
"... I see Geo has already pointed out the obvious absurdity that any of these criminal were in the least bit worried bout US security. If anything, they were overtly sacrificing US security on behalf of an enemy state. ..."
All were hawks who believed that the United States had the right to do whatever it
considered necessary to enhance its own security,
I see Geo has already pointed out the obvious absurdity that any of these criminal were in
the least bit worried bout US security. If anything, they were overtly sacrificing US security
on behalf of an enemy state. Not sure why you write stuff like that Mr. G, unless you just
expect people to ignore it as perfunctory tripe, but there are some, no doubt, who read those
words and assume you are actually saying they care about the US. When you and I both know they
don't.
Clinton and Obama were so-called liberal interventionists who sought to export something
called democracy to other countries in an attempt to make them more like Peoria.
Nope.
They were and are both amoral, opportunistic zio-whores, whose only ideology is what's good
for Clinton and Obama, respectively. Clinton didn't bomb Serbia out of some humanitarian love
of freedom and democracy, and Obama didn't destroy Libya and Syria except to serve his
zio-masters. Duh.
So the difference between neocons and liberal interventionists is one of style rather than
substance. And, by either yardstick all-in-all, Trump looks pretty good,
I was telling my gal the other day, that Trump could be The One to End the Fed, by allowing
Goldman Sachs and the rest of them to feast at the Treasury to their heart's content.
I reminded her of Jackson's quote about hurting ten thousand families, in order to save
fifty thousand. And in a similar vein, Trump could be setting up the collapse of the ZUS
economy, which will hurt hundreds of millions, but if he could collapse the dollar, he very
well might save billions of people's lives.
"Gentlemen, I have had men watching you for a long time and I am convinced that you have
used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country. When you won, you
divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the bank. You tell me
that if I take the deposits from the bank and annul its charter, I shall ruin ten thousand
families. That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin! Should I let you go on, you will
ruin fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin! You are a den of vipers and thieves.
I intend to rout you out, and by the Eternal God, I will rout you out."
– Andrew Jackson (1767-1845)
Nuland is most famous for her foul language when referring to the potential European
role
I beg to differ, Mr. G.
I would posit that her most famous utterings were when she imperiously demanded that "Yats
is our guy". IOW, the way she was promoting "democracy" in Ukraine, was by corrupting the
system with 5 billions of tax payer lucre- to the point where she, *personally* could decide
who- (Jewish banker) would be president in a nation thousands of miles away. That's how
the ZUS promotes "democracy" in foreign lands. (and, I suspect that it was the way that call
was leaked, that is the fount of all the rage at Russia, for "Russian hacking', breaking
long-standing diplomatic protocols against exposing other nation's treachery and corruption to
the 'little people').
Nuland's view . Russia to violate arms control treaties, international law, the
sovereignty of its neighbors, and the integrity of elections in the United States and
Europe
for Nuland to talk about 'International law and the 'integrity of European elections'.. is
like Jerry Sandusky lecturing people on child welfare.
That strategy required consistent U.S. leadership at the presidential level,
OK, so not only Nuland but also John Bolton is screeching that Trump is the disaster of our
times.
Not since John McCain has a mad dog Zionist insider been so full of hate for Trump.
Hmm..
"... First, our imperialists are the direct descendants intellectually, spiritually, and morally of the first WASP Empire, the first Anglo-Zionist Empire: the British Empire. And they have used their high IQs that are focused on grasping the One Ring to Rule Them All to locate where the Brit WASP Empire failed to achieve its goals, which allowed the collapse starting with World War 1. They are obsessed with that because they believe that if they can achieve what the Brit WASPs failed to achieve, then they can make the Anglo-Zionist Empire 2.0 as permanent as the Roman Empire – a Thousand Year Reich. ..."
"... And that is spiritually what all WASP imperialism, all Anglo-Zionist imperialism back to at least the Anglo-Saxon Puritans, is about: replacing the Roman Empire, which means replacing that which culturally led to, and was absolutely indispensable to, Christendom. ..."
"... Our 'foreign interventionists' have seen Russia under Putin rise from the ashes, and they intend to destroy Russia once and for all, so they then can reduce China and win The Great Game. And thus make Anglo-Zionist Empire greater than Roman Empire. ..."
"... The "foreign interventionists" want two things: Russia's mineral riches and its good gene pool (how do you think Middle Eastern Semites became blonde hair-blue eyed people who can easily blend into the West to undermine it from within in the first place to begin with?) ..."
Why do our 'foreign interventionists,' our 'permanent war for globalist perpetual peace'
crusaders, our Neocons, hate Russia so thoroughly and so centrally to their very beings?
First, our imperialists are the direct descendants intellectually, spiritually, and
morally of the first WASP Empire, the first Anglo-Zionist Empire: the British Empire. And
they have used their high IQs that are focused on grasping the One Ring to Rule Them All to
locate where the Brit WASP Empire failed to achieve its goals, which allowed the collapse
starting with World War 1. They are obsessed with that because they believe that if they can
achieve what the Brit WASPs failed to achieve, then they can make the Anglo-Zionist Empire
2.0 as permanent as the Roman Empire – a Thousand Year Reich.
And that is spiritually what all WASP imperialism, all Anglo-Zionist imperialism back to
at least the Anglo-Saxon Puritans, is about: replacing the Roman Empire, which means
replacing that which culturally led to, and was absolutely indispensable to, Christendom.
What they wish to redo and achieve that the Brit WASPs failed in is winning The Great
Game: becoming total master of Eur-Asia. And that requires taking out Russia and China. In
the 19th century, China was sicker than even the Ottoman Turkish Empire. To play the long
game to destroy Russia, the Brit WASPs allied with the Turks to prevent Russia acting to push
the Ottomans out of Europe. Brit WASP secret service in eastern Europe was focused on
reducing Russia significantly right through the Bolshevik Revolution, even with Russia
naively, stupidly allied with the British Empire in World War 1.
Our 'foreign interventionists' have seen Russia under Putin rise from the ashes, and they
intend to destroy Russia once and for all, so they then can reduce China and win The Great
Game. And thus make Anglo-Zionist Empire greater than Roman Empire.
Second, our Neocons are the spiritual and intellectual descendants not just of
Trotskyites, but of all Russia-hating Jews with ties to Central and/or Eastern Europe. For
them, Russia always is the evil that must be destroyed for the good of Jews.
Everything at its bedrock is about theology, is about the choice between Christ and
Christendom or the Chaos of anti-Christendom.
The "foreign interventionists" want two things: Russia's mineral riches and its good gene
pool (how do you think Middle Eastern Semites became blonde hair-blue eyed people who can
easily blend into the West to undermine it from within in the first place to begin with?)
And they won't stop until they get what they want, by hook or crook!
"... Of course ultimately you reach a point where no one truly understands what is real and what isn't any more. ..."
"... Boris Johnson PM of the UK? Surely not, Theresa May? I can barely wipe the smirk from my face. 4th and 5th rate politicians relying on SPADs to run the country. ..."
"... Reading his recent essay on the truths of WWII ( http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/63527 ) yet again sees him posting uncomfortable realities to a West knee deep in vassalage to a crumbling US. ..."
"... Change is coming whether we like it or not, with or without Putin, we'd best tend our own garden and stop worrying about an opposition that simply doesn't exist. ..."
Gerald says:
June 20, 2020 at 5:34 pm surely 'legitimacy' goes to the victor. Once you've won
you can build a sort of legitimacy that the majority will agree with (whether its real
or not) of course if you are a kind of despotic dictatorship (as appears to be
happening in terms of western neoliberal capitalism) then you will merely do as you
wish regardless until confronted with overwhelming opposition at which point you will
infiltrate and co-opt said opposition, pay lip service to their vague claim for
'rights' and continue on your merry way.
I always thought that the greatest thing that the capitalists did in the 20th
century was to get the slaves to love their slavery, its all advertising, hollywood, TV
that's all that politics has become, certainly in the West. Edward Bernays has a lot to
answer for.
Of course ultimately you reach a point where no one truly understands what is
real and what isn't any more.
Boris Johnson PM of the UK? Surely not, Theresa May? I can barely wipe the smirk
from my face. 4th and 5th rate politicians relying on SPADs to run the
country.
There is no wonder that Putin looks like the greatest 21st century leader, the last
of a dying breed. Reading his recent essay on the truths of WWII ( http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/63527
) yet again sees him posting uncomfortable realities to a West knee deep in vassalage
to a crumbling US.
Change is coming whether we like it or not, with or without Putin, we'd best
tend our own garden and stop worrying about an opposition that simply doesn't
exist.
Bolton, of course, dismissed the entire concept of diplomacy from the very start. He never
bought into the notion that North Korean officials could be talked to sensibly because they
were, well, insane. Bolton's version of North Korea diplomacy was to tighten the
economic screws, brandish the U.S. military, and wait until one of two things happened: 1) the
Kim regime surrendered its entire nuclear weapons program like Libya's Muammar al-Qaddafi, or
2) the Kim regime continued to spur Washington's demands, in which the White House would have
no option but to use U.S. military force. Bolton's
record is analogous to a stereotypical linebacker on an obscene amount of steroids -- smash
your opponent to pieces and don't think twice about it. Top Beauty Surgeon Says "Forget Facelifts, This at Home Tip is My #1 Wrinkle Red Del Mar
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The only problem:
North Korea isn't some helpless punter with string bean arms and a lanky midsection. It's a
nuclear weapons state fiercely proud of its independence and sovereignty, constantly on guard
for the slightest threat from a foreign power, and cognizant of its weakened position relative
to its neighbors. This is one of the prime reasons Bolton's obsession with the Libya-style
North Korea deal, in which Pyongyang would theoretically discard its entire nuclear apparatus
and allow U.S. weapons inspectors to take custody of its nuclear warheads before flying them
back to the U.S. for destruction, was
unworkable from the start. The Libya-model trumpeted by Bolton was a politically correct
way of demanding Pyongyang's total surrender -- an extremely naive goal if there ever was one.
When one remembers the fate of Qaddafi 8 years after he traded sanctions relief for his weapons
of mass destruction -- the dictator was assaulted and humiliated before being executed in the
desert -- even the word "Libya" is treated by the Kim dynasty as a threat to its existence. As
Paul Pillar wrote
in these pages more than two years ago, "Libya's experience does indeed weigh heavily on the
thinking of North Korean officials, who have taken explicit notice of that experience, as a
disincentive to reaching any deals with the United States about dismantling weapons
programs."
One can certainly take
issue with Trump's North Korea policy. Two years of personal diplomacy with Kim Jong-un have yet to
result in the denuclearization Washington seeks (denuclearization is more of a slogan than a
realistic objective at this point, anyway). But Trump's strategy aside, Bolton's alternative
was worse. The president knew his former national security adviser's public insistence on the
Libya model was dangerously inept. He
had to walk back Bolton's
comments weeks later to ensure the North Koreans didn't pull out of diplomacy before it got
off the ground. Trump hasn't forgotten about the experience; on June 18, Trump tweeted
that "Bolton's dumbest of all statements set us back very badly with North Korea, even now. I
asked him, "what the hell were you thinking?"
Personally he is a bully and as such a coward: he can attack only a weaker opponent. His new
book shows that however discredited and intellectually thin his foreign policy views are, they
always rise to the top. To Bolton the country is simply a vehicle for smiting his enemies
abroad.
Notable quotes:
"... Bolton's hawkishness is combined with an equally striking lack of originality. It is possible to be an unorthodox or partisan hawk, as we see in populists who want to get out of the Middle East but ramp up pressure on China, or Democrats who have a particular obsession with Russia. Bolton takes the most belligerent position on every issue without regards for partisanship or popularity, a level of consistency that would almost be honorable if it wasn't so frightening. No alliance or commitment is ever questioned, and neither, for that matter, is any rivalry. ..."
"... Bolton lacks any intellectual tradition or popular support base that he can call his own. Domestic political concerns are almost completely missing from his book, although we learn that he follows "Adam Smith on economics, Edmund Burke on society," is happy with Trump's judicial appointments, and favors legal, but not illegal, immigration. Other than these GOP clichés, there is virtually no commentary or concern about the state of American society or its trajectory. Unlike those who worry about how global empire affects the United States at home, to Bolton the country is simply a vehicle for smiting his enemies abroad. While Bolton's views have been called "nationalist" because he doesn't care about multilateralism, nation-building, or international law, I have never seen a nationalist that gives so little thought to his nation. ..."
"... Bolton recounts how his two top aides, Charles Kupperman and Mira Ricardel, had extensive experience working for Boeing. Patrick Shanahan similarly became acting Secretary of Defense after spending thirty years at that company, until he was replaced by Mark Esper, a Raytheon lobbyist. Why working for a company that manufactures aircraft and weapons prepares one for a job in foreign policy, the establishment has never felt the need to explain, any more than it needs to explain continuing Cold War-era military commitments three decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union. ..."
"... The most important question raised by the career of John Bolton is how someone with his views has been able to achieve so much power. While Bolton gets much worse press and always goes a step too far even for most of the foreign policy establishment, in other ways he is all too typical. Take James Mattis, a foil for Bolton throughout much of the first half of the book. Although more popular in the media, the "warrior monk" slow-walked and obstructed attempts by the president to pull out of the Middle East, and after a career supporting many of the same wars and commitments as Bolton, now makes big bucks in the private sector, profiting off of his time in government. ..."
The release of John Bolton's book today has become a Washington cultural event, because he
is, by all measures, Washington's creature.
Those who dislike the Trump administration have been pleased to find in The Room Where It
Happened confirmation in much of what they already believed about the Ukraine scandal and
the president's lack of capacity for the job. Some accusations in the book, such as the story
about Trump seeking reelection help from China through American farm purchases, are new, and in
an alternative universe could have formed the basis of a different, or if Bolton had his way,
more comprehensive, impeachment inquiry.
While Bolton's book has been found politically useful by the president's detractors, the
work is also important as a first-hand account from the top of the executive branch over a
19-month period, from April 2018 to September 2019. It also, mostly inadvertently, reveals much
about official Washington, the incentive structures that politicians face, and the kind of
person that is likely to succeed in that system. Bolton may be a biased self-promoter, but he
is nonetheless a credible source, as his stories mostly involve conversations with other people
who are free to eventually tell their own side. Moreover, the John Bolton of The Room Where
It Happened is no different from the man we know from his three-decade career as a
government official and public personality. No surprises here.
There are three ways to understand John Bolton. In increasing order of importance, they are
intellectually, psychologically, and politically -- that is, as someone who is both a product
of and antagonist to the foreign-policy establishment -- in many ways typical, and in others a
detested outlier.
On the first of these, there simply isn't much there. Bolton takes the most hawkish position
on every issue. He wants war with North Korea and Iran, and if he can't have that, he'll settle
for destroying their economies and sabotaging any attempts by Trump to reach a deal with either
country. He takes the maximalist positions on great powers like China and Russia, and third
world states that pose no plausible threat like Cuba and Venezuela. At one point, he brags
about State reversing "Obama's absurd conclusion that Cuban baseball was somehow independent of
its government, thus in turn allowing Treasury to revoke the license allowing Major League
Baseball to traffic in Cuban players." How this helps Americans or Cubans is left
unexplained.
Bolton's hawkishness is combined with an equally striking lack of originality. It is
possible to be an unorthodox or partisan hawk, as we see in populists who want to get out of
the Middle East but ramp up pressure on China, or Democrats who have a particular obsession
with Russia. Bolton takes the most belligerent position on every issue without regards for
partisanship or popularity, a level of consistency that would almost be honorable if it wasn't
so frightening. No alliance or commitment is ever questioned, and neither, for that matter, is
any rivalry.
Anyone who picks up Bolton's over 500-page memoir hoping to find serious reflection on the
philosophical basis of American foreign policy will be disappointed. The chapters are broken up
by topic area, most beginning with a short background explainer on Bolton's views of the issue.
In the chapter on Venezuela, we are told that overthrowing the government of that country is
important because of "its Cuba connection and the openings it afforded Russia, China, and
Iran." The continuing occupation of Afghanistan is necessary for preventing terrorists from
establishing a base, and, in an argument I had not heard anywhere before, for "remaining
vigilant against the nuclear-weapons programs in Iran on the west and Pakistan on the east."
Iran needs to be deterred, though from what we are never told.
Bolton lacks any intellectual tradition or popular support base that he can call his
own. Domestic political concerns are almost completely missing from his book, although we learn
that he follows "Adam Smith on economics, Edmund Burke on society," is happy with Trump's
judicial appointments, and favors legal, but not illegal, immigration. Other than these GOP
clichés, there is virtually no commentary or concern about the state of American society
or its trajectory. Unlike those who worry about how global empire affects the United States at
home, to Bolton the country is simply a vehicle for smiting his enemies abroad. While Bolton's
views have been called "nationalist" because he doesn't care about multilateralism,
nation-building, or international law, I have never seen a nationalist that gives so little
thought to his nation.
The more time one spends reading Bolton, the more one comes to the conclusion that the guy
just likes to fight. In addition to seeking out and escalating foreign policy conflicts, he
seems to relish going to war with the media and the rest of the Washington bureaucracy. His
book begins with a quote from the Duke of Wellington rallying his troops at Waterloo: "Hard
pounding, this, gentlemen. Let's see who will pound the longest." The back cover quotes the
epilogue on his fight with the Trump administration, responding "game on" to attempts to stop
publication. He takes a mischievous pride in recounting attacks from the media or foreign
governments, such as when he was honored to hear that North Korea worried about his influence
over the President. Bolton is too busy enjoying the fight, and as will be seen below, profiting
from it, to reflect too carefully on what it's all for.
Bolton could be ignored if he were simply an odd figure without much power. Yet the man has
been at the pinnacle of the GOP establishment for thirty years, serving appointed roles in
every Republican president since Reagan. The story of how he got his job in the Trump
administration is telling. According to Bolton's account, he was courted throughout the
transition process and the early days of the administration by Steve Bannon and Jared Kushner,
ironic considering the reputation of the former as a populist opposed to forever wars and the
latter as a more liberal figure within the White House. Happy with his life outside government,
Bolton would accept a position no lower than Secretary of State or National Security Advisor.
Explaining his reluctance to enter government in a lower capacity, Bolton provides a list of
his commitments at the time, including "Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute; Fox
News contributor; a regular on the speaking circuit; of counsel at a major law firm; member of
corporate boards; senior advisor to a global private-equity firm."
Clearly, being an advocate for policies that can destroy the lives of millions abroad, and a
complete lack of experience in business, have proved no hindrance to Bolton's success in
corporate America.
Bolton recounts how his two top aides, Charles Kupperman and Mira Ricardel, had
extensive experience working for Boeing. Patrick Shanahan similarly became acting Secretary of
Defense after spending thirty years at that company, until he was replaced by Mark Esper, a
Raytheon lobbyist. Why working for a company that manufactures aircraft and weapons prepares
one for a job in foreign policy, the establishment has never felt the need to explain, any more
than it needs to explain continuing Cold War-era military commitments three decades after the
collapse of the Soviet Union.
Ricardel resigned after a dispute over preparations for the First Lady's trip to Africa, an
example of how too often in the Trump administration, nepotism and self-interest have been the
only checks on bad policy or even greater corruption ("Melania's people are on the warpath,"
Trump is quoted as saying). Another is when Trump, according to Bolton, was less than vigorous
in pursing destructive Iranian sanctions due to personal relationships with the leaders of
China and Turkey. At the 2019 G7 summit, when Pompeo and Bolton try to get Benjamin Netanyahu
to reach out to Trump to talk him out of meeting with the Iranian foreign minister, Jared
prevents his call from going through on the grounds that a foreign government shouldn't be
telling the President of the United States who to meet with.
The most important question raised by the career of John Bolton is how someone with his
views has been able to achieve so much power. While Bolton gets much worse press and always
goes a step too far even for most of the foreign policy establishment, in other ways he is all
too typical. Take James Mattis, a foil for Bolton throughout much of the first half of the
book. Although more popular in the media, the "warrior monk" slow-walked and obstructed
attempts by the president to pull out of the Middle East, and after a career supporting many of
the same wars and commitments as Bolton, now makes big bucks in the private sector, profiting
off of his time in government.
In the coverage of Bolton, this is what should not be lost. The former National Security
Advisor is the product of a system with its own internal logic. Largely discredited and
intellectually hollow, and without broad popular support, it persists in its practices and
beliefs because it has been extremely profitable for those involved. The most extreme hawks are
simply symptoms of larger problems, with the flamboyant Bolton being much more like mainstream
members of the foreign policy establishment than either side would like to admit.
Richard Hanania is a research fellow at the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace
Studies at Columbia University.
"... Bolton's account sheds light on how it happened: hawks in the administration, including Bolton himself, wanted U.S. forces in Syria fighting Russia and Iran. They saw the U.S.-Kurdish alliance against ISIS as a distraction -- and let the Turkish-Kurdish conflict fester until it spiralled out of control. ..."
The drama eventually ended with President Donald Trump pulling U.S. peacekeepers out of
Syria -- and then sending them
back in . One hundred thousand
Syrian civilians were displaced by an advancing Turkish army, and the Kurdish-led Syrian
Democratic Forces turned to Russia for help. But U.S. forces never fully withdrew -- they are
still stuck in Syria defending oil wells .
Bolton's account sheds light on how it happened: hawks in the administration, including
Bolton himself, wanted U.S. forces in Syria fighting Russia and Iran. They saw the U.S.-Kurdish
alliance against ISIS as a distraction -- and let the Turkish-Kurdish conflict fester until it
spiralled out of control.
Pompeo issued a statement on Thursday night denouncing Bolton's entire book as "a number of
lies, fully-spun half-truths, and outright falsehoods."
"... let us not forget that bolton threatened a un officials kids because they guy wasn't going along with the iraq war propaganda. ..."
"... Close -- the threatened official was Jose Bustani, at that time (2002) the head of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW)as he had been for five years. ..."
"... Bustani had been working to bring Iraq and Libya into the organization, which would have required those two countries to eliminate all of their chemical weapons. ..."
"... The US, though, had other ideas -- chiefly invading and destroying both of those nations, and when Bustani insisted on continuing his efforts then Bolton threatened Bustani's adult children. ..."
The political establishment in Canada appeared dismayed at the prospect of Bolton as National
Security Adviser. See these interviews with Hill + Knowlton strategies Vice-chairman, Peter
Donolo, from 2018:
So Bolton gets in, Meng Wangzhou is detained in Vancouver on the US request (that's
another story), and in time, Canada appoints a new Ambassador to China - Mr. Dominic
Barton.
Close -- the threatened official was Jose Bustani, at that time (2002) the head of the
Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW)as he had been for five
years.
Bustani had been working to bring Iraq and Libya into the organization, which would
have required those two countries to eliminate all of their chemical weapons.
The US, though, had other ideas -- chiefly invading and destroying both of those
nations, and when Bustani insisted on continuing his efforts then Bolton threatened Bustani's
adult children.
let the lobbyists with the most money win... that's what defines the usa system, leadership
and decision making process... no one in their right mind would support this doofus..
At least the one saving grace about John Bolton's memoir is that it might be a tad closer to
reality than Christopher Steele's infamous dossier and might prove valuable as a source of
evidence in a court of law. Maybe
Yosemite Sam himself should start quaking in his boots.
Yes why not? If Obama awarded the Noble prize even before he begins serving his first term
I can't see why Bolton not nominated now. America is a joke, not a banana republic. It
deserves Obama, Trump, Bolton or Biden another stoopid joker.
@ Jpc
When faced with Trump's behavior of employing warmongers, including several generals, some
observers opined that Trump wanted people with contrasting opinions so that he could consider
them and then say "no." He did more with Bolton eventually, sending him to Mongolia while he
(Trump) went to Singapore (or somewhere over there).
re Ian2 | Jun 17 2020 23:08 utc | 19
who hazarded : My guess Trump went along with the tough guy image that Bolton projected in
media and recommendations by others.
Not at all, if you go back to the earliest days of the orangeman's prezdency, you will see
Trump resisted the efforts by Mercer & the zionist casino owner to give Bolton a gig.
He knew that shrub had problems with the boasts of Bolton and as his reputation was as an
arsehole who sounded his own trumpet at his boss's expense orangeman refused for a long time.
Trump believes the trump prezdency is about trump no one else.
Thing was at the time he was running for the prez gig trump was on his uppers, making a few
dollars from his tv show, plus licensing other people's buildings by selling his name to be
stuck on them. trump tower azerbnajan etc.
He put virtually none of his own money into the 'race' so when he won the people who had put
up the dosh had power over him.
Bolton has always been an arse kisser to any zionist cause he suspects he can claw a penny
outta, so he used the extreme loony end of the totally looney zionist spectrum to hook him
(Bolton) up with a gig by pushing for him with trump.
It was always gonna end the way it did as Bolton is forever briefing the media against
anyone who tried to resist his murderous fantasies. Trump is never gonna argue for any scheme
that doesn't have lotsa dollars for him in it so he had plenty of run ins with Bolton who
then went to his media mates & told tales.
When bolton was appointed orangey's stakes were at a really low ebb among DC warmongers, so
he reluctantly took him on then spent the next 18 months getting rid of the grubby
parasite.
div> Yosemite Sam did it better. I would prefer a Foghorn Leghorn-type
character, for US diplomacy.
Real History: Candidate Trump praised Bolton and named him as THE number one Foreign Policy
expert he (Trump) respected.
Imagine the mustachioed Mister Potatoe (sic) Head and zany highjinks!
Bolton and one of his first wives were regulars at Plato's Retreat for wife swapping
orgies. The wife was not real keen on the behavior, but she allegedly found herself verbally
and physically abused for objecting.
Trump is at fault for hiring him to appease the Zionist lobby. We all knew the guy was a
warmonger and a scumbag. It's not a surprise. Trump surrounds himself with the worst people
Did John Bolton put his personal interests above the will of congress in an attempt to extort
the Ukrainian government? You're making a false equivalence. You seem to have a soft spot for
Trump. Bolton is an in-your-face son of a bitch, but Trump, Trump is just human garbage.
Pretty much a nothing burger if thats all he has got. Just a distraction. Trumps outrage just
meant help Bolton sell some books. Lol. People are so easy to fool.
I still think Bolton managing the operations as COG in Cheneys old bunker. Coming out for
a vacation while next phase is planned
Bolton is just another American arsehole. Nothing new. When they do not get their way, the y
always turn on their superiors, or those in charge. Bolton is just another "Anhänger"
personal gain is what motivates him.
He should have been a blot on his parents bedsheets or at least a forced abortion, but
unfortunately that did not happen...
The self-appointed Deep State has pretty much thwarted him (Trump) and his voters.
Posted by: bob sykes | Jun 17 2020 20:55 utc | 11
Trump thwarted Trump. Before he got elected, Trump mentioned his admiration of Bolton more
than once. Voters of Trump elected a liar and an incoherent person -- at time,
incomprehensible, a nice bonus. But it is worth noticing that Trump never liked being binded
by agreement, like, say, an agreement to pay money back to creditors, or whatever
international agreement would restrict USA from doing what they damn please.
Superficially, it is mysterious why Trump made an impression that he wants to negotiate
with North Korea with some agreement at the end. Was he forced to make a mockery from the
negotiation by someone sticking knife to his back?
Some may remember that Trump promised to abolish Affordable Care Act and replace it with
"something marvelous". The latest version is that he will start thinking about it again after
re-election. If you believe that...
Granted, Trump is more sane than Bolton, but just a bit, unlike Bolton he has some moments
of lucidity.
In conclusion, I would advocate to vote for Biden. If you need a reason, that would be
that Biden never tweets, or if he does, it is forgettable before the typing is done. Unlike
the hideous Trumpian productions.
"men fit to be shaved," Tiberius, on Bolton and Friedman.
he is the best & brightest we have. when a dreadful mouth is called for. his insights
into the Trump WH are probably as deep as his knowledge of VZ, Iran, Cuba, etc. he's a useful
idiot, a willing fool. like Trump, he's the verbal equivalent of the cops on the street, in
foreign "policy." another abusive father figure
reading the imperial steak turds - an American form of reading the tea leaves or goat
livers or chicken flight or celestial what have you. an emperor craps out a big hairy one
like Bolton and the priests and hierophants and lawyers and scribes come for a long, close up
inspection and fact-gathering smell of another steaming pile of gmo-corn-and-downer-cow-fed,
colon cancer causing, Kansas feed-lot raised, grade A Murkin BEEF. guess what they in their
wisdom find? Trump stinks.
Scotch Bingeington @ 6 -- "Take a look at his face. It's obvious to me that even John Bolton
does not enjoy being John Bolton. That mouth, it's drooping to an absurd degree. Comparable
to Merkel's face, come to think of it.
At last, someone who notices physionomy!
That face drips with false modesty, kind of trying to make his face say, "... look at
harmless old me..."
That walrus bushiness points at an attempt to hide, to camouflage his true thoughts, his
malevolence.
That pretended stoop, with one hand clutching a sheaf of briefing papers, emulating the
posture of deferential court clerks, speaks to a lifetime of a snake in the grass "fighting"
from below for things important to himself.
But those of us who have been around the block a couple times will know to watch our backs
around this type. Poisoned-tipped daggers are their fave weapons, and your backs are their
fave "battle space". LOL
This statement by Jeffrey Sachs may as well also describe America's leadership crisis: "At
the root of America's economic crisis lies a moral crisis: the decline of civic virtue among
America's political and economic elite."
GeorgeV @ 8 -- "It's like standing on a street corner watching two prostitutes calling each
other a whore! How low has the US sunk."
And the US "leadeship" sends these types out to lecture other peoples on "values"? on how
to become "normal nations"? on how to "contain" old civilisations such as Iran, Russia,
China?
It is axiomatic that the stupid do not know they are stupid. Same goes for morals. The
immoral do not know they are immoral. Or, perhaps, as Phat Pomp-arse shows, they know they
are immoral, but do not care. Which makes one rightly guess that people like Bolt-On and him
must be depraved.
Yes, it may take centuries before the leadership in this depraved Exceptionally
Indispensable Nation to become truly normal again.
Of course, Trump actually campaigned to leave Afghanistan and Syria, and he was elected to do
so. The self-appointed Deep State has pretty much thwarted him and his voters. by: bob sykes
11
I wondered about He King claims that Trump actually attempted to do those awful things, .
.. , I looked for evidence to prove the claim.. I asked just about every librarian I could
find to please show me evidence that confirms the deep state over rode Mr. Trump's actual
attempt to remove USA anything from Afghanistan and Syria. thus far, no confirming or
supporting facts have been produced. to support such a claim. Mr. Trump could easily have
tweeted to his supporters something to the effect that the damn military, CIA, homeland
security, state department, foreign service, federal reserve, women's underwear association
and smiley Joe's hamburger stand in fact every militant in the USA governed America were
holding hands, locked in a conspiracy to block President Trumps attempt to remove USA
anything from Afghanistan or Syria.. If Mr. Trump has asked for those things, they would have
happened. The next day there would have been parties in the streets as the militant agency
heads began rolling as Mr. Trump fired them each and everyone.. No firings happened, the
party providers were disappointed, no troops, USA contractors or privatization pirates left
any foreign place.. as far as I can tell. 500 + military bases still remain in Europe none
have been abandoned.. and one was added in Israel. BTW i heard that Mr. Trump managed to get
17 trillion dollars into the hands of many who are contractors or suppliers to those foreign
operations. I can't say I am against Trump, but i can ask you to show me some evidence to
prove your claim.
Trump searches for new slogan as he abandons Keep America Great amid George Floyd and covid
turmoil
The president has taken to inserting the term 'Transition to Greatness' into his remarks.
His 2016 slogan was 'Make America Great Again'. After election he polled audiences on whether
to go with 'Keep America Great'. He told CPAC this year and said at the State of the Union
'The Best is Yet to Come'. Tweaks come as he trails Biden in new NBC and CNN polls, as the
nation struggles with the coronavirus and protests over police violence.
Ukrainian police seize $6 Million in bribes paid to kill the new case into crooked
Burisma.
This money is a Followup to the multi-millions in bribes Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, and
President Poroshenko earned to leverage their offices to kill the original case.
goals that you consider important are different from personal interests.
What personal interests has Trump actually advanced during his time as president. Leaving out
the fake allegations, I'm hard put to think of any. If you look at Trump's actual behaviour
rather than his bullshit or the bullshit aimed at him, I'm also hard put to think of anything
illegal he's done while in office that wasn't done by previous administrations.
US President Donald Trump sought help from Xi Jinping to win the upcoming 2020 election,
"pleading" with the Chinese president to boost imports of American agricultural products,
according to a new book by former national security adviser John Bolton. The accusations were
included in an excerpt from The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir, which is set to
be released on June 23. Bolton also wrote that Trump demonstrated other "fundamentally
unacceptable behaviour", including privately expressing support for China's mass interment of
Uygur Muslims and other ethnic minority groups in Xinjiang.*This video has been updated to
fix a spelling mistake.
@42 Mao I'm struggling to see how "pleading" with any country for it to purchase more US
goods is "fundamentally unacceptable behaviour" from a US President.
Pleading to Xi for China to give, say, Israel preferential access to markets, sure.
I have lived in the United States for a total of 24 years and I have witnessed many crises
over this long period, but what is taking place today is truly unique and much more serious
than any previous crisis I can recall. And to explain my point, I would like to begin by
saying what I believe the riots we are seeing taking place in hundreds of US cities are not
about. They are not about:
* Racism or "White privilege"
* Police violence
* Social alienation and despair
* Poverty
* Trump
* The liberals pouring fuel on social fires
* The infighting of the US elites/deep state
They are not about any of these because they encompass all of these issues, and more.
It is important to always keep in mind the distinction between the concepts of "cause" and
"pretext". And while it is true that all the factors listed above are real (at least to some
degree, and without looking at the distinction between cause and effect), none of them are
the true cause of what we are witnessing. At most, the above are pretexts, triggers if you
want, but the real cause of what is taking place today is the systemic collapse of the US
society.
Don't really want to take sides between those two odious characters, but I think there's a
difference in what the paper is saying.
One is about someone pursuing policy goals they favour, the other "personal interest".
From what I have seen so far, Bolton's main definition of Trump's "personal interest" is his
chances for re-election (rather than any personal business interest).
I think Bolton was happy for Trump to pursue the policy goals he favoured, at least when
they coincided with Bolton's!
How many people have cashed in on Trump so far? Countless numbers of them. An ocean of them.
Scathing books about Trump is one way to cash in on thr Trump effect, and the authors, many
of whom don't even write the book themselves, get promoted and their books promoted in the
mainstream media and elsewhere.
There is nothing new under the sun when it comes to Trump. We know everything there is to
know about Trump. Some of us knew everything there was to know about him before he became
POTUS. And yet, there he is, sitting like the Cheshire Cat in the Oval Office, untouchable
and beyond reproach. Meanwhile, even more scathing books are in the pipeline because there's
money, so much money, to be made don't you know.
Bolton is a shitbird every bit as much as Trump is and in fact an argument can be made
Bolton is even worse and even more dangerous than Trump because if Bolton had his druthers,
Iran would be a failed state right about now and America would be bogged down in a senseless
money-making (for the defense contractors owned by the extractive wealthy elite) quagmire in
Iran just as it was in Iraq and still is in Afghanistan.
Colbert is all into the Bolton book because he and his staff managed to secure an
interview with Bolton. Bolton, of course, has agreed to this because it's a great way to
promote his book to the likes of Cher who is the perfect example of the demographic Colbert
caters to with his show. Some of the commercials during Colbert's show last night? One was an
Old Navy commercial where they bragged about how they're giving to the poor. The family they
used for the commercial, the recipients of this beneficence, was a black family. Biden is
proud of Old Navy because don't you know, poor and black are one and the same. In otherwords,
there are no poor people except black people. No, that's not racist. Not at all. Also,
another commercial during Colbert's show was for the reopening of Las Vegas amidst the
spreading pandemic. This is immediately after a segment where Colbert is decrying Republican
governors for opening southern states too early. The hypocritical irony is so stark, you can
cut it with a chainsaw.
Mao @ 45 quoting The Saker -- ".... the real cause of what is taking place today is the
systemic collapse of the US society."
And the cause of American societal collapse has been corrupt US leadership.
In my 50 years of studying American society, I have learned to watch what US leaders do,
not what they preach. More profitable is to look at what declassified US documents tell us
about the truth, not what the presstitudes of the day pretend to dish up. Also, what other
world leaders might, in a candid moment, tell us about America.
And the cause of American societal collapse has been corrupt US leadership.
I would argue that this is a symptom or a feature versus the root of the problem.
Afterall, a system that allows for creeping entrenched endemic corruption, is a crappy
system. It's the system that's the root of this and it's not just isolated to the United
States. It's civilization itself that's the root and what enabled civilization -- the spirit
in our genes as Reg asserts.
I'm fully expecting the Dem "left" to try and praise the monsterous Bolton for "going
against Trump", as they did with war criminal Mad Dog Matis and Bush. Bolton has to be one
of the most evil mass murders on the face of the Earth. The world will be an infinitely
better place when he and his ilk like Netanyahu, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Chertoff..etc finally go
back to hell.
I agree. They would, because they already have and continue to do so, coddle and provide
apologia for any and all monsters who decry Trump. Hell, I'm convinced they would clamor for
Derek Chauvin's exoneration if he vocally decried Trump. Chauvin would make the rounds on the
media circuit excoriating Trump and telling the world, contritely of course, that it was
Trump who made him do it and now he sees the error of his ways. He'd be on Morning Joe and
Chris Cuomo's and Don Lemon's shows not to mention Ari Melber and Anderson Cooper and
Lawrence O'Donnell. The conservatives and their networks, who have provided apologia for
Chauvin thus far, would now be his worst enemy. Colbert and Kimmel would have him on and
guffawing with him asking him how it felt to choke the life out of someone, laughing all the
way so long as he hates Trump and tells the world how much he hates Trump.
This world is an insane asylum, especially America. All under the banner and aegis of
progress. And to think, humanity wants to export this madness to space and the universe at
large. Any intelligent life that would ever make its way to Planet Earth, if ever, would be
well-advised to exterminate the species human before it spread its poison to the universe at
large. Not that that is possible, but just in case the .000000000001% chance of that does
miraculously manifest.
Concerning Trump "pleading" with Xi, it is only right for a leader to request others to
buy more US farm produce. We have only Bolton's word that the request was a plea. We also
have only Bolton's word that the request / plea was to seek "help from Xi Jinping to win the
upcoming 2020 election". Too early to believe Bolton. Wait till we see the meeting
transcripts.
Bolton also alleged that Trump exhibited "fundamentally unacceptable behaviour" concerning
the Uygurs. Again, only Bolton's word. Even so, saying it is "unacceptable behavior" presumes
that China does wrong to incarcerate Uygurs. If not, ie, China either does not incarcerate
them, or if China has good moral grounds to do so, then Bolton is wrong to disagree with his
boss for uttering the right sentiment. Judging by how the anglo-zios shout about China's
"crime", I tend to think the opposite just might be the truth, and that says that Bolton is
simply mudslinging to sell books; score brownie points with the anglo-zios, virtue-signalling
for his next gig.
NYT writes Bolton direct US policy to fit his own political agenda,
while Bolton emphasizes Trump direct US policy in the way that pocket him most money.
Politician Bolton is consistent with his politician job (like it or not), Trump is
corrupted.
@56, I would argue that if one person could be both at the same time, that one person would
be Donald Trump. He's already proven, like Chauncey Gardner, he can walk on water. Seriously,
that excellent movie, Being There , starring the incomparable Peter Sellers, was about
Donald Trump's ascension to the Oval Office.
Using this 'quod licet jovi ...' the author apparently knows quite a bit of Latin, the dead
language!
But seriously, the nomination of Bolton who had always behaved like 2nd rate advisor, a 3rd
rate mcarthist cold warrior was a surprise to me. Such a short sighted heavily biased person
could be, yes, chosen a Minister or advisor in a banana Republic but was picked up by the
United states.
One can only conclude such a choice was driven by very specific interests of the deep
state.They needed a bulldog and got it for one year and half and threw the stinky perro soon
as the job was done.
And the cause of American societal collapse has been corrupt US leadership.
I would argue that this is a symptom or a feature versus the root of the problem.
Posted by: 450.org | Jun 18 2020 12:30 utc | 52
The primary cause of corrupt leadership is corrupt and corruption-accepting
population.
Without a population that is fundamentally corrupt and immoral, corrupt leadership is
unstable. Conversely - and this is important to recognise as the same phenomenon - democracy
cannot exist if the population accepts and takes for granted corruption, as the two are
mutually exclusive. In other words if you root out the corrupt leadership without dealing
with the mentality of the population, the corruption will quickly come back and any
democratic experiment will collapse very quickly.
There is one important qualifier - an overwhelming external influence (since WWII always
the USA, either directly or as secondary effect) can leverage latent corruption so that it
becomes more exaggerated than it normally would be.
What is clear from only this account of the crucial role of big money foundations behind
protest groups such as Black lives Matter is that there is a far more complex agenda driving
the protests now destabilizing cities across America. The role of tax-exempt foundations tied
to the fortunes of the greatest industrial and financial companies such as Rockefeller, Ford,
Kellogg, Hewlett and Soros says that there is a far deeper and far more sinister agenda to
current disturbances than spontaneous outrage would suggest.
Bolton pretended to be President, screwing up negotiations with his Libya Model talk,
threatening Venezuela (and anywhere generally) and directing fleets all over the world
(including Britain's to capture that Iranian oil tanker). Vindman revered "Ambassador" Bolton
because he was keeping the Ukraine corruption in Americans (and Ukrainian Americans') hands,
and daring the Russians to "start" WWIII. Bolton might have been a bit more bearable if he
had ever been elected, but was happy to see him go. Trump seemed mystified by him.
b has presented us (knowingly or not, but I wouldn't put it past him) with the Socratic
question of the presumed identity between the morality of the State and personal morality, as
best encountered in Plato's dialogue, 'The Republic' ['Politeia' in the Greek] That dialogue
begins by examining personal morality, but changes to an examination of what would bring into
being a perfect state. In doing the latter, however, it is how to create public spirited
persons, in the best sense, which is the actual concern, and the conversation ranges far and
wide, becoming more and more complex.
I've always thought that to consider the perfect state had to be an impossibility if the
individual, the person him or herself isn't up to the task - and that is the point of the
Politeia enterprise. Like the ongoing relay race on horseback that is happening at the same
time in the Piraeus, the passing of the argument one person to another that happens in the
dialogue demonstrates that what is most crucial for the state as well as for the individual
is personal integrity.
I take as an example the message of Saker's essay, linked by Down South and commented on
above by others. Saker is pointing out that the protests have been seized upon by the
anti-Trumpists who have been disrupting things from the beginning of his administration. But
he also says:
"My personal feeling is that Trump is too weak and too much of a coward to fight his
political enemies"
Which comes first, the chicken or the egg? The discussion of different kinds of states,
which we often have here pursued, or the discussion of what makes a person able to function
in one or another state? I don't think Plato was saying that Greece had it made, that Greece
needed to throw its weight around more to be great. He's pointing out that it had lost
greatness, the same way every empire loses when it forgets that individual spark that is in a
single person, his virtue. And the sad thing is it all comes down to the education of our
young people in the values, the virtues that apply both to his own personal life and to the
life of the state.
At its heart, the protests which are beginning, only beginning, and which are peaceful,
may be politeia vs. republic, the 'polis' itself against 'things political'. A new and true
enlightenment, multipolar.
Corruption's been a fact of life in North America ever since it was "discovered."
Bernard Bailyn captured it quite well in his The New England Merchants in the
Seventeenth Century , that is during the very first stages of plantation, with most
corruption taking place in Old England then exported to the West. Even the Founders were
corrupt, although they didn't see themselves as such. Isn't Adam & Eve's corruption
detailed in Genesis merely an indicator of a general human trait that needs to be managed via
culture? That human culture has generally failed to contain and discipline corruption speaks
volumes about both. John Dos Passos in his opus USA noted that everyone everywhere was
on the "hustle"--from the hobo to the banker. "Every child gots to have its own" are some of
the truest lyrics ever written. Will humanity ever transcend this major failure in its
nature?
Who is behind the claim that China is imprisoning vast numbers of Uighurs in concentration
camps and what evidence has been presented? See the Greyzone for its recent report on this.
Thanks to all of you for your insights on Bolton.
I still don't see anything to explain why he got a second gig in the Whitehouse.
Or anything that he did that enhanced US security long term.
And another guy who dodged active service.
Strange angry dude,!
Pat Lang believes that Bolton has breached a law requiring US Officials with access to Top
Secret Stuff to submit personal memoirs for scrutiny before publishing. Col Lang is awaiting
similar approval for a memoir of his own and thinks Bolton didn't bother waiting for the
Official OK.
There's a diverse range of comments. Most commentators like the idea of Bolton being tossed
in the slammer. Others speculate that as a Swamp Creature, Bolton will escape prosecution.
It's interesting that no-one has asked to see the publisher's copy of the USG's signed &
dated Approval To Publish document, relevant to Bolton's book.
Yes why not? If Obama awarded the Noble prize even before he begins serving his first term
I can't see why Bolton not nominated now. America is a joke, not a banana republic. It
deserves Obama, Trump, Bolton or Biden another stoopid joker.
Re: the Nuremberg trials , I became fascinated by the writings of Paul R. Pillar who
pointed out that U.S. sanctions are frequently peddled as a peaceful alternative to
war fit the definition of 'crimes against peace' . This is when one country sets up an
environment for war against another country. I'll grant you that this is vague but if this is
applicable at all how is this not an accurate description of what we are doing against Iran
and Venezuela?
In both cases, we are imposing a full trade embargo (not sanctions) on basic civilian
necessities and infrastructures and threatening the use of military force. As for Iran, the
sustained and unfair demonization of Iranians is preparing the U.S. public to accept a
ruthless bombing campaign against them as long overdue. We are already attacking the civilian
population of their allies in Syria, Yemen, and Lebanon.
How Ironic that the country that boasts that it won WW2 is now guilty of the very crimes
that it condemned publicly in court.
As Ben Garrison recent noted, in an
interview Bolton stated that it was OK for the government agencies to lie to the American
people if national security is at stake. And it always seems to be at stake for dominant men
who want secrecy and power. Bolton is a dangerous liar and his anti-Trump screed cannot be
trusted.
People who post of Twitter are stupid by definition, but people who fire employees for
posting on Twitter are trying to replicate excesses of Stalinism (and, in way, McCarthysm) on a
farce level. As in Marx "history repeats: first as tragedy, the second as farce"
By classifying the (somewhat incorrect; Obama was elected not only because he was half black,
but also because he was half--CIA ;-) Twit below as the cry "fire" in crowded theater, we really
try to replay the atmosphere of Stalinist Russia on a new level.
Notable quotes:
"... Austin Symphony Trombonist Fired Over Racist Comments , The Violin Channel, June 1, 2020 ..."
Have you checked out the 1/2 black president swine flu H1N1, and EBOLA?
What has your 1/2 black president done for you??
The ONLY REASON he was elected was because he is 1/2 black.
People voted on racist principles, not on the real issues . The BLACKS are looting and
destroying their environment. They deserve what
they get. Playing the RACE CARD IS RACIST.
Symphony orchestra spokes-critter Anthony Corroa [ Email him
]announced the firing of Ms. Salas in the dreary schoolmarmish jargon of corporate wokeness:
This language is not reflective of who we are as an organization." And "there is no
place for hate within our organization."
Two weeks ago a senior Trump Administration official revealed that the president had decided
to withdraw
9,500 American soldiers from Germany and that the administration would also be capping
total U.S. military presence in that country at 25,000, which might involve more cuts depending
what is included in the numbers. The move was welcomed in some circles and strongly criticized
in others, but many observers were also bemused by the announcement, noting that Donald Trump
had previously ordered a reduction in force in Afghanistan and a complete withdrawal from
Syria, neither of which has actually been achieved. In Syria, troops were only moved from the
northern part of the country to the oil producing region in the south to protect the fields
from seizure by ISIS, while in Afghanistan the nineteen-year-long training mission and
infrastructure reconstruction continue.
In a somewhat related development, the Iraqi parliament has called for the removal of U.S.
troops from the country, a demand that has been rejected by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Put
it all together and it suggests that any announcement coming from the White House on ending
America's useless wars should be regarded with some skepticism.
The United States has its nearly 35,000 military personnel remaining in Germany as its
contribution to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), founded in 1949 to counter
Soviet forces in Eastern Europe in what was to become the Warsaw Pact. Both the Organization
and Pact were ostensibly defensive alliances and the U.S. active participation was intended to
demonstrate American resolve to come to the aid of Western Europe. Currently, 75 years after
the end of World War II and thirty years after the fall of communist governments in Eastern
Europe, NATO is an anachronism, kept going by the many statesmen and military establishments of
the various countries that have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. Since the
demise of the European communist regimes, NATO has found work in bombing Serbia, destroying
Libya and in helping in the unending task to train an Afghan army.
In spite of the clearly diminished threat in Europe, NATO has expanded to 30 members,
including most of the former communist states that made up the Warsaw Pact. The most recent
acquisition was Montenegro in 2016, which contributed 2,400 soldiers to the NATO force. That
expansion was carried out in spite of assurances given to the post-Soviet Russian government
that military encroachment would not take place. Currently, NATO continues to focus on the
threat from Moscow as its own viable raison d'être , with its deployments and training
exercises often taking place right up against Russia's borders.
Few really believe that the Russia, which has a GDP only the size of Italy's, intends or is
even capable of reestablishing anything like the old Soviet Union. But a vulnerable Russia is
nevertheless interested in maintaining an old-fashioned sphere of influence around its borders,
which explains the concern over developments in Ukraine, Georgia and the Baltic States.
Given the diminished threat level in Europe, the withdrawal of 9,500 soldiers should be
welcomed by all parties. Trump has been sending the not unreasonable message that if the
Europeans want more defense, they should pay for it themselves, though he has wrapped his
proposal in his usual insulting and derogatory language. A wealthy Germany currently spends
1.1% of GDP on its military, far less than the 2% that NATO has declared to be a target to meet
alliance commitments. That compares with the nearly 5% that the U.S. has been spending
globally, inclusive of intelligence and national security costs.
Fair enough for burden sharing, but the European concern is more focused on how Trump does
what he does. For example, he announced the downsizing without informing America's NATO
partners. The Germans were surprised and pushed back
immediately . Conservative politician Peter Beyer said "This is completely unacceptable,
especially since nobody in Washington thought about informing its NATO ally Germany in
advance," and German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas regretted the planned withdrawal, describing
Berlin's relationship with the Washington as "complicated." Chancellor Angela Merkel was
reportedly shocked.
The timing of the decision has also been questioned, with many observers believing that
Trump deliberately staged the announcement to punish Merkel for refusing to attend a planned
G-7 Summit in the U.S. that the president had been trying to arrange. Merkel argued that
dealing with the consequences of the coronavirus made it difficult for her to leave home at the
present time and the G-7 planning never got off the ground, which angered Trump, who wanted to
demonstrate his global leadership in an election year.
Trump's behavior has real world consequences. The Canadians and Europeans regard him as a
joke, but a dangerous joke due to his impulsive decision making. He cannot be trusted and when
he says something he often contradicts himself on the next day. Arguably Donald Trump was
elected president on the margin of difference
provided by an anti-war vote after many Americans took seriously his pledge to end the
burgeoning overseas wars and bring the soldiers home. It all may have been a lie even as he was
saying it, but it was convincing at the time and a welcome antidote to Hillary the Hawk.
There will be costs associated with removing or relocating the troops in Germany, to include
constructing new bases somewhere else, hopefully in the United States, but the realization that
the soldiers are not really needed could lead to the downsizing of the U.S. military across the
board. That would be strongly resisted by the Pentagon, the defense industries and
Congress.
If Trump is serious about downsizing America's overseas commitments, the reduction in the
German force is a good first step, even if it was done for the wrong reasons. It would be even
better if he would force NATO into discussions about ending the alliance now that it is no
longer needed, which would mean that the remaining American soldiers in Europe could come
home.
The U.S. mission of global dominance has meant huge budget deficits and a national debt of
$26 trillion, which is likely unsustainable. Germany and other European nations, by way of
contrast, balance their government budgets every year. South Korea, which hosts 30,000 American
soldiers, is wealthy and far more powerful than its northern neighbor. The continued occupation
of Japan with 50,000 troops makes no sense even considering an increase in China's regional
power. Overall, the United States continues to have 170,000 soldiers, sailors, airmen and
Marines based overseas in 150 countries and its military budget exceeds one trillion dollars
when everything is considered. The Iraq and Afghanistan Wars may have cost as much as seven
trillion dollars given the fact that much of the money was borrowed and will have to be repaid
with interest.
It is past time for Donald Trump to make a bold move because the Democrats won't have the
backbone to rattle the status quo. End the foreign wars, shut down the overseas bases and bring
the soldiers home. Spend tax dollars to improve the lives of Americans, not to fight wars for
Saudis and Israelis. A simple formula for change, but sometimes simple is best.
Security screening of manuscripts I t is the law in the United States that those who
have had legal access to the secrets of the government must submit private manuscripts for
removal of such secrets BEFORE they are published or even presented to a potential publisher.
Every department of government has an office charged with such work.
I know this process well because my memoir "Tattoo" has been in the hands of the appropriate
Defense Department office for nigh on six months. The book is long, and I was so unlucky as to
have DoD shut down its auxiliary services during my wait. I have thought of withdrawing it from
screening but, surprisingly, the screeners tell me it has some worth for those who will come
after. So, I will wait.
All this applies to John Bolton, a career State Department man whose adult life has been
soaked in government secrets. I first noticed Bolton as a glowering presence at briefings I
gave to selected State Department people with regard to national command authority projects I
was running. His attitude was consistent. If the idea was not his, it was simply wrong.
Bolton's "kiss and tell" book about Trump is IMO as much caused by wounded ego as a desire
to make money. He submitted the book for security review to DoD and the CIA. Why not State? Ah,
Pompeo would tear it to pieces. Bolton evidently grew impatient with the pace of clearance and
decided to go ahead with publication without clearance
To do this is a felony. The release of the book today completes the elements of proof for
the crime.
Bolton should be arrested and charged with any of a number of possible crimes. pl
Let's see what Trump does with Bolton now that he has committed a felony.
My bet is that other than crying on Twitter, he'll not do much. His previous
actions/inactions on these matters show weakness.
In any case bitching on Twitter makes him look like an executive with poor hiring
judgement as he was the one that hired him. Just like he hired Mattis and Kelly as well as
Rosenstein and Wray.
Bolton being successfully charged with violations associated with his sour grapes hit piece
memoir is analogous to Al Capone finally going down for tax evasion. But if that's the way it
goes I will not be sad.
Re "Tattoo", your Memorial Day "Ap Bu Nho" extract alone makes "some worth" an amusingly
ludicrous understatement. I wish you luck with the censors & very much look forward to
one day reading "Tattoo".
"He was a convert - - -"
I was going to ask what went wrong with Bolton: was he dropped on his head as an infant? No
father in the home? The Dulles brothers spent their childhoods being harangued by their
bible-thumping Calvinist grandfather (reports Kinzer in his useful bio on the brothers).
In Jeff Engel's book about the decision-making behind G H W Bush's decision to wage war
against Saddam re Kuwait, he recounts that an argument by Brent Scowcroft was significant,
AND that "Scowcroft, who was very short," confronted taller-than-average Bush while
knees-to-knees in an airplane.
Bolton is shorter than the average American male. Does he have 'short-person' compulsion to
compensate?
People psychologize Trump constantly, usually from ignorance and malice. But something is
very wrong with Bolton. Pompeo as well. What is it?
"What huge imago made a psychopathic god?" (Auden, Sept. 1939)
#1 I read this WaPo article that argued because the recent DOJ's lawsuit against the
release of the book is based on "prior restraint on speech before it occurs", meaning the
Trump administration cannot censor speech before it happens, therefore there is no 1st
amendment breach against the Trump admin by Bolton. As the court elaborated in Nebraska Press
Association v. Stuart, prior restraints are "the most serious and the least tolerable
infringement on First Amendment rights" and "one of the most extraordinary remedies known to
our jurisprudence."
#2 Bolton took all of his notes containing classified intelligence with him after he was
fired and nobody took an issue. How is that possible?
#3 The Wapo article says his manuscript was reviewed for four months by one Ellen Knight,
an official (doesn't mention which department) responsible for reviewing publishing material
and she gave it the green light for publication on April 27th.
#4 During a press conference, Bill Barr gave an unusual take on Bolton's book as if he was
giving publicity to the book. He said he had never seen a book being written on Trump with
such pace and in such quick time and that it had a lot of sensitive information and stuff. It
sounded really odd what Bill Barr said. I dunno maybe I am reading to much between the
lines...
#5 With regards to Pompeo, back in September during a press conference at the State, when
asked by a reporter about Bolton's firing I specifically remember watching him on TV giving a
big meaningful chuckle and a smile... it was revealed later that they clearly did not get
along with each other and Pompeo had complained on numerous times that Bolton as NSA, who
does not have executive authorities, had been doing a lot of policy stuff and running his own
show in shadow.
On a final note, I don't think Bolton is a neocon in the mold of Perle, Wolfowitz, Feith,
Abrams, Kagan, Kristol etc...There is this long piece by New Yorker published last year that
really gets into detail of how and why Bolton is not a neocon, but adheres to a more hawkish
Jacksonian nationalism approach rather than the liberal idealism of arch neocons I mentioned
above. However, he does have quite similar F.P. views with neocon oldies such as Irving
Kristol, Norman Podhoretz, and Jeane Kirkpatrick.
If Bolton does NOT get the book thrown at him, it will be pretty good evidence of the
existence of the Deep State allowing those it favors to write their own rules. Of course, we
already knew that after Clapper lied with impunity to Wyden when he was under oath.
He'll never be prosecuted and neither will Comey, Clapper and the rest of the swamp scum.
Strozk (lower on the food chain) might be the human sacrifice (with a sentence of "community
service") but no one of any significance (or "royal" title) is ever prosecuted in the
swamp.
Trump has tried, but his miserable lack of hiring experience and skill has not made a dent
I feel like I have a few words to say about Bolton if I may,
IMHO Bolton's view of the world is very dark and extremely Hobbesian. He is no slouch by
any stretch of imagination, in fact he is extremely knowledgeable and masterful when it comes
to policy-making and that basically how things are done in D.C. He has made a brand for
himself as the most hawkish national security expert in all of America in my opinion.
Honestly I cannot think of anyone else who espouses more hawkishness and zero diplomacy than
Bolton, ever... maybe Tom Cotton or Liz Cheney but still not close. This is the reason why
Trump hired him. In fact Trump did not want to hire him as the top brass in first place,
citing his mustache as one reason that would not look good on TV and wanted to give him 2nd
tier jobs at the State or as NSA early on, but Bolton refused. Trump, wanted to hire Bolton's
"brand" not his policies or hawkishness to intimidate Nkorea, Iran, and China to force them
come into making deals with him and him personally.
IMO Trump found out after the first Kim summit that Bolton was
such an ambitious and counterproductive foreign policy maker and one-man-team that if he
allowed Bolton to get his way, there would be world war III (Trump's own words) and his most
important promise to keep America out of forever wars which was his wining platform over
neocons such as Hilary, Jeb and Rubio during 2016 election would disappear into thin air.
So, Trump found ways to check Bolton and keep him out of the loop in sensitive and crucial
moments by Mattis, Kelly, Joe Dunford, Pompeo and even Melania (in the case of getting rid of
Bolton's close confidant and neocon Mira Ricardel when she called for bombing Iranian forces
back in September 2018 in respone to several rockets by iraqi militias hitting the ground
close to the U.S. embassy in Baghdad), and even sent him to Mongolia last year on a goose
chase to make an embarrassing example of him for undermining him (i.e. Trump's) authority in
the case of sitting down with the Taliban in Camp David to discuss military pullout from
Afghanistan back in Sep. whereas at the same time Pompeo was smart enough to tow the same
line as Trump and survive.
I few years ago I came across this interesting but odd piece by B on the Moon of Alabama
on Bolton. I honestly dunno what to make of it.
The book is already released in the hundreds. It will be on-line soon enough regardless of
the niceties of Barr's attempt to slam shut the barn door, or what the legal system does with
Bolton going fwd.
Those close to Trump know his emotional state must be appeased or they will soon be departing
- unless there's a DNA match.
Reaction to it will be a test of one's ability to distinguish Bolton from the events he
describes & their veracity. Is there anything of Trump's statements & acts (released
so far) that surprises anyone... that rings untrue?
Those ideologically (or religiously) dependent upon the Trump Phenomenon for validating their
core beliefs will demonstrate how creative true believers can be when attached to a
personality.
For what its worth I am looking forward to buying it, should scratch that Peter Scholl Latour
itch.
Another thing is that I just dont get the Neocons.
Their politics are bad both from a Machieavellian (dilutes US forces, creates enemies,
considerably restricts creative ways in which US power could be employed) and from a moral
(obviously) point of view. I also dont get their power, stupid/evil tends to be competed out.
Heck, even if they are stupid/evil but very good at beurocratic backbiting stuff, they are
still supposedly disadvantadged against skilled beurocratic backbiters that arent stupid/evil
(or at least only evil and not stupid).
Is it internal cohesion or a much higher degree of ruthlessness that maintains their
position?
I've for many years thought that the Bolton problem was best solved with a speedy trial and a
swift execution, with remains thrown overboard somewhere in the Indian ocean.
He signed an oath to safeguard the secrecy of the information when "read on" for it and
another such when he was "read off." The 1st Amendment does not come into it at all
I'm fully expecting the Dem "left" to try and praise the monsterous Bolton for "going against
Trump", as they did with war criminal Mad Dog Matis and Bush. Bolton has to be one of the
most evil mass murders on the face of the Earth. The world will be an infinitely better place
when he and his ilk like Netanyahu, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Chertoff..etc finally go back to hell.
Poor Johnny! What's sadder than being a crook, but an ineffective one? I think that's what he
is. He may be infamous enough to be a household name, but he never really managed to make a
career. Hardly ever did he stay on a job for more than 2 years, before his fellow crooks
deemed him unfit for his position, again and again. Says a lot.
I hope they will confiscate his book on some flimsy pretext, only to lose the piles of
copies in storage, so they cannot possibly be released to bookstores again. Maybe some mice
will make use of it to furnish their nests?
Take a look at his face. It's obvious to me that even John Bolton does not enjoy being
John Bolton. That mouth, it's drooping to an absurd degree. Comparable to Merkel's face, come
to think of it.
John Bolton's tell all book about his tenure with the Trump administration is a perfect
example of the pot calling the kettle burned. It is a fitting description of the leadership
of the US government and it's capitol city as a den of backstabbing, corkscrewing and double
dealing vipers. It's like standing on a street corner watching two prostitutes calling each
other a whore! How low has the US sunk.
Of course, Trump actually campaigned to leave Afghanistan and Syria, and he was elected to do
so. The self-appointed Deep State has pretty much thwarted him and his voters.
The political establishment in Canada appeared dismayed at the prospect of Bolton as National
Security Adviser. See these interviews with Hill + Knowlton strategies Vice-chairman, Peter
Donolo, from 2018:
So Bolton gets in, Meng Wangzhou is detained in Vancouver on the US request (that's
another story), and in time, Canada appoints a new Ambassador to China - Mr. Dominic
Barton. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominic_Barton
Then Bolton gets fired. 'Nuff said. Just to let everyone know that Bolton is well and truly
hated, as a government official, in certain circles.
Close -- the threatened official was Jose Bustani, at that time (2002) the head of the
Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW)as he had been for five years.
Bustani had been working to bring Iraq and Libya into the organization, which would have
required those two countries to eliminate all of their chemical weapons.
The US, though, had other ideas -- chiefly invading and destroying both of those nations,
and when Bustani insisted on continuing his efforts then Bolton threatened Bustani's adult
children.
let the lobbyists with the most money win... that's what defines the usa system, leadership
and decision making process... no one in their right mind would support this doofus..
At least the one saving grace about John Bolton's memoir is that it might be a tad closer to
reality than Christopher Steele's infamous dossier and might prove valuable as a source of
evidence in a court of law. Maybe
Yosemite Sam himself should start quaking in his boots.
@ Jpc
When faced with Trump's behavior of employing warmongers, including several generals, some
observers opined that Trump wanted people with contrasting opinions so that he could consider
them and then say "no." He did more with Bolton eventually, sending him to Mongolia while he
(Trump) went to Singapore (or somewhere over there).
re Ian2 | Jun 17 2020 23:08 utc | 19
who hazarded : My guess Trump went along with the tough guy image that Bolton projected in
media and recommendations by others.
Not at all, if you go back to the earliest days of the orangeman's prezdency, you will see
Trump resisted the efforts by Mercer & the zionist casino owner to give Bolton a gig.
He knew that shrub had problems with the boasts of Bolton and as his reputation was as an
arsehole who sounded his own trumpet at his boss's expense orangeman refused for a long time.
Trump believes the trump prezdency is about trump no one else.
Thing was at the time he was running for the prez gig trump was on his uppers, making a few
dollars from his tv show, plus licensing other people's buildings by selling his name to be
stuck on them. trump tower azerbnajan etc.
He put virtually none of his own money into the 'race' so when he won the people who had put
up the dosh had power over him.
Bolton has always been an arse kisser to any zionist cause he suspects he can claw a penny
outta, so he used the extreme loony end of the totally looney zionist spectrum to hook him
(Bolton) up with a gig by pushing for him with trump.
It was always gonna end the way it did as Bolton is forever briefing the media against
anyone who tried to resist his murderous fantasies. Trump is never gonna argue for any scheme
that doesn't have lotsa dollars for him in it so he had plenty of run ins with Bolton who
then went to his media mates & told tales.
When bolton was appointed orangey's stakes were at a really low ebb among DC warmongers, so
he reluctantly took him on then spent the next 18 months getting rid of the grubby
parasite.
Real History: Candidate Trump praised Bolton and named him as THE number one Foreign Policy
expert he (Trump) respected.
Imagine the mustachioed Mister Potatoe (sic) Head and zany highjinks!
Bolton and one of his first wives were regulars at Plato's Retreat for wife swapping
orgies. The wife was not real keen on the behavior, but she allegedly found herself verbally
and physically abused for objecting.
Trump is at fault for hiring him to appease the Zionist lobby. We all knew the guy was a
warmonger and a scumbag. It's not a surprise. Trump surrounds himself with the worst people
If we view Bolton as Adelson puppet, such a behaviour clearly does not make much sense. Or this is a single from Israel lobby to
Trump "moor did his duty, moor can go"?
Notable quotes:
"... "a variety of instances when he sought to intervene in law enforcement matters for political reasons." ..."
"... "in effect, give personal favors to dictators he liked," ..."
"... "The pattern looked like obstruction of justice as a way of life, which we couldn't accept," ..."
"... "bombshells" ..."
"... "exactly the right thing to do." ..."
"... "systematic use of indoctrination camps, forced labor, and intrusive surveillance to eradicate the ethnic identity and religious beliefs of Uyghurs and other minorities in China." ..."
"... "Panda Hugger." ..."
"... The mustachioed warhawk had served as Trump's national security adviser from April 2018 to September 2019. While the exact reason for his firing was never revealed, Trump has since commented that Bolton was interfering with his peace initiatives and had "never seen a war he didn't like." ..."
"... Indeed, the "most irrational thing" Bolton accuses Trump of was to refuse to bomb Iran in June 2019, according to the New York Times excerpt. ..."
"... "soft on China" ..."
"... As for Trump supporters, many were indifferent about Bolton's betrayal, noting that Trump hired the neocon in the first place and kept him on for over a year, while ditching the faithful General Michael Flynn after less than two weeks on the job, following a FBI ambush and a Washington Post hit job. ..."
Former national security adviser John Bolton has leaked excerpts of his book to major newspapers, accusing President Donald Trump
of colluding with leaders in China and Turkey, and obstruction of justice "as a way of life." Facing a DOJ lawsuit seeking to
block the publication of his memoir for containing classified information, Bolton decided to go to the press, leaking parts of
the book to the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday.
Breaking News: John Bolton says in his new book that the House should have investigated President Trump for potentially impeachable
actions beyond Ukraine https://t.co/8lpd4xAzYu
Bolton famously refused to testify before the Democrat-led impeachment proceedings against Trump over his alleged abuse of power
regarding Ukraine, but now claims that they should have expanded the probe to "a variety of instances when he sought to intervene
in law enforcement matters for political reasons."
He accuses Trump of wanting to "in effect, give personal favors to dictators he liked," bringing up companies in China
and Turkey as examples, according to the Times. "The pattern looked like obstruction of justice as a way of life, which we couldn't
accept," the Times quotes him as saying.
One of the Bolton "bombshells" is that he sought China's purchase of US soybeans in order to get re-elected, during trade
negotiations with President Xi Jinping.
SOYBEAN DIPLOMACY: The WSJ has published an excerpt of
@AmbJohnBolton 's forthcoming book, revealing
Trump-Xi conversation and how the American president pleaded his Chinese counterpart to buy U.S. soybeans so he could win farm
states in the 2020 presidential elections |
#OATT pic.twitter.com/XKAogLCCtN
An excerpt in the Wall Street Journal has Trump telling Xi that – alleged – concentration camps for Uighur Muslims in China's
Xinjiang province were "exactly the right thing to do." It also alleges that Trump did Xi a favor by relaxing US sanctions
on ZTE, a Chinese telecom company.
WSJ excerpt of Bolton book has Trump & China bombshells. Trump told Xi building concentration camps for Muslims "was exactly
the right thing to do." Trump pleaded w/ Xi to help him w/ re-election by making US farm product buys. And Trump helped Xi w/
ZTE. https://t.co/4CSflQQqcL
This comes as Trump signed into law
the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act of 2020, which mandates US sanctions against Chinese officials over "systematic use of indoctrination
camps, forced labor, and intrusive surveillance to eradicate the ethnic identity and religious beliefs of Uyghurs and other minorities
in China."
Another excerpt has Bolton referring to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin as a "Panda Hugger."
According to Bolton, Trump told Xi to "go ahead with building the camps" for imprisoned Uighurs.
As another proof of Trump's perfidy, Bolton writes that the president told Xi that he would like to stay in office beyond the
two terms the US Constitution would allow him. Bolton's one-time colleague Dinesh D'Souza commented that Bolton was unable to recognize
a clear joke.
Really? This is it? John Bolton's smoking gun? Trump has been jokingly putting out memes about this for four years. This conversation,
if it occurred at all, seems obviously jocular. Bolton, however, whom I knew quite well from AEI, doesn't have a jocular bone
in his body pic.twitter.com/Qe8sXCAT58
Trump has on more than one occasion shared a meme showing him staying in power forever, triggering Democrats into denouncing him
as an aspiring dictator. Apparently, Bolton thought the same.
According to John Bolton posting this meme was an impeachable offense https://t.co/q2BHlfVTEu
-- Will Chamberlain 🇺🇸 (@willchamberlain)
June 17, 2020
The mustachioed warhawk had served as Trump's national security adviser from April 2018 to September 2019. While the exact
reason for his firing was never revealed, Trump has since commented that Bolton was interfering with his peace initiatives and had
"never seen a war he didn't like."
Indeed, the "most irrational thing" Bolton accuses Trump of was to refuse to bomb Iran in June 2019, according to the New York
Times excerpt.
Pretty telling that the episode which pissed off Bolton the most during his tenure was Trump calling off airstrikes which would
have killed dozens of Iranian soldiers in June 2019 https://t.co/ruFSInj2Mu
pic.twitter.com/5zO7UrxMTM
Arguing that Trump is being "soft on China" and colluding with Xi also happens to be a Democratic Party strategy for the
2020 presidential election, outlined in April
and reported by Axios.
While Democrats and the mainstream media welcomed Bolton's bombshells as validating their position on Trump, he is unlikely to
become a #Resistance hero, simply because they still remember he refused to say these things under oath during the impeachment hearings,
when they – in theory – could have bolstered their case for getting Trump out of office.
As for Trump supporters, many were indifferent about Bolton's betrayal, noting that Trump hired the neocon in the first place
and kept him on for over a year, while ditching the faithful General Michael Flynn after less than two weeks on the job, following
a FBI ambush and a Washington Post hit job.
Do I care that Bolton is stabbing Trump in the back? Not at all. General Flynn was NSA and Trump made his choices. Being outraged
on behalf of a 70+ year old man who makes poor choices is well beyond my job description.
One of the most disturbing aspects of American foreign policy since 9/11 has been the
assumption that decisions made by the United States are binding on the rest of the world, best
exemplified by President George W. Bush's warning that "there was a new sheriff in town." Apart
from time of war, no other nation has ever sought to prevent other nations from trading with
each other, nor has any government sought to punish foreigners using sanctions with the cynical
arrogance demonstrated by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. The United States uniquely seeks to
penalize other sovereign countries for alleged crimes that did not occur in the U.S. and that
did not involve American citizens, while also insisting that all nations must comply with
whatever penalties are meted out by Washington. At the same time, it demonstrates its own
hypocrisy by claiming sovereign immunity whenever foreigners or even American citizens seek to
use the courts to hold it accountable for its many crimes.
The conceit by the United States that it is the acknowledged judge, jury and executioner in
policing the international community began in the post-World War 2 environment, when hubristic
American presidents began referring to themselves as "leaders of the free world." This pretense
received legislative and judicial backing with passage of the
Anti-Terrorism Act of 1987 (ATA) as amended in 1992 plus subsequent related legislation, to
include the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act of 2016 (JASTA). The body of legislation
can be used to obtain civil judgments against alleged terrorists for attacks carried out
anywhere in the world and can be employed to punish governments, international organizations
and even corporations that are perceived to be supportive of terrorists, even indirectly or
unknowingly. Plaintiffs are able to sue for injuries to their "person, property, or business"
and have ten years to bring a claim.
Sometimes the connections and level of proof required by a U.S. court to take action are
tenuous, and that is being polite. Suits currently can claim secondary liability for third
parties, including banks and large corporations, under "material support" of terrorism
statutes. This includes "aiding and abetting" liability as well as providing "services" to any
group that the United States considers to be terrorist, even if the terrorist label is dubious
and/or if that support is inadvertent.
The ability to sue in American courts for redress of either real or imaginary crimes has led
to the creation of a lawfare culture in which lawyers representing a particular cause seek to
bankrupt an opponent through both legal expenses and damages. To no one's surprise, Israel is a
major litigator against entities that it disapproves of. The Israeli government has even
created and supports an organization called Shurat HaDin, which
describes on its website how it uses the law to bankrupt opponents.
The Federal Court for the Southern District of Manhattan has become the clearing house for
suing the pants off of any number of foreign governments and individuals with virtually no
requirement that the suit have any merit beyond claims of "terrorism." In February 2015,
a lawsuit initiated by Shurat HaDin led to the conviction of the Palestinian Authority and
the Palestine Liberation Organization of liability for terrorist attacks in Israel between 2000
and 2004. The New York Federal jury awarded damages of $218.5 million, but under a special
feature of the Anti-Terrorism Act the award was automatically tripled to $655.5 million. Shurat
HaDin claimed sanctimoniously that it was "bankrupting terror."
The
most recent legal victory for Israel and its friends occurred in a federal district court
in the District of Columbia on June 1 st , where Syria and Iran were held to be
liable for the killing of American citizens in Palestinian terrorist attacks that have taken
place in Israel. Judge Randolph D. Moss ruled that Americans wounded and killed in seven
attacks carried out by Palestinians inside the Jewish state were eligible for damages from Iran
and Syria because they provided "material support" to militant groups Hamas and Palestinian
Islamic Jihad. The court will at a future date determine the amount of the actual damages.
It should be observed that the alleged crime took place in a foreign country, Israel, and
the attribution of blame came from Israeli official sources. Also, there was no actual evidence
that Syria and Iran were in any way actively involved in planning or directly enabling the
claimed attacks, which is why the expression "material support," which is extremely elastic,
was used. In this case, both Damascus and Tehran are definitely guilty as charged in
recognizing and having contact with the Palestinian resistance organizations though it has
never been credibly asserted that they have any influence over their actions. Syria and Iran
were, in fact, not represented in the proceedings, a normal practice as neither country has
diplomatic representation in the U.S. and the chances of a fair hearing given the existing
legislation have proven to be remote.
And one might well ask if the legislation can be used against Israel, with American citizens
killed by the Israelis (Rachel Corrie, Furkan Dogan) being able to sue the Jewish state's
government for compensation and damages. Nope. U.S. courts have ruled in similar cases that
Israel's army and police are not terrorist organizations, nor do they materially support
terrorists, so the United States' judicial system has no jurisdiction to try them. That result
should surprise no one as the legislation was designed to specifically target Muslims and
Muslim groups.
In any event, the current court ruling which might total hundreds of millions of dollars
could prove to be difficult to collect due to the fact that both Syria and Iran have little in
the way of remaining assets in the U.S. In previous similar suits, most notably in June 2017, a
jury deliberated for one day before delivering a guilty verdict against two Iranian foundations
for violation of U.S. sanctions, allowing a federal court to authorize the U.S. government
seizure of a
skyscraper in Midtown Manhattan. It was the largest terrorism-related civil forfeiture in
United States history. The presiding judge decided to distribute proceeds from the building's
sale, nearly $1 billion, to the families of victims of terrorism, including
the September 11th attacks . The court ruled that Iran had some culpability for the 9/11
attacks solely based on its status as a State Department listed state sponsor of terrorism,
even though the court could not demonstrate that Iran was in any way directly involved.
A second
court case involved Syria, ruling that Damascus was liable for the targeting and killing of
an American journalist who was in an active war zone covering the shelling of a rebel held area
of Homs in 2012. The court awarded
$302.5 million to the family of the journalist, Marie Colvin. In her ruling, Judge Amy Berman
Jackson cited "Syria's longstanding policy of violence" seeking "to intimidate journalists" and
"suppress dissent." A so-called human rights group funded by the U.S. and other governments
called the Center for Justice and Accountability
based its argument, as in the case of Iran, on relying on the designation of Damascus as a
state sponsor of
terrorism . The judge believed that the evidence presented was "credible and
convincing."
Another American gift to international jurisprudence has been the Magnitsky Act of 2012, a
product of the feel-good enthusiasm of the Barack Obama Administration. It was based on a
narrative regarding what went on in Russia under the clueless Boris Yeltsin and his nationalist
successor Vladimir Putin that was peddled by one Bill Browder, who many believe to have been a
major player in the looting of the former Soviet Union. It was claimed by Browder and his
accomplices in the media that the Russian government had been complicit in the arrest, torture
and killing of one Sergei Magnitsky, an accountant turned whistleblower working for Browder.
Almost every aspect of the story has been challenged, but it was completely bought into by the
Congress and White House and led to sanctions on the Russians who were allegedly involved
despite Moscow's complaints that the U.S. had no legal right to interfere in its internal
affairs relating to a Russian citizen.
Worse still, the Magnitsky Act
has been broadened and is now the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act of 2017.
It is being used to sanction and otherwise punish alleged "human rights abusers" in other
countries and has a very low bar for establishing credibility. It was most recently used in the
Jamal Khashoggi case, in which the U.S. sanctioned the alleged killers of the Saudi dissident
journalist even though no one had actually been arrested or convicted of any crime.
The long-established principle that Washington should respect the sovereignty of other
states even when it disagrees with their internal or foreign policies has effectively been
abandoned. And, as if things were not bad enough, some recent legislation virtually guarantees
that in the near future the United States will be doing still more to interfere in and
destabilize much of the world. Congress passed and President Trump
has signed the Elie Wiesel Genocide and
Atrocities Prevention Act , which seeks to improve Washington's response to mass killings.
The prevention of genocide and mass murder is now a part of American national security agenda.
There will be a Mass Atrocity Task Force and State Department officers will receive training to
sensitize them to impending genocide, though presumably the new program will not apply to the
Palestinians as the law's namesake never was troubled by their suppression and killing by the
state of Israel.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest,
a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a
more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is https://councilforthenationalinterest.org,
address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is[email protected] .
Iranian explosively formed penetrator IED killed 196 U.S. troops and wounded getting on
for a thousand in Iraq. What did they expect a pat on the back, America to forget all about
it?
As her writing shows Marie Colvin was sympathetic to all civilians being targeted
including Palestinian women being shot by Israeli backed militia snipers.
The long-established principle that Washington should respect the sovereignty of other
states even when it disagrees with their internal or foreign policies has effectively been
abandoned.
I think the Iranian government obviated any obligation for the US to abide by
international law and conventions, by seizing US Embassy personnel and using them as hostages
to influence US politics. Very successfully I might add. Iran only supports the Palestinians
in order to mitigate Arab Sunni loathing for the Persian Shia. It is self interested, unlike
Ms Colvin's reporting.
" At the same time, it demonstrates its own hypocrisy by claiming sovereign immunity
whenever foreigners or even American citizens seek to use the courts to hold it accountable
for its many crimes ."
This is all no more than "par for the course" if you understand the true nature of all
governments.
This "just" in:
"Taking the State wherever found, striking into its history at any point, one sees no way
to differentiate the activities of its founders, administrators and beneficiaries from those
of a professional-criminal class." Albert J. Nock: https://mises.org/library/our-enemy-state-4
"Because they are all ultimately funded via both direct and indirect theft [taxes], and
counterfeiting [central bank monopolies], all governments are essentially, at their very
cores, 100% corrupt criminal scams which cannot be "reformed"or "improved",simply because of
their innate criminal nature." Onebornfree: http://onebornfree-mythbusters.blogspot.com/
"The state lies in all the tongues of good and evil, and whatever it says is lies, and
whatever it has, it has stolen, everything it is, is false, it bites with stolen teeth, and
it bites often, it is false down to its bowels."~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche,
If you never get to understand the true nature of all governments, then you are forever
doomed to complain about what it does, seems to me, Mr Giraldi.
Right now (today june 15) there is a strong diplomatic tension between France and the US.
Pompeo is calling the International Court of Justice a "Kangaroo court". Speaking of Kangoroo
courts, there is more than one around. Especially in the US. When you see the trap in which
Bayer Deustchland has fallen in the US Or what Giraldi rightfully points
Don't know why the US elite is so enraged with almoste everyone. Maybe because they are the
slaves of zionist billionaires. They are enraged because they are slaves.
Final grasps and misuse of power are probably fairly typical as an empire collapses. The
right leadership could turn this ship around and head our nation toward the moral high
ground.
But the political will to regain constitutional relevance and produce real leadership
seems defeated.
@Sean
ndreds, of thousands of Iranians over the following decades. What do the US and UK expect? a
pat on the back, Iran to forget all about it?
The US also encouraged and supported Saddam Hussein in the Iran/Iraq war which led to the
death of literally millions of Iranians. The US also shot down an Iranian passenger plane
killing hundreds without even so much as an apology (they gave the captain of the ship
involved a medal for it in fact)
My point is that you can't just start the clock (and the narrative) to suit yourself, you
are being ignorant and/or dishonest to do so.
The word sovereignty in the title gets right to the crux of this issue. The whole world
defined sovereignty by consensus at the UN World Summit. Sovereignty is responsibility. And
what's responsibility? Formal commitment to the UN Charter, the Rome Statute, and core human
rights instruments (the International Bill of Human Rights at a minimum.)
As always, the US signed with fingers crossed, interpreting the summit outcome in bad
faith in breach of peremptory international norms. The US is the last holdout or throwback to
the pre-modern concept of absolute sovereignty: arbitrary state power. Now if you look
closely, the state organ that actually holds arbitrary power is CIA. That is disguised by
lots of bribed and blackmailed functionaries and elected officials, but CIA murders them if
they step out of line, not excepting puppet 'heads of state' like Kennedy, Ford and Reagan
(sometimes they miss but they make their point.)
Now to the whole rest of the world, this CIA regime is not sovereign at all. Then what is
it? It is a criminal enterprise based on impunity. The legal relationship between responsible
sovereignty, absolute sovereignty, and impunity is very touchy to the CIA regime, which
dispatched John Bolton to the UN over Congress' explicit refusal, if you remember. And why?
What was Bolton sent to do? He obstructed the Summit Outcome Document with endless Neo-Soviet
nyets, submitting 600 amendments until drafters removed the trigger word impunity from one
paragraph.
This US totalitarian state considers that its arbitrary rule negates another universal
world agreement, the Declaration on the Inadmissibility of Foreign Intervention,
A/RES/20/2131, which is in fact state and federal common law in the US.
So how does this legal conundrum get resolved? When the time is right, Russia, China, and
Iran point their missiles at a selection of defenseless US military assets and say, Go fuck
yourself. It's what the Russians call coercion to peace. We the subject population need to
prepare for this eventuality, because the current rebellion includes peace in its demands
(ask BAP.) The basis of US impunity is arbitrary use of force at home and abroad. The human
right to peace means capitulation for the CIA regime.
The reply is pure, direct nonsense. Iran is correct in supporting the Palestinians. The
United States supports the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians. It supports apartheid and
starving Palestinians.
There is no need for moderation. Through U.S. tax dollars to Israel, it supports apartheid
and the suffering of Palestinians who have had their land taken from them by the Israelis.
Look at map of Palestine today.
@Sean
tive and hews closely to Jewish interests as expressed & shaped by the Jewish-controlled
American media.
The death of 34 servicemen on the USS Liberty is barely a footnote of history, and while
the death of St. Floyd is tearing America apart, the brutal killing of American Rachel Corrie
in Israel was the butt of jokes among Zionists in the American media.
After all, making some deaths more important than others is a Jewish specialty and control
of the media means never having to say you're sorry – while others have to watch their
step or face the wrath of the mob.
@Sean
se they cannot control it. SJW Globalists hate Jewish Israel because they cannot control it.
Preposterous bloviation about the supremacy of supranational bodies is an easily
penetrated cover story. The obvious TRUTH -- One religion is intentionally misusing bodies,
like the UN/NWO, to assault Christians & Jews that it cannot control.
The U.S. must uphold its sovereign responsibility to oppose oppression and punish the
murder of its citizens. If Soleimani wanted to live, he should not have senselessly butchered
Americans.
The whole world knows that the US attack on Iraq was a war of aggression not condoned by
the UN. Also, the US didn't hide its intentions and put Iran next on the list (the Axis of
Terror ). Omitting these little details are very convenient indeed for it enables you to
portray the US soldiers as blue eyed UN Peace Keepers attacked by the malignant theocratic
regime, when in fact the opposite is true.
@Sean
but its status as a diplomatic mission may very well have been compromised by practises
contrary to Article 41 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relation (Vienna 18 April
1961), in which case the Iranians should have simply asked the US staff to leave. but seizure
by the students made that moot.
Think of it as the Iranian Lives Matter protest of 1979. Its a shame the criminals behind
the current BLM and AntiFa movements aren't treated as harshly as we treat the Iranians,
though now that AntiFa made the list, maybe someone can connect the dots to Soros and relieve
him of a few billions.
Isramerica Inc. ceased being a nation state when the Rothschild Reich conquered the
American Republic in 1913 by establishing the Rothschild Reserve Bank. Give a Rothschild a
gun and he can rob a bank. Give a Rothschild a bank and he can rob a country. What Rothschild
Wants, Rothschild Gets. Rothschild wants his Central Banks in all Zionist Globalist
international city states. Rothschild wants control of all Zionist Globalist Corporations.
Bank of Isramerica,the City of Londonistan, Berlinks, Parisk, Zu Rich . Microsoft, Apple,
Amazon all KNEEL before the Rothschild Royal Family of Black Lives Matter. Rothschild wanted
WWI, WWII and now wants WWIII and a final solution to enslave the West, a ZODD. The Zionist
Owned Digital Dollar to COVID 1984 track, trace and enslave all of Cattlekind. DOWN WITH BIG
ZOG!
@joe2.5
to support divestment from Iran-oriented investments, in favor or investment in Israel.
This has been the case at least since Bob Casey's campaign to unseat Rick Santorum (aka
the
DumpRick campaign). Before Casey's win, he was taken to Israel by members of AIPAC, who
returned him to US shores assured that "while Rick was good for Israel, Bob will be even
moreso . . ."
Pennsylvania's Jewish governor, Jewish state's attorney, and Jewish transgender director
of public health are combining their authorities to impose some of the most stringent, and
fraudulent, sets of regulations on the people of Pennsylvania relative to the scamdemic.
-- Radical U.S. students seize the Iranian Mission to the UN, located in NYC.
-- They demand the turn over of Ayatollah Khameni for his war crimes against the Iranian
people.
-- The Trump administration "To Protect Innocent Student Lives" refuses to intervene for ~444
days.
Under your rules, these U.S. Students would be 'private citizens'. Hypothetically, no
violation of international law has occurred.
I suspect your hypertechnicality could lead to unintended, though currently hypotheical,
outcomes.
Precisely. Being that what you said applies equally to all 50 states, non-voting
territories, vassalages and messuages, the extraterritorial invasion of Iraq (or anywhere) is
on behalf of the same owners of the country.
Ooh! Sean used the IED word! How sophisticated. IED, IED IED!!! Would it be better they
used nice, professional ordinance, like the Yankees' depleted uranium? Yo' mama raised the
afterbirth!
I am sure A123 is wallowing in a puddle of self-extracted sperm by now.
Cute, the previous article I read was about how Zion and its Undeclared Soviets in America
plan to use force against the International Criminal Court. IED, I say.
Before Sean and A123 get together and breed more apologists for the satanic childfucking
cacastocracy and their queen Hillary. (Deposed by reason of failing clone stability).
The African Group (representing the 54 African countries in the United Nations) convened
an "Urgent Debate" (technically equivalent to a special session) in the HRC on, basically, US
killer cops – on the 17th, the fireworks to be broadcast/archived on http://webtv.un.org/
You can watch the US piss away its international standing.
Racial discrimination comes up of course, because Africans are extra touchy about pigs
killing jigs for sport, but violent attacks on your human right of assembly is on the agenda
too (UDHR Article 20, state and federal common law; ICCPR Article 21, equivalent to federal
statute.) Urgent debate in this charter body mobilizes the treaty bodies and special
procedures, which in turn supports propria motu ICC investigation of the US and its Izzie pig
torture trainers.
US Human Rights Network*/ACLU ask:
"If you live the United States, please contact foreign embassies in Washington D.C. that
are members of the UNHRC, especially U.S. allies, and urge them to support international
accountability for police killings in the U.S.
And if you live outside the U.S., please contact your Foreign Ministry or your country's
UN Mission in Geneva and let them know that you support the call made by families of victims
of police killings in the United States and over 660 groups from 66 countries to mandate an
independent Commission of Inquiry. This is the only credible accountability measure that can
effectively respond to the current human rights crisis in the United States.
Go over the head of your horseshit government to the world.
One day, A123, some sensible person will have the opportunity to take that PEACE emoticon
and shove it up your smutty throat. My dog is flapping his hind leg at the joyful
thought.
Also, you forget to mention the role your private international terrorist organisation, CIA
played in every so-called 'incident' regarding Iran.
The greatest danger of BDS is is the defunding of satanic criminal networks such as USAID,
CIA, MOSSAD etc. It's not like Israel has provinces full of industry to 'invest' in.
You do know that blaming Iran for that is quite a stretch. The technology involved was not
hard to acquire.
And what about the dozens of countries the US government has actively plunged into war,
killing, maiming and destroying the lives of millions and millions of people? WTF about
that?
Mr. Giraldi provides some noteworthy examples of pro-Israel legislation, but the names
could be tweaked a bit. Here's some proposed legislation that more honestly reflects the
character of our vaunted solons
1. The Israeli Destruction, Invalidation, and Oppression Tenet, also known as IDIOT.
Once ratified, IDIOT would require a congressional representative's public proclamation of
pride upon the occasion of any crime committed by Israel. Said proclamation must be no less
than 500 words and preempt all other matters pending deliberation. Failure to persuade one's
constituency of Israeli virtue warrants a donation of $250,000 to the incumbent's next
election opponent.
2. Completing the Ruinous, Execrable Takeover by Israel Now, or CRETIN Act.
This law would defer all civil rights cases ordinarily brought before an American justice
to a tribunal of members appointed and officiated by Alan Dershowitz. Appeals may be granted,
subject to a display of fealty including, but not limited to, ceding custody of one's
firstborn child.
3. The Doing Everything Israel Likes Act, hereinafter referenced as DEVIL.
Under this mandate, electronic bracelets such as those worn by felons subject to in-house
arrest will be fastened to every member of congress, their voltage increased in direct
correlation to the measure of their recalcitrance against Israel. Perceived acclimation to
the accompanying pain will necessitate either castration or sale into slavery. Should the
former consequence apply, the gelding will be permitted to preserve remnants of his manhood
in a curio cabinet display set up for public viewing in the Capitol Rotunda.
Only a Zionist would have the nerve to write such immortal nonsense while at the same time
the assaults on the Russian and Venezuelan embassies, the invention of shadow governments in
Venezuela and Bolivia and the Ukraine are occurring.
We have to account for the fact that there are younger people here, as well as those who
have yet to understand the dynamics at play. We also have to give him credit where it's due:
he knows how to elicit a response. Yet, in a forum of this nature, that's not too difficult
when you're running interference for the powers that be. In that sense, he's no different
than "Lot" or that other troll with a numeric handle.
His respondents don't imagine they're going to make him happy. Everybody just thinks
they're gonna be the one to whack the mole.
The solution for the many ills facing the US. This solution WILL entail violence.
From the Byzantines, Ezra Pound derived his no-violent formula for controlling the
Jews.
"The answer to the Jewish problem is simple," he said.
"Keep them out of banking, out of education, out of government."
And this is how simple it is.
There is no need to kill the Jews. In fact, every pogrom in history has played into their
hands, and has in many instances been cleverly instigated by them.
Get the Jews out of banking and they cannot control the economic life of the community.
Get the Jews out of education and they can not pervert the minds of the young to their
subversive doctrines.
Get the Jews out of government and they cannot betray the nation."
THE US IS DEAD & WILL BE NOTHING AFTER THE DEATH OF THE PETRODOLLAR. After Bretton
Woods, where the Jews used the US as they did in WWI, it can now be snuffed out as it has no
assets, industry and has destroyed every entity of ecological protection and is the biggest
user of geoengineering wiping out almost all life and that is the way the Elohim want it.
Gomberg map is just a short version of the most valuable state in the world and it's in you
damn dollar bill. Those little green nations are the owners of the earth and the top is where
the ALL SEEING EYE IS. It's all a fraud but people are as stupid as animals and will deserve
what is coming as the next pillar of the destruction of the US from St. John the Devine
states. Then a new birth after the deaths of billions. These were put up in 1997 and in 1999,
the messiah of Israel stated what would happen to the towers and is in STONE.
Jewish cohesion, skill, tenacity, and purposefulness has imbued this tribe with
unsurpassed status. And power.
International Jewry pilots world banking, orchestrates the manufacture of news and
entertainment (and public opinion), while it oversees all US policies in areas that affect
the standing of Israel or status of world Jewry. This is no small matter.
Inordinate Jewish power, and its distorting impact on international affairs, has become
one of humanity's greatest trials. It is the grand conundrum that we lesser souls are not
supposed to notice or ever complain about. This puts us on the road to ruin.
Hey A123 -- - I see where that little stinker Sean, stole your Hasbara Central talking
points. So now all you can produce is this crap -- - I know – what is this world coming
too? -- Art
@joe2.5
by the KJV Bible as edited by Samuel Untermyer and his seven or more employees that Untermyer
paid the known crook, the known fraudster C. I. Scofield to put his name on so it wouldn't
look like a Jewish-edited New Testament edition. He, the worm A123, swoons with joy when the
Jews vandalize Christian churches in greater Palestine and shoot Christians, which is
happening all the time.
A real nasty piece of work he is, A123, and a real clueless immoral idiot. It's a pity
he's too illiterate to read Ron Unz's Oddities Of The Jewish Religion. He'd soon learn
how the Jews hate him.
Judge jury and executioner. This is why this madness must end. When talking about systemic
oppression it is solely outward towards other nations. Such brutality and arrogance. The
worlds only chance is turning away from the dollar, Israel and the US.
'I think the Iranian government obviated any obligation for the US to abide by
international law and conventions, by seizing US Embassy personnel and using them as hostages
to influence US politics.'
That was over forty years ago. In 1985, what kind of behavior would you have advocated
towards Germany?
@MarkU
, to shooting down an airliner taking off from their own airport. Pauperised and paranoid,
Iran is self destructing. They got a pass for limpet mine tanker attacks and drone
destruction of a oil refineries in Saudi, so what did they do? Attack a US embassy in Iraq.
That is great thinking if they intended to get Trump to use force as he has long been known
to have been outraged by the hostage crisis of decades ago. Iran is helping Israel more than
the Palestinians. One can only imagine what disaster the Iranian leadership would bring on
their country if they had a thermonuclear weapon.
The "Gloat Over Your Broken Environment And Never Surrender" Act, or GOYBEANS Act.
If ratified, this bill would provide 666 million dollars annually for developing public
school curricula in partnership with the ADL, SPLC, and NAMBLA. Proposed as a reformatory
measure, the GOYBEANS Act was drafted in response to demands from the aforementioned
organizations that school curricula be more inclusive of topics such as nurturing gender
doubt, learning to properly hate, and the non-existence of Palestinians.
Times have moved on. Jews would need to be banned from the McMedia industrial complex,
including newspapers, cinema, TV etc. A ban on political donations would obviously be also
necessary. They should be free to worship Yahweh and themselves at length without causing
harm to others.
It should be a lesson learned for the rest of the world: don't keep any assests in the US,
or the West for that matter. Isolate from the West, divest from the West, sanction and
boycott the West, build your own institutions and link up only to non-Western countries.
Don't even bother to visit the West, find other places to vacation in. Anyway the West is
being ruined by your own immigrants, so why would you want to spend your holidays among
them?
We live under a tyrannous U.S.-led Anglo-Zionist fascism which is committing heinous war
crimes on behalf of the Jewish Israel and its Jewish supporters.
While there are some similarities between Anglo-Zionist fascism and German Fascism (Nazi
Germany), Anglo-Zionist fascism is more injurious, more ruthless and more criminal than
Germany under Adolph Hitler.
@Anon
aid to Mr Giraldi[post 4]: "If you never get to understand the true nature of all
governments, then you are forever doomed to complain about what it does"
Most people [including, of course, all the commie idjuts in "CHAZ"] live in denial of the
true nature of the government they complain about all the time, forever unable to see that
the state is doing nothing more than being,er, "stately". It would appear that you are no
different from them.
@MarkU
My point is that you can't just start the clock (and the narrative) to suit yourself, you are
being ignorant and/or dishonest to do so.
You are partly right. However, Sean is far from ignorant, though his lack of ignorance is
more than matched by his total lack of honesty. Both characteristics of a paid troll.
The zios must see UR, as a real threat to their mythical narrative, judging by the resources
they put into defending the undefendable, always going to be an uphill mountain, even for the
totally dishonest Sean and his cronies.
@Sean
Jew? Huckstering. What is his worldly God? Money.
Very well then! Emancipation from huckstering and money, consequently from practical, real
Judaism, would be the self-emancipation of our time.
The Jew has emancipated himself in a Jewish manner, not only because he has acquired
financial power, but also because, through him and also apart from him, money has become a
world power and the practical Jewish spirit has become the practical spirit of the Christian
nations.
The Jews have emancipated themselves insofar as the Christians have become Jews."
Paul Singer's best known legal battle is a marathon campaign to force Argentina to pay out
on bonds he bought at a knockdown price in 2001. He finally succeeded in getting a $2.4
billion payout last year. He has also been accused of profiting at the expense of other
impoverished nations, namely Peru and Congo-Brazzaville, a West African country where most
live in dire poverty. Singer acquired Congolese government debt though a Cayman Islands
vehicle and set about clawing money back through the London courts in a campaign over several
years, eventually winning £78 million.
Singer works for Israel in his world wide looting.
Singer is also the founder of Start-Up Nation Central, a Tel Aviv-based non-profit that
seeks to connect business and government leaders around the world with the Israeli people and
technologies that can solve their most pressing challenges.
His most recent looting project is to get Twitter.
An activist investor known as a major Republican political supporter wants to wrest
control of Twitter from co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey, US media has reported.
Your map looks straight out of Halford MacKinder's strategy for getting control of his
designated heartland. International banking owns both Russia and China. So it would seem the
shining city is both antiquated and dangerous. Also it can neither control its borders and its
cities . We really need to decommission the biological and nuclear weapons. Finally according
to your logic dementia Biden is the appropriated president for a demented USA.
The Nuremberg trials led to the creation of the International Criminal Court and
jurisprudence in matters of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and wars of aggression.
Make laws for everyone and then find ways to get around those laws. It's a never ending
Talmudic cycle.
The foreign policy of the ZUS has been driven by the zionists since 1913 when they took over
control of America with their privately owned FED and IRS and then came the wars and the attack
on the USS Liberty and their attack on the WTC on 911, designed to plunge America into
destroying the middle east for zionist Israel.
Read the book The Controversy of Zion by Douglas Reed and Blood in the Water by Joan Mellen,
and the Protocols of Zion.
2 Menachem Begin was frightened of being found out that his regime was conspiring against
Carter's administration colluding with GOP agents hostage release . He even physically
threatened Peres against trying anything on his own behind the knowledge of the Begin
regime.
3 I read somewhere that during the very early period of the developing hostage situation
Israeli operation inside Iran put the lives of the hostage at risk despite the people on the
ground from US agency requesting the Israelis not to do .
The US overthrew a democratically elected government and installed the torturing Shah.
The US precipitated the Iraq/Iran war and gave Iraq chemical weapons to kill Iranians.
Speaking of shooting down airliners , our fine USN shot an Iranian civilian airliner out of the
sky in 1988 killing a few hundred people.
You think any Iranian is losing sleep over the killing of Americans in a country that the US
illegally invaded and occupied?
Expressing many lies and sanitizng US 's dirty wars on Syria ,even ignoring it– here
is NYTimes
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/15/world/middleeast/syria-economy-assad-makhlouf.html
"The United States will impose sweeping new sanctions this week that could target the
businesspeople Mr. al-Assad needs to rebuild his shattered cities.
The Caesar Act, named after a Syrian police photographer who defected with photos of thousands
of prisoners tortured and killed in Syrian custody, requires the United States president to
sanction anyone who does business with or provides significant support to the Syrian government
or its officials."-NYT
It has already imposed sanctions and has done repeatedly . Caesar's photo journalism was the
playbook from Lantos Kuwait babies Curveball's begging for jail free asylum in US and from
Wolfowitz lies that Saddam was behind 911.
You have, in a nutshell, given the reason why the JewEssA declared Pound insane and had him
locked up.
"Democracy is now currently defined in Europe as a 'country run by Jews,'"
"America is a lunatic asylum."
~ Ezra Pound
As an update, "the West" could be substituted for "Europe".
But the impulsive George Bush should not have dragged Iraq into another war, he lied his way
into the war. A devout Methodist who is also a war criminal. And who do I see shuffling off in
the left corner? Why its the international statesman Henry Kissinger, who advised the Americans
that the Ayrabs would not respect anyone who raised the sword but would not bring it down.
But unlike others commenting here I agree that US Army owed Iran big time, for ambushing
them when all they wanted was to pacify the Shiites and Sunnis and get the hell out.
Nonsense. Sovereign states use whatever tools are available to further their geopolitical
objectives. To cite one of innumerable examples, China uses everything, including trade, against
recognition of Taiwan.
I'm old fashioned, I think the USG should leverage its strengths in pursuit of its
geopolitical objectives. Its current dominance of global finance definitely qualifies.
Giraldi has a soft spot for the Palestinians. Fair enough. Though he does them no favors by
putting them in the same bucket as Iran in this context. Z-man , says: June 16, 2020
at 3:25 pm GMT
@WJ It
is true that the US gave Iraq chemical weapons. However, the US had given Iran chemical weapons
previously. As Stephen Pelletiere, who investigated Saddam's alleged gassing at Halajaba for
the military, reported, cyanide gas was used to kill the Kurds. Cyanide gas was being used by
Iran.
The reality is, and Mr. Giraldi seems reluctant to discuss, that the US (Israeli) strategy
in the Middle East is one of perpetual chaos. If it became convenient tomorrow, Iran would be
an "ally" and Saudi Arabia an "enemy". As long as the Eretz Yisroel project is active, that
will always be the objective.
The Talmudic faction among them is a ticking time bomb. Why take the risk of keeping the
latent virus in a country? Check out the role of the tribe when Moorish armies advanced on
Toledo, Spain.
Jews have their own country now. They can non-violently be sent to live amongst their own
kin and make their Jewtopia. That is an option that historically wasn't available but since
1948 it's been on the table.
American "law" is a sick joke. The country was a "banana republic" before its zionazi
colonization, what it is now is a fully colonized "banana republic" under full control of
israeli oligarchical interests. I believe this full control was finalized in the quisling trump
regime and that one of the major roles this regime has been tasked to accomplish was finalizing
this zionazi/israeli full control. If not the major role they were tasked to accomplish. The
slow boiled frog is now dead and fully cooked.
@Sean S.
and its precious Operation Inherent Resolve have brought in weapons from Bulgaria, Libya,
Jordan, Israel, and the U.S., inter alia, to trying to bring down Assad to the tune of some
500+K civilian deaths so I'm missing the point of your moral calculus here. Basically, we wage
aggressive war causing massive casualties, destruction, and suffering but you highlight a
particular weapon used against U.S. forces who brought the full panoply of surveillance
platforms, armor, fighter bombers, artillery, electronic warfare, and infantry to bear in a war
based on lies and stupidity. Ours.
@padre
unded on fairness, the quest for justice, and equal treatment under law. A key objective would
be advancing the common good. Zionism distorts these principles.
Lawfare uses concentrated Jewish wealth to assure that Israeli objectives become
more equal under the US law. This subverts fairness as well as the Equal Treatment
doctrine.
Organized Jewish cunning tosses aside the common good in favor of what's good for the
Jews .
What we get in its place is a premeditated perversion of justice.
@al Muqawama
Local 12 ier sovereign could claim total independence and freedom of action in
international relations but his exercise of power was not necessarily whimsical, random,
authoritarian, or illegal.
The globalist, open borders, progressive crowd work hard to paint "nationalism" as the
supreme evil -- well, after advocacy of white interests -- but it is not the evil they
try to make it out to be. As with the E.U., the silk drawer set proceeded to obliterate the
nation state and its loathsome "nationalism" which is exactly the healthy antidote to their
sought-after collectivist, multicultural nightmare.
@mark
green n my illustrious (grin) career with a powerful government agency which was the
Vatican City of government agencies back in the day (meaning once you were in you were in an
untouchable club, 'a made man') I made my political opinions known to some extent. (Mistake) In
the course of my meteoric rise as a junior executive (lol) I may have called out a Jew or two.
Whell I was transferred from my cushy office job and put out in the field, like the Red
Guards of the Cultural Revolution in CHY-NAH, (lol). It might have been for my calling out of a
'chosen'ite'.
You really are stupid enough to believe that the Iranians were stupid enough to produce so
called IED's with "Made in Iran" written on them in English?
Phil Geraldi demonstrates that the US justice system is a joke and a farce. The court's hand
down verdicts like the courts in the former Soviet Union or North Korea do. The alleged support
of terrorism by Iran and Syria doesn't hold water. It's purely political and has nothing to do
with the rule of law. To argue that the State of Israel doesn't commit acts of terrorism is
bananas. Miko Peled, who wrote "The General's Son" https://between-the-lines-ludwig-watzal.blogspot.com/2012/10/miko-peled-generals-son.html
stated in a speech on 1 October 2012 in Seattle: The Israeli army is the "best trained, best
equipped, best fed terrorist organization in the world." He continued saying: "Their entire
purpose is terrorism." The Israeli army commits acts of terror daily against the occupied
people of Palestine. Which Zionist law firm will take up their cases against the ruthless
Zionist regime in Jerusalem?
Ah, the old "senseless butchery" ploy, 99. I saw it coming a mile away.
Islam does not have 99 ploys. It extremely simple blood cult. The Muslim play book has only
3:
-1- Jihad -- Senseless Butchering of _________ (Jews, Christians, the weak, the innocent
)
-2- Taqiyya -- Lie about murders committed in the name of the Anti-Christ Muhammad
-3- Repeat -- Ploy #1 & Ploy #2
@A123
Soleimani. Since when do garden-variety military tactics and weaponry amount to SB? I've seen a
Muslim scientist who argued with some Muslim nut that the earth is in fact round. This despite
the authoritative statement of the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia that the Koran says it's flat.
Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
Forgive my obscure reference. "99" was the female lead in the amusing TV spy spoof, "Get
Smart." Maxwell Smart always referred to her as "99." She must have been flattered as she later
married him. In "real life" as we used to say. With considerable accuracy.
"... "The extraordinary destruction of white and Asian businesses in many instances wiping out a family's lifetime work, the looting of national businesses whose dumbshit CEOs support the looters, the merciless gang beatings of whites and Asians who attempted to defend their persons and their property, the egging on of the violence by politicians in both parties and by the entirely of the media including many alternative media websites, shows a country undergoing collapse. ..."
"... This is why it is not shown in national media . Some local media show an indication of the violent destruction in their community, but it is not accumulated and presented to a national audience. Consequently, Americans think the looting and destruction is only a local occurrence I just checked CNN and the BBC and there is nothing about the extraordinary economic destruction and massive thefts." ..."
"... Why has the media failed to show the vast destruction of businesses and private property? Why have they minimized the effects of vandalism, looting and arson? Why have they fanned the flames of social unrest from the very beginning, shrugging off the ruin and devastation while cheerleading the demonstrations as a heroic struggle for racial justice? Is this is the same media that supported every bloody war, every foreign intervention, and every color-revolution for the last 5 decades? Are we really expected to believe that they've changed their stripes and become an energized proponent of social justice? ..."
"... The scale and coordination alone suggests that elements in the deep state are probably involved. We know from evidence uncovered during the Russiagate probe, that the media works hand-in-glove with the Intel agencies and FBI while–at the same time– serving as a mouthpiece for elites. ..."
"... That hasn't changed, in fact, it's gotten even worse. The uniformity of the coverage suggests that that same perception management strategy is being employed here as well. Even at this late date, the determination to remove Trump from office is as strong as ever even though, in the present case, it has been combined with the broader political strategy of inciting fratricidal violence, obliterating urban areas, and spreading anarchy across the count ..."
"... This isn't about racial justice or police brutality, it's about regime change, internal destabilization, and martial law. ..."
"... What the Black Lives Matter movement does not understand is that they are being used by the billionaire white capitalists who are fighting to push the working class even lower ..."
"... The rightful grievance over racism against blacks is now used to get Trump since Russia Gate, Impeachment, the corona scandal ..."
"... The protests are merely a fig leaf for a "color revolution" that bears a striking resemblance to the more than 50 CIA-backed coups launched on foreign governments in the last 70 years ..."
"... "Use a grievance that the local population has against the system, identify and support those who oppose the current government, infiltrate and strengthen opposition movements, fund them with millions of dollars, organize protests that seem legitimate and have paid political instigators dress up in regular clothes to blend in." ..."
"... "The logistical capabilities of antifa+ are also impressive. They can move people around the country with ease, position pallet loads of new brick, 55 gallon new trash cans of frozen water bottles and other debris suitable for throwing on gridded patterns around cities in a well thought out distribution pattern. Who pays for this? Who plans this? Who coordinates these plans and gives "execute orders?" ..."
"... Antifa+ can create massive propaganda campaigns that fit their agenda. These campaigns are fully supported by the MSM and by many in the Congressional Democratic Party. The present meme of "Defund the Police" is an example. This appeared miraculously, and simultaneously across the country. I am impressed. Yesterday the frat boy type who is mayor of Minneapolis was booed out of a mass meeting of radicals in that fair city because he refused to endorse abolishing the police force. ..."
"... Colonel Lang is not the only one to marvel at Antifa's "logistical capabilities". The United States has never experienced two weeks of sustained protests in hundreds of its cities at the same time. ..."
"... it points to extensive coordination with groups across the country, a comprehensive media strategy (that probably preceded the killing of George Floyd), a sizable presence on social media (to put people on the street), and agents provocateur whose task is to incite violence, loot and create mayhem. ..."
"... This a destabilization campaign similar to the CIA's color revolutions designed to topple the regime (Trump), install a puppet government (Biden), impose "shock therapy" on the economy ..."
"... "The BLM represents the forefront of an effort to divide Americans along racial and political lines, thus keeping race and identity-based barbarians safely away from more critical issues of importance to the elite, most crucially a free hand to plunder and ransack natural resources, minerals, crude oil, and impoverish billions of people whom the ruling elite consider unproductive useless eaters and a hindrance to the drive to dominate, steal, and murder . ..."
"... The protest movement is the mask that conceals the maneuvering of elites. The real target of this operation is the Constitutional Republic itself ..."
"... that explains why anti-fa attack Yellow Vests in Germany. The Yellow Vests are the true people's movement and as shown in the video below it is not about the left and the right for the yellow vest but common people fed up with the system ..."
"... Watch every frame of this. It shows the government-media complex and their little thugs, ANTIFA, in perfect collusion to interfere with the regular Germans trying to stop the Satanic communist-Globo homo project. ..."
"... My bro is one of the few people flying, for work. He says the only people on the airlines are antifa thugs moving all around the country. ..."
"... Won't these riots create a wave of revulsion among the silent majority and consolidate Trump's support base? ..."
"... Is Antifa a group of deep state agitators? That's the question. In the Sunday edition of the New York Times– the official propaganda organ of US elites– an article is entirely devoted to creating "plausible deniability" that Antifa is behind the violence in the protests that have swept the country. ..."
"Revolutions are often seen as spontaneous. It looks like people just went into the
street. But it's the result of months or years of preparation. It is very boring until you
reach a certain point, where you can organize mass demonstrations or strikes. If it is
carefully planned, by the time they start, everything is over in a matter of weeks."
Foreign Policy
Journal
Does anyone believe the nationwide riots and looting are a spontaneous reaction to the
killing of George Floyd?
It's all too coordinated, too widespread, and too much in-sync with the media narrative that
applauds the "mainly peaceful protests" while ignoring the vast destruction to cities across
the country. What's that all about? Do the instigators of these demonstrations want to see our
cities reduced to urban wastelands where street gangs and Antifa thugs impose their own harsh
justice? That's where this is headed, isn't it?
Of course there are millions of protesters who honestly believe they're fighting racial
injustice and police brutality. And more power to them. But that certainly doesn't mean there
aren't hidden agendas driving these outbursts. Quite the contrary. It seems to me that the
protest movement is actually the perfect vehicle for affecting dramatic social changes that
only serve the interests of elites. For example, who benefits from defunding the police? Not
African Americans, that's for sure. Black neighborhoods need more security not less. And yet,
the New York Times lead editorial on Saturday proudly announces, " Yes, We Mean Literally
Abolish the Police–Because reform won't happen." Check it out:
"We can't reform the police. The only way to diminish police violence is to reduce contact
between the public and the police .There is not a single era in United States history in
which the police were not a force of violence against black people. Policing in the South
emerged from the slave patrols in the 1700 and 1800s that caught and returned runaway slaves.
In the North, the first municipal police departments in the mid-1800s helped quash labor
strikes and riots against the rich. Everywhere, they have suppressed marginalized populations
to protect the status quo.
So when you see a police officer pressing his knee into a black man's neck until he dies,
that's the logical result of policing in America. When a police officer brutalizes a black
person, he is doing what he sees as his job " (" Yes, We
Mean Literally Abolish the Police–Because reform won't happen" , New York
Times)
So, according to the Times, the problem isn't single parent families, or underfunded
education or limited job opportunities or fractured neighborhoods, it's the cops who have
nothing to do with any of these problems. Are we supposed to take this seriously, because the
editors of the Times certainly do. They'd like us to believe that there is groundswell support
for this loony idea, but there isn't. In a recent poll, more than 60% of those surveyed, oppose
the idea of defunding the police. So why would such an unpopular, wacko idea wind up as the
headline op-ed in the Saturday edition? Well, because the Times is doing what it always does,
advancing the political agenda of the elites who hold the purse-strings and dictate which ideas
are promoted and which end up on the cutting room floor. That's how the system works. Check out
this excerpt from an article by Paul Craig Roberts:
"The extraordinary destruction of white and Asian businesses in many instances wiping out
a family's lifetime work, the looting of national businesses whose dumbshit CEOs support the
looters, the merciless gang beatings of whites and Asians who attempted to defend their
persons and their property, the egging on of the violence by politicians in both parties and
by the entirely of the media including many alternative media websites, shows a country
undergoing collapse.
This is why it is not shown in national media . Some local media show an
indication of the violent destruction in their community, but it is not accumulated and
presented to a national audience. Consequently, Americans think the looting and destruction
is only a local occurrence I just checked CNN and the BBC and there is nothing about the
extraordinary economic destruction and massive thefts." (" The Real Racists", Paul Craig Roberts,
Unz Review)
Roberts makes a good point, and one that's worth mulling over. Why has the media failed to
show the vast destruction of businesses and private property? Why have they minimized the
effects of vandalism, looting and arson? Why have they fanned the flames of social unrest from
the very beginning, shrugging off the ruin and devastation while cheerleading the
demonstrations as a heroic struggle for racial justice? Is this is the same media that
supported every bloody war, every foreign intervention, and every color-revolution for the last
5 decades? Are we really expected to believe that they've changed their stripes and become an
energized proponent of social justice?
Nonsense. The media's role in concealing the damage should only convince skeptics that the
protests are just one part of a much larger operation. What we're seeing play out in over 400
cities across the US, has more to do with toppling Trump and sowing racial division than it
does with the killing of George Floyd. The scale and coordination alone suggests that elements
in the deep state are probably involved. We know from evidence uncovered during the Russiagate
probe, that the media works hand-in-glove with the Intel agencies and FBI while–at the
same time– serving as a mouthpiece for elites.
That hasn't changed, in fact, it's gotten
even worse. The uniformity of the coverage suggests that that same perception management
strategy is being employed here as well. Even at this late date, the determination to remove
Trump from office is as strong as ever even though, in the present case, it has been combined
with the broader political strategy of inciting fratricidal violence, obliterating urban areas,
and spreading anarchy across the country.
This isn't about racial justice or police brutality,
it's about regime change, internal destabilization, and martial law. Take a look at this
article at The Herland Report:
"What the Black Lives Matter movement does not understand is that they are being used by
the billionaire white capitalists who are fighting to push the working class even lower and
end the national sovereignty principles that president Trump stands for in America .
The rightful grievance over racism against blacks is now used to get Trump since Russia
Gate, Impeachment, the corona scandal and nothing else has worked. The aim is to end
democracy in the United States, control Congress and politics and assemble the power into the
hands of the very few
That sounds about right to me. The protests are merely a fig leaf for a "color revolution"
that bears a striking resemblance to the more than 50 CIA-backed coups launched on foreign
governments in the last 70 years. Have the chickens have come home to roost? It certainly looks
like it. Here's more from the same article:
"Use a grievance that the local population has against the system, identify and support
those who oppose the current government, infiltrate and strengthen opposition movements, fund
them with millions of dollars, organize protests that seem legitimate and have paid political
instigators dress up in regular clothes to blend in."
So, yes, the grievances are real, but that doesn't mean that someone else is not steering
the action. And just as the media is shaping the narrative for its own purposes, so too, there
are agents within the movement that are inciting the violence. All of this suggests the
existence of some form of command-control that provides logistical support and assists in
communications. Check out this excerpt from a post at Colonel Pat Lang's website Sic Semper
Tyrannis:
"The logistical capabilities of antifa+ are also impressive. They can move people around
the country with ease, position pallet loads of new brick, 55 gallon new trash cans of frozen
water bottles and other debris suitable for throwing on gridded patterns around cities in a
well thought out distribution pattern. Who pays for this? Who plans this? Who coordinates
these plans and gives "execute orders?"
Antifa+ can create massive propaganda campaigns that fit their agenda. These campaigns are
fully supported by the MSM and by many in the Congressional Democratic Party. The present
meme of "Defund the Police" is an example. This appeared miraculously, and simultaneously
across the country. I am impressed. Yesterday the frat boy type who is mayor of Minneapolis
was booed out of a mass meeting of radicals in that fair city because he refused to endorse
abolishing the police force.
Gutting the civil police forces has long been a major goal of
the far left, but now, they have the ability to create mass hysteria over it when they have
an excuse ."
("My take on the present situation", Sic Semper Tyrannis)
Colonel Lang is not the only one to marvel at Antifa's "logistical capabilities". The United
States has never experienced two weeks of sustained protests in hundreds of its cities at the
same time. It's beyond suspicious, it points to extensive coordination with groups across the
country, a comprehensive media strategy (that probably preceded the killing of George Floyd), a
sizable presence on social media (to put people on the street), and agents provocateur whose
task is to incite violence, loot and create mayhem.
None of this has anything to do with racial justice or police brutality. America is being
destabilized and sacked for other purposes altogether. This a destabilization campaign similar
to the CIA's color revolutions designed to topple the regime (Trump), install a puppet
government (Biden), impose "shock therapy" on the economy pushing tens of millions of Americans
into homelessness and destitution, and leave behind a broken, smoldering shell of a country
easily controlled by Federal shock troops and wealthy globalist mandarins. Here's a short
excerpt from an article by Kurt Nimmo at his excellent blog "Another Day in the Empire":
"The BLM represents the forefront of an effort to divide Americans along racial and
political lines, thus keeping race and identity-based barbarians safely away from more
critical issues of importance to the elite, most crucially a free hand to plunder and ransack
natural resources, minerals, crude oil, and impoverish billions of people whom the ruling
elite consider unproductive useless eaters and a hindrance to the drive to dominate, steal,
and murder .
It is sad to say BLM serves the elite by ignoring or remaining ignorant of the main
problem -- boundless predation by a neoliberal criminal project that considers all -- black,
white, yellow, brown -- as expliotable and dispensable serfs. " (" 2 Million Arab Lives
Don't Matter ", Kurt Nimmo, Another Day in the Empire)
The protest movement is the mask that conceals the maneuvering of elites. The real target of
this operation is the Constitutional Republic itself. Having succeeded in using the Lockdown to
push the economy into severe recession, the globalists are now inciting a fratricidal war that
will weaken the opposition and prepare the country for a new authoritarian order.
the media narrative that applauds the "mainly peaceful protests" while ignoring the vast
destruction to Hong Kong where there was neither police violence nor racial discrimination.
Look like the same organizing principles were used in both places.
Of course that explains why anti-fa attack Yellow Vests in Germany.
The Yellow Vests are the true people's movement and as shown in the video below it is not
about the left and the right for the yellow vest but common people fed up with the system, a
true grass roots movement of the people.
And Anti-fa, the Whores of the Satanic elites attack them. Why would anti-fascists attack the
common man?
Watch every frame of this. It shows the government-media complex and their little thugs,
ANTIFA, in perfect collusion to interfere with the regular Germans trying to stop the Satanic
communist-Globo homo project.
Few arguments in contra of the article. Can any-one conceive of there being a competition between BLM rioting organizing and
covertly supporting, and Corona-19, where the elites were very cohesive internationally in the face.
The target, Trump, the man with no policies, the implement nothing, is it such a worthy target to a fraction of the power
elites? That would speak for shallowness on their behalf. Creating back-ground noise to fade out the re-organizing of society,
regardless of actors as Trump could be an acceptable explanation. "Keep the surplus population busy. Keep the attention on the
streets".
There is a trade-off. The international elites see the exposure of the US internal policies, the expenditure of energy, do
they regard the situation as something to copy-paste, an interesting experiment, or as weakness to be taken advantage of?
Probably the first, then BLM covert support chains perfectly with Corona-19, and scales things up.
"Black neighborhoods need more security not less."
Police are not security, they're repression. Anybody of any color who thinks they're safer
with heavily armed bureaucrats blundering around is a moron.
And since when does reductions in guard labor equal austerity? There are several economic
rights that should not be derogated, but assholes with guns impounding cars is not one of
them. If the residents of a community are asking for more cops, that's one thing. They are
not. Law enforcement budgets are stuffed up the ass of residents and often municipalities.
Look into e.g. the MA "strong chief" enabling acts. States have massive unfunded pension
liabilities in large part because of police featherbedding. That's what's being pushed by the
"deep state" (you mean CIA.) The evident CIA use of provocateurs is aimed at justifying
further increases in repressive capacity.
OK bye! Don't let the door hit your fat ass on the way out! Stupid and delusional though pigs are, it's dimly dawning on them that America considers
them crooked loudmouthed violent assholes. Here's a typical one exercising what Gore Vidal
called the core competence of police, whining.
Boo hoo hoo, asshole, go home and beat your wife or eat a gun or whatever it is you dream
of doing in retirement, cause the states can't afford your crooked unions' pensions in this
induced depression. Cut these white man's welfare jobs.
Is Antifa a group of deep state agitators? That's the question.
In the Sunday edition of the New York Times– the official propaganda organ of US
elites– an article is entirely devoted to creating "plausible deniability" that Antifa
is behind the violence in the protests that have swept the country.
Why is the Times so concerned that its readers might have a different opinion on this
matter? Why do they want to convince people that the protests-riots are merely spontaneous
outbursts of anti-racist sentiment? Could it be because the Times job is to create a version
of events that suits the interests of the elites it serves? Here's a few excerpts from
today's piece titled "Federal Arrests Show No Sign That Antifa Plotted Protests":
While anarchists and anti-fascists openly acknowledged being part of the immense
crowds, they call the scale, intensity and durability of the protests far beyond anything
they might dream of organizing. Some tactics used at the protests, like the wearing of
all black and the shattering of store windows, are reminiscent of those used by anarchist
groups, say those who study such movements. (plausible deniability)
Anarchists and others accuse officials of trying to assign blame to extremists rather
than accept the idea that millions of Americans from a variety of political backgrounds have
been on the streets demanding change. Numerous experts also called the participation of
extremist organizations overstated. (plausible deniability)
"A significant number of people in positions of authority are pushing a false narrative
about antifa being behind a lot of this activity," said J.M. Berger, the author of the
book "Extremism" and an authority on militant movements. "These are just unbelievably large
protests at a time of great turmoil in this country, and there is surprisingly little
violence given the size of this movement.".. (plausible deniability)
In New York, the police briefed reporters on May 31, claiming that radical anarchists
from outside the state had plotted ahead of protests by setting up encrypted communications
systems, arranging for street medics and collecting bail funds.
Within five days, however, Dermot F. Shea, the city's police commissioner, acknowledged
that most of the hundreds of people arrested at the protests in New York were actually New
Yorkers who took advantage of the chaos to commit crimes and were not motivated by political
ideology . John Miller, the police official who had briefed reporters, told CNN that most
looting in New York had been committed by "regular criminal groups." (plausible
deniability)
Kit O'Connell, a longtime radical leftist activist and community organizer in Austin, said
that shortly after Mr. Trump's election, the group took part in anti-fascist protests in the
city against a local white supremacist group and scuffled separately with Act for America, an
anti-Muslim organization.
Why is the Times acting like Antifa's attorney? Why are the trying to minimize the role of
professional agitators? Why is the Times so determined to shape the public's thinking on this
matter?
Doesn't this suggest that Antifa and other groups operating within the protest movement
are actually linked to agencies in the deep state that are conducting another operation
against the American people?
@anonymous anonymous, I have been encouraging cops to quit for a long time. They are
protecting the wrong people, being used to protect people in the ruling class that hate and
despise cops just a little less than they hate and despise the rest of us civilians.
To the issue at hand, black people should only be policed, arrested, charged, prosecuted,
defended, judged, and (if found guilty) punished by other blacks. No white person should have
anything to do with it. Any white person policing negros in America is making a huge mistake,
and should immediately quit.
The pensions are not going to be paid, and the crazy, Soros paid for black people are
going to make it impossible for a white cop pretty soon anyway. Might as well walk before
they make you run.
Don't worry about BLM, which is corporate phoney bullshit protest, easter parades and
internet posturing. The blacks in the street don't fall for that shit. Look what happens when
coopted oreos try to herd everybody back to tame marching:
The provocateurs are not influencing them. The sellout house negroes are not influencing
them. They know what they want. The regime is shitting its pants. If they scapegoat Trump and
purge him, Biden will inherit the same problem only worse.
Won't these riots create a wave of revulsion among the silent majority and consolidate
Trump's support base?
That's what I am wondering too. It makes more sense to me that the elites driving these
BLM riots are those who support Trump. Terrify people and threaten the existence of police is
a good way to get elderly white voters out of their covid lockdowns on election day.
Doesn't this suggest that Antifa and other groups operating within the protest movement
are actually linked to agencies in the deep state that are conducting another operation
against the American people?
Do we really want to suggest the CIA is committing treason against the American people?
Isn't it more likely that the Times is agitating against the CIA for other reasons? Reasons
Carlos Slim could explain?
For those who haven't read Pepe Escobar's latsest on BLM, here's a couple clips:
Black Lives Matter, founded in 2013 by a trio of middle class, queer black women very
vocal against "hetero-patriarchy", is a product of what University of British Columbia's
Peter Dauvergne defines as "corporatization of activism".
Over the years, Black Lives Matter evolved as a marketing brand, like Nike (which
fully supports it). The widespread George Floyd protests elevated it to the status of a new
religion. Yet Black Lives Matter carries arguably zero, true revolutionary appeal. This is
not James Brown's "Say It Loud, I'm Black and I'm Proud". And it does not get even close to
Black Power and the Black Panthers' "Power to the People".
Black Lives Matter profited in 2016 from a humongous $100 million grant from the Ford
Foundation and other philanthropic capitalism stalwarts such as JPMorgan Chase and the
Kellogg Foundation.
The Ford Foundation is very close to the U.S. Deep State. The board of directors is
crammed with corporate CEOs and Wall Street honchos. In a nutshell; Black Lives Matter, the
organization, today is fully sanitized; largely integrated into the Democratic Party machine;
adored by mainstream media; and certainly does not represent a threat to the 0.001%.
an evident ham-handed attempt to make this all about race. The real threat to this police
state is racial and international solidarity against state predation – the stuff that
got Fred Hampton killed,
"when I talk about the masses, I'm talking about the white masses, I'm talking about the
black masses, and the brown masses, and the yellow masses, too We say you don't fight racism
with racism. We're gonna fight racism with solidarity. We say you don't fight capitalism with
no black capitalism; you fight capitalism with socialism."
or Angela Davis and the Che-Lumumba club. BAP is right back on this and the resonating
international demonstrations show that that's the right track. The whole world sees what this
is about, except for a few fucked-over US whites.
botazefa, of course the CIA is committing treason against the American people. Where were you
when they whacked JFK, then RFK? Where were you when they blew up OKC? Where were you when
they released anthrax on the Senate, infiltrated and protected 9/11 terrorists, assigned more
terrorists to MITRE to blind NORAD, blew up the WTC for the second time, and exfiltrated the
Saudi logisticians?
Anybody unaware that CIA has been pure treason from inception is (1) retarded XOR (2) a
CIA traitor.
Sorry. The assholes on this asshole site will not let you say that what is important is how
the super-billionaires control us. They are going to insist that it's niggerniggernigger all
the way home and that's all there is to it. You would think they were paid. Or really, really
stupid.
When Gina, she-wolf of Udon Thani, got busted for trying to overthrow the United States
government with Russiagate, she hung onto her job by rigging the succession with all the
Brennan traitors who ran the Russiagate coup.
So we should expect that Gina will now stage a couple massacres like Kent State and
Jackson State, because that's how CIA ratfucked Nixon when he didn't knuckle under.
Gina's extra motivated to stay on top because she's criminally culpable for systematic and
widespread torture:
@Mike Whitney Excellent article and I believe excellent analysis of the situation.
Where we may differ is with Trump's complicity in Deep State efforts. I believe Trump is a
minion of the Deep State. His actions and inactions can not be explained any other way.
Let's assume for a minute, that Pepe Escobar is correct when he says this:
"Black Lives Matter profited in 2016 from a humongous $100 million grant from the Ford
Foundation and other philanthropic capitalism stalwarts such as JPMorgan Chase and the
Kellogg Foundation .
The Ford Foundation is very close to the U.S. Deep State. The board of directors is
crammed with corporate CEOs and Wall Street honchos. In a nutshell; Black Lives Matter,
the organization, today is fully sanitized; largely integrated into the Democratic Party
machine; adored by mainstream media; and certainly does not represent a threat to the
0.001%.
If this is true–and I believe it is– then Black Lives Matter is no different
than USAID or any of the other NGOs that are used to incite revolution around the world. If
this is true, then there is likely a CIA link to these protests, the main purpose of which is
to remove Trump from office.
So Black Lives Matter= activist NGO linked to US Intel agencies= Regime Change
Operation
But there is something else going on here too, (that many readers might have noticed) that
is, the way social media has been manipulated to put millions of young people on the street
in order to promote the agenda of elites.
How did they manage that?
How did they get millions of young people to come out day after day (14 days so far) in
over 400 cities to protest an issue about which they know very little aside from the media's
irritating reiteration of "systemic racism", (a claim that is not supported by the data.)
IMO, we are seeing the first successful social media saturation campaign launched probably
by the Pentagon's Office Strategic Communications or a similar outfit within the CIA. Having
already taken control over the entire mainstream media complex, the intel agencies and their
friends at the Pentagon are now wrapping their tentacles around internet communications in
order to achieve their goal of complete tyrannical social control.
As always, the target of these massive covert operations is the American people who had
better pull their heads out of the sand pronto and come up with a plan for countering this
madness.
@anonymous The elephant in the room, that seems to be ignored by all is the simple fact
that Hispanics are working class heroes. And they outnumber the blacks, and hate their guts
for the most part. Not the scrawny punks withe Che t-shirts, but the actual working types
that are less than thrilled to deal with the weak. Notice how no Hispanic barrios have EVER
been f ** ked with, no matter when the race riot? There is an open fatwa from La Eme
regarding blacks that has never been rescinded. Has a lot to do with the kneegro exodus from
the LA area, which correlates with the lack of looting in the formerly black areas. Which the
MSM prefers to ignore. The happy idiots are mugging for the cameras on a daily basis in
Hollywood, but the Hispanic run Sheriff's office has no problem with popping gas and
defending businesses. Also note that the MSM only reports on areas when a local government
craters to the mob. LA County was under curfew for 7 days due to a mob of looters that
numbered perhaps 2000. If that Jew mayor (with the Italian surname) had not allowed the
looting, then we would have seen the kind of 36 hour turnaround like we had with Rodney King.
The ethnic group that ignores the MSM and stands up for its own people will win in the end.
Right now we are looking more toward the kind of Celtic/Meso-American alliance that is well
known in the penal system. These groups can exist side by side, with each ignoring the other.
Blacks, on the other paw seem to be unable to keep to themselves, at least on the ghetto
level, and will always be an issue for civilization. It's time we stop calling for a generic
and all-inclusive White establishment. The race traitors and weaklings forfeit that right.
When Celts, Italians, Germans, etc. were proud and independent, there was strength. It's time
to return to that ideal. Only the negroid actually lumps all whites together, which the Jews
use as a divisive tool. Strength should be idolized, rather than weakness exploited.
I'm saying that the NYT is not necessarily mouthpiece *only* for the Deep State. As for
your JFK assassination – Senate Anthrax – 9/11 etc, those are considered
conspiracy theories and I've never been persuaded otherwise. I've read up on the theories and
they are not strong.
I don't know what a retarded XOR is except as it relates to logic diagrams and I don't
work for the CIA.
Do Deep State Elements Operate Within the Protest Movement?
It's called Jewish lawfare for Antifa, Jewish control of media, and Jewish cult of Magic
Negro.
Even though Jews led the Gentric Cleansing campaigns against blacks by using mass
immigration, globo-homo celebration, and white middle class return to cities, the Jews are
now pretending be with the blacks and throwing the immigrants, white middle class, and homos
to the black mobs.
simple fact that Hispanics are working class heroes
Some are. Most aren't. And the 'not'% grows with selective Americanization (not
assimilation). Still, I'll take them over the blacks, even with their generally inferior (to
White) culture.
Whites are better with separation from them along with blacks. Whatever the prime driver,
both groups have poisoned America, likely beyond repair. Conquistador gonnna
conquistador.
M. Whitney in comment 21 clarifies his view of BLM as the impetus for this rebellion. That
does not square with the reports of people on the street.
BLM is exactly analogous to BDS: a controlled opposition of feckless halfassed gestures
designed to distract from the real movement. You hear BLM apparatchiks whining about getting
their movement hijacked because people in the streets show solidarity with oppressed groups
worldwide – and youe hear BLM getting booed by the people they're trying to corral.
BLM's mission is putting words in the protestors' mouths. You hear Democrat BLM spokesmodels
trying to distort calls for police abolition and no more impunity. And real protestors call
bullshit.
BLM works on dumb white guys: hating on BLM makes them feel very edgy and defiant. Black
Lives Matter! Blue Lives Matter! Black! Blue! Black! Blue! Catnip for dumbshits, courtesy of
CIA. Keeps them away from the really subversive stuff, which makes perfect sense for whites
too.
@ICD Look into whether the training of cops has been outsourced and privatized. Or simply
shortened to save money.
And ask why the police are even armed when in Communist China they are not, and
traditionally in the non-American West they were not, now are in imitation of America.
Ann Nonny Mouse, truer words were never spoken. Chinese cops have these cute little
nightsticks, and sometimes they will bop a guy and the guy just stands there and says Ow and
the cops continue to reason with him, no restraint, incapacitation, any of that shit. British
cops used to be that way, they used to reason with you. Now they're all American style
Assholes, if not Israeli concentration camp guards. Just nuke FOP HQ in Memphis.
Koch sees privatization as a future profit center and a chance to control the cops
himself. They're not trainable, they're too fucking stupid. We all did fine without pigs up
through most of the 19th century. Hue and cry works fine. Fire all the cops and replace them
with unarmed women social workers. That's all they are, prodigiously incompetent social
workers.
Too, those many businesses with all that unsold inventory sitting around gathering dust due
to Covid isolation will benefit from insurance payments covering their losses due to looting.
The cherry on top.
Are you just clueless or what? Did you notice the names of the Antifa leaders that have
been exposed? They are Amish Right? They are Jews and they will always be Jews! Soros and
other Jews have been running this game for a long time. Where have you been? SDS in Chicago
no Jews there right!
The CIA and the FBI overwhelmed with Jews can you count? All the professors who have been
destroying whites with their fake studies blaming everything wrong in the world on Whites and
Western Civilization. The entire Media owned by who?
Either you were dropped out of a spaceship a few days ago or you are a total idiot and
can't see the forest before trees.
Try this: The Percentage of all Ivy League Presidents, top adminstrators, deans etc take a
guess then go count them and see which group they belong to.
Does anyone believe the nationwide riots and looting are a spontaneous reaction to the
killing of George Floyd?
It's all too coordinated, too widespread, and too much in-sync with the media narrative
.
* * *
This a destabilization campaign similar to the CIA's color revolutions designed to
topple the regime (Trump), install a puppet government (Biden), impose "shock therapy" on
the economy pushing tens of millions of Americans into homelessness and destitution, and
leave behind a broken, smoldering shell of a country easily controlled by Federal shock
troops and wealthy globalist mandarins.
One must wonder: How could the CIA and the U.S. Democrat establishment foment and
coordinate all of the Black Lives Matter protests occurring in Canada, several nations of
South and Central America, the U.K., Ireland, throughout the European Union, and in
Switzerland, the Middle East (Turkey, Iran ), and in Asia (Korea, Japan .) and New Zealand,
Australia, and Africa?
Mr. Whitney: Neither magic nor bigotry-induced hallucinations can forge a tenable
conspiracy theory.
I think the primary reason the mainstream media doesn't want the general public, especially
those living outside the major cities, to understand the extent of the destruction and
violence that spread in a highly-coordinated fashion across America, is that this would be
cause for alarm among a majority of Americans who would demand more Law & Order, which
would redound to Trump's benefit.
Notice Trump is countering by tweeting "LAW & ORDER!"
Here is Trump tweeting "Does anyone notice how little the Radical Left takeover of Seattle
is being discussed in the Fake News Media[?] That is very much on purpose "
Does anyone notice how little the Radical Left takeover of Seattle is being discussed in
the Fake News Media. That is very much on purpose because they know how badly this weakness
& ineptitude play politically. The Mayor & Governor should be ashamed of
themselves. Easily fixed!
The outcome of the election in November could hinge on the urgency the public places on
the issue of Law & Order. Hence the media's all out effort to minimize the extent of the
Anarchy and Violence and the financial sponsorship, planning, and coordination behind it.
Please see my comment of June 15, 2020 at 1:38 am GMT (comment # 34). I must apologize for
that comment's insufficiency (owed to my posting that comment before I happened upon your
comment to which this comment replies). Had I encountered your comment earlier, my
June 15, 2020 at 1:38 am GMT comment (comment # 34) would have observed that you are
triumphantly illogical as you are a world class crackpot.
@ICD You said it. Police Departments country-wide are stuffed up the wazoo with more cash
than they can spend. But what do they cry? Poor us. Poor us. We ain't got no money.
This is what they, and by they, I mean all our owners and their overseers, always do. They
cry poverty when they are rolling in loot.
Do Deep State Elements Operate Within the Protest Movement?
Yes, and the left(unwittingly) will help them with their cause, and the right will
cowardly hide right behind the deep state as protection from the violent left.
@Priss Factor You are extremely unlikely to receive any of those things from a "Negro".
90% of Americans are unlikely to even see more than ten black people in their entire lives.
I wish you psychotic fucking female idiots on this website who are constantly blathering
about black people could realize how annoying you are to the 90% of white people who are not
living in or next to black ghettos. Please STFU and allow discourse to trend in more
pertinent directions, and move away from black people if you're so paranoid about them.
@Mike Whitney The (((media))) have an uphill battle in convincing us to deny the evidence
of our eyes -- black-hooded white punks throwing bricks through storefronts then inviting
joggers to loot.
That is why so many platforms, even "free speech" GAB, are wildly censoring
counter-narratives.
@Brian Reilly Stephen Molyneux said that police forces were originally geared to operate
under white Christian societies where there was a high level of trust and people were
law-abiding. I remember when I was a kid, we didn't even lock our doors. Our bikes were left
out on the front lawn, sometimes for days, weeks, and nobody took them. Nobody locked their
car doors. People just didn't steal other people's stuff. When a cop tried to pull you over,
you didn't hit the gas pedal and take off. You didn't run from the cops; you were polite to
them and they were polite to you.
Tucker Carlson said that Blacks are now asking for their own hospitals (I forget what city
this was) and their own doctors and nurses. Blacks schools, Black police forces.
Tribes don't mix. Their culture is different than our culture. Why should they change for
us, and why should we change for them?
It is a marriage that does not work. Either send them back to Africa (best solution) or
give them Mississippi and put up a big wall. Then let them pay for their own upkeep –
all of it. Good luck with that.
Yesterday the frat boy type who is mayor of Minneapolis was booed out of a mass
meeting of radicals in that fair city because he refused to endorse abolishing the police
force.
Mayor Jacob Frey got elected at his extremely young age by flanking on the Left with anti
police rhetoric, He is the the originator of this crisis; as soon as the video of Floyd's
death was public Frey publicly and literally called the four cops murderers and said
he was powerless to have them arrested. That was a false accusation of police impunity,
because the supposedly powerless Frey was able to order the police to vacate their own
station thus letting the demonstrators take over and burn it. Yet to draw back a bit the Deep
State if worried about other states.
That event Frey largely created was the key moment of this whole thing. Trump could have
nipped it in the bud by had sending in troops immediately the Minneapolis 3rd Precinct was
burnt down. Crushing the riots in that city and preventing the example infecting the
demonstrations in other cities. and turning them into cover for riots. Trump did not want to
be seen as Draconian although it would not have been at all violent, because no one is going
to challenge the army's awesome presence once it arrived on the streets,as worked in the
Rodney King riots.
The real target of this operation is the Constitutional Republic itself. Having
succeeded in using the Lockdown to push the economy into severe recession, the globalists
are now inciting a fratricidal war that will weaken the opposition and prepare the country
for a new authoritarian order.
George Floyd had foam visible at the corners of his mouth when the police arrived. Autopsy
tests revealed Fentanyl and COVID-19: both from Wuhan. I Can't Breath is America gearing up
to confront and settle accounts with Xi's totalitarian state.
Current events might seem to be a setback for the US, but provide the opportunity for a
re-set with the black community, with a potential outcome of resolving race tensions that
have been a cause of dissension and internal weakness, just as during the Cold War racial
integration was thought essential by anti communists like Nixon. America is gearing up to
settle accounts with China, which is a Deep State new Cold War. While it is a possibility
that whites could lose control of their society, and see it fall into the hands of an
explicitly anti -acist elite/ minorities alliance, the Deep State is not the same as the
hyper capitalist elite whose growing wealth depends on China.
Do Deep State Elements Operate Within the Protest Movement?
@Mike Whitney The Duran did an excellent video titled "Social Media 'Unchecked Power'"
where they talk about Trump and Barr going after the tech companies and their virtual
monopolies with an executive order.
At 33:45 they state that Microsoft (Bill Gates) invested $1 billion and the CIA invested
$16 million into Facebook when it was still operating as a university network. The CIA were
one of the first investors in Facebook.
Why the hell was the CIA investing $16 million to get Facebook off the ground? Hmmm. Could
it be because Facebook would be instrumental in controlling the narrative?
The young people, who have no experience and no real knowledge of history, are being taken
in by these social media companies who are playing on their emotions. Any dissenting opinions
are blocked or banned. Very dangerous.
@Loup-Bouc Well, the "deep state" is just an euphemism for the jewish power structure,
and all those places you named are run be jews. That jews cooperate in extended conspiracies
without regard of borders should be common knowledge for every observer of history and
current politics. I see nothing far-fetched. Honestly, my mind would boggle if I should
explain, how the Antifa gets away with those things it always gets away with, if it wasn't
controlled by the "deep state". And I couldn't explain the international cooperation either.
As Pepe' Escobar said – Americans looting is a natural thing – just look at how
the US Military has stolen the gaz and oil from Iraq, Syria, Libya, etc. and is trying like
hell for the Venezuelan oil fields. Not to mention where all their gold, silver and billions
of dollars have gone. The list of the USG looting criminal record is unprecedented . It's a
Family Tradition. Enjoyed the article !
@MrFoSquare The Capitol Hill area of Seattle that has been taken over as an "autonomous
zone" by the protesters is really rather laughable.
One of the first things they did was put up what they called "light fencing". Oh, so when
THEY put up walls, that's perfectly fine. When Trump tries to do it, that's evil and racist.
Borders are A-okay when they're doing it.
They've colonized an area for themselves. I thought the Progressive Left was against
colonialism, taking someone else's property. Isn't that what they've done? They've taken over
whole neighborhoods.
And they've got armed patrol guards checking people as they enter. If you're not in
agreement with their ideology, you're not allowed to enter. So apparently it's okay to have
border controls when they're running the world.
They're doing everything they profess to be against. Hilarious.
@Brian Reilly "anonymous, I have been encouraging cops to quit for a long time."
Dude, why? I don't want to get jacked by some thug or some immigrant policeman from
Honduras. And I can't defend myself because it would be a hate crime.
There are underlying motives, or "hidden agendas", beneath the authentic struggle for
justice. The greatest motive is for power: either to retain it or gain it. The need or desire
for power can be identified in every conflict in history. https://www.ghostsofhistory.wordpress.com/
@Realist So you think that everything they've done to Trump has been one big show and
he's been in on it? The pussy tape, Stormy Daniels, spying on his campaign, the leaking, the
Steele Dossier, Russiagate, Ukrainegate, his impeachment, lying to the FISA Courts by the
FBI, CIA's involvement, Mueller Report, DNC server, Clinton and Loretta Lynch on the tarmac,
fake news media, sanctuary cities, courts disobeying his executive orders, Covid-19, protests
– all of it has been a ruse to fool us into thinking that Trump is a legitimate
opposition?
What, it's better to have the citizens split politically 50/50? That way there's never a
majority who start throwing their weight around and making trouble for the elite looters?
Keep the people fighting among each other and divided?
Trump has gone through all of this, but he's just faking it? Are we Truman from the Truman
Show?
I guess you could be right, but what if you're not? What if Trump is actually an outsider?
He's never really ever been part of the elite, not really. If he is truly an outsider, then
these people have been a party to an attempted coup against a duly-elected President.
And if so, then that's sedition and they should hang.
@PetrOldSack Trump is just a puppet, well maybe a bit more, of the part of the MIC and
Deep State that apparently has a different agenda. This is not to say that they are "good
people" but they seem to want to keep the US as a functioning republic and a major power.
Maybe they have some plans re the other group(s) in the elites that are extremely dangerous
for those groups. Which would explain why those groups ("globalists") want to remove those
elements of influence people behind Trump get from the fact that he is the president. This
explains why fake Covid-19 was so pumped by the media and when that apparently did not work
they moved on to BLM "color revolution". It is interesting how all of this plays out, as it
will decide the fate of the world. Ironically, Xi, Putin and other leaders that represent
groups wanting to maintain (some) sovereignty of their states have a common enemy, even as
their states are in competition, namely "globalist" elements within their own power
structures.
One of the goals of the British security service, MI5, is to control the leader or deputy
leader of any subversive organisation larger than a football team. The same is likely true in
every country.
The typical criticism of MI5 is that it is too passive, and does not use its knowledge to
close down hostile groups. In Algeria, the opposite happened: the Algerian security service
infiltrated the most extreme Islamist group in the 1990s and aggravated the country's civil
war by committing massacres, with the goal of creating public revulsion for the
Islamists.
This range of possibilities makes it hard to figure out what the Deep State and other
manipulators are doing.
@Sean Frey is a weak Leftist. The equally weak Governor (another Leftie) needed to handle
the situation. He didn't. Trump told him that the feds would help if he asked; he didn't.
This is all on the state and local governments. They did nothing except to tell the cops
to stand down while the city got looted and burned.
If Trump had sent in the military, they would have screamed blue murder. They probably
would have called for his impeachment. Of course, that's what they wanted Trump to do. Thank
goodness Trump didn't fall for their trap.
So the NYT has joined the vanguard af the American People's Revolution?! People change sides
and not all organisations are uniform, even the CIA. There has to be some organisation to
these protests and whoever is providing it, I doubt the protesters are complaining, but want
even more of it, and for it to be more effective, widespread and to grow. And finding
protesters is no problem now or in the future considering the state of the economy, business
closures, rising unemployment, expensive education. What are all these young people supposed
to do? Sit at home playing video games, surfing porn, watching TV? Or go on a holiday? Now in
these circumstances? I guess they're bored with all that so they may as well hit the streets
and stay on the streets as they'll be on the streets anyway when they get evicted because
they can't pay the rent. And as they're being impoverished they may as well steal what they
can. And obviously they don't fear arrest and are happy to get a criminal record since even a
clean sheet won't get them a job in the failing economy, and they know that. I'm sure many
want a solution that will provide for their future. But who is providing it? So it's on them
to create it. Of course politicians will want to use them and manipulate them for their own
ends. And the elites, and the deep state too. And sure there are Jews in it as in anything.
And sure they're fat, ugly, and degenerate – they're Americans reflecting their own
society. But where it goes nobody knows
@Mike Whitney "Is Antifa a group of deep state agitators? That's the question."
99% of them wouldn't have a clue as to any larger strategic direction. Sorry,
but to repeat myself: "useful idiots".
"Do Deep State Elements Operate Within the Protest Movement?"
Well, duh! It seems likely that the entire George Floyd murder on camera was a staged
event, its even possible that he/it was never really killed. See:
PSYOP? George Floyd "death" was faked by crisis actors to engineer revolutionary riots,
video authors say
" Numerous videos are now surfacing that directly question the authenticity of the claimed
"death" of George Floyd by Minneapolis police. Several trending videos appear to reveal
striking inconsistencies in the official explanations behind the reported death of Floyd.
These videos appear to reinforce the idea that the George Floyd incident was, if not entirely
falsified, most definitely planned and rigged in advance. It is already confirmed that the
Obama Foundation was tweeting about George Floyd more than a week before he is claimed to
have died. "
"Obviously, since Barack Obama doesn't own a time machine, the only way the Obama
Foundation could have tweeted about George Floyd a week before his death is it the entire
event was planned in advanced.
Note: We do not endorse every claim in each of the videos shown below, but we believe the
public has the right to hear dissenting views that challenge the official narratives, and we
believe public debate that incorporates views from all sides of a particular issue offers
inherent merit for public discourse.
Numerous video authors are now spotting stunning inconsistencies in the viral videos that
claim to show white cops murdering George Floyd in broad daylight. Without exception, these
video authors, many of whom are black, believe:
at least one of the "police officers" was actually a hired crisis actor who has appeared
in other staged events in recent years.
that the black man depicted in the viral videos is not, in fact, an individual named
George Floyd.
that the responding medical personnel were not EMTs but were in fact mere crisis actors
wearing police costumes.
Each of the video authors shown below reveals still images and video clips that they say
support their claims. Here's an overview of some of the most intriguing videos and the
summary of what those videos are saying: .":
@Mike Whitney I think you are correct Mike. IF blm got $100 million from anyone it
follows that they are beholden -- & the only entities capable of such "generosity" are
"establishment" it therefore follows that BLM are beholden (controlled) by the establishment
( .the deep state .)
Now the New York Times thinks that the black, brown, white and yellow lives are dispensable
does it mean their own GRAY lives matter more to the rest of us? No, it does not!
The scale and coordination alone suggests that elements in the deep state are probably
involved.
It seems right and logical.
But what I don't understand, is why the deep state elite don't understand that in the end the
collapse of the "traditional society" will touch them too in their private life. In the long
run the ruining of the US will ruin everybody in the US including them. Don't they get it ?
Maybe they are intoxicated by their own lies are are begining to lose their lucidity. Like Al
Pacino intoxicated by his own coke in scarface.
@MrFoSquare What we need are some solid numbers:
How many arrested? (& who are they?)
How many properties destroyed?
Dollars worth of damage?
Which cities had the worst damage?
A social media "history" of protest/riot posting ?
Where/who are responsible for brick/frozen water bottle stashes?
Travel histories of notable offenders?
Links between "protesters" & the media ?
Money? Who/what/when/how was all this funded on a day-to-day basis.
And so on.
Mike Whitney doesn't know the first thing. It takes a lot of organizing time and personnel to
properly prepare and lead in the field any large public protest. There are people experienced
in this. Getting them together and deploying their capability is required.
These protests are classic unplanned, spontaneous actions. At least the first major wave
of them. Only after some time will parties try to lead, organize. Or manipulate.
First thing, it's like trying to herd cats. So, you need marshals. Lots of them. Ably led,
and clearly seen. Just to try and steer a protest down one street or to some point. You need
first aid available, provision for seniors and children. Water. Knowledgeable people to deal
with the media.
People who know what they're doing to deal with senior police. With city transit, buses,
taxis. Hospitals, road construction, fire departments. A good protest cleans itself up too so
provide the means for that. Loudspeakers, music – all this an more has to be organized.
By some people.
And 100% of this or even a hint of organizing is not evident at these protests. And the
evidence is easy to see. Organizers advertise too for volunteers. Everything in plain sight
for those with eyes to see.
If you are stupid enough to think that some handful of fruitcakes from some official
agency could even find their way to a protest, actually have a clue how to conduct themselves
and not get laughed at or just ignored – there's no hope for you. You know nothing
about protests and are pedalling fantasy.
@obwandiyag As usual, you're completely delusional. Most police departments are in the
exact same boat as the municipalities that fund them: one downturn (like, say, a public
lockdown followed by public disorder and looting) from going right to the wall.
There won't be any need to "defund" police; most of America's cities and towns are soon to
be on the bread line, looking for those Ctrl-P federal dollars. Quarterly deficits of twenty
trillion, here we come!
@Thomasina The power elite have different factions and they fight each other to a point,
but they do not try to expose each other. This is why none of Trump enemies are going to be
put in prison.
This is why Trump supports don't know what Genie Engery is, not that they would care.
The scum Trump appointed should tell you what side he's on.
I don't know if Antifa is run directly by the three-letter FedGov agencies. But I do know
that the university is the breeding ground for these vermin, and all universities, even
"private" ones, are largely funded by the governmnent, and are tax exempt.
@schnellandine The Hispanics in America are similar to waves of Italians in the late 19th
and early 20th Centuries, except the numbers are far larger and never ending, which impacts
assimilation. The Hispanics are the ones doing the hard physical labor for low pay, and they
are the ones in American society to invest in learning the skill to perform some of those
backbreaking, low paying jobs well. They are the Super Marios of today. Many of them ply
their trades as small businessmen. They are thankful for their jobs and the people they
serve.
Many are loving, salt-of-the-earth type people who genuinely love their blanco friends.
Howard Stern thinks their music sucks but at least they sing songs about el corazon, music of
the heart and of love. (No one is comparable to the Italians in that department, but what do
you suppose happened to the beautiful love music produced by black male vocalists as late as
a generation ago?) Except for the fact that Hispanics come from countries with long
traditions of corrupt, El Patron governments which unfortunately they want to enact here as a
social safety net, they are often traditional in their attitudes about religion and family.
Of course, they get in drunken brawls, abuse their women, and the graft and incompetence in
their institutions can be outrageous. The reason they flee here is because the world they've
created themselves in the shithole places they've leaving isn't as good as the West created
by Caucasian cultures. The law abiding, decent family people I'm speaking of prosper
alongside of whites and many come to recognize that whites and Hispanics can build a common
destiny that's far preferable to the direction black agitators are taking blacks in America.
So you think that everything they've done to Trump has been one big show and he's been
in on it? The pussy tape, Stormy Daniels, spying on his campaign, the leaking, the Steele
Dossier, Russiagate, Ukrainegate, his impeachment, lying to the FISA Courts by the FBI,
CIA's involvement, Mueller Report, DNC server, Clinton and Loretta Lynch on the tarmac,
fake news media, sanctuary cities, courts disobeying his executive orders, Covid-19,
protests – all of it has been a ruse to fool us into thinking that Trump is a
legitimate opposition?
Absolutely.
Keep the people fighting among each other and divided?
Yes, but the elite do not fear the majority they are in complete control through
insouciance and stupidity on the majority.
I guess you could be right, but what if you're not? What if Trump is actually an
outsider?
He's not his actions and inactions are impossible to logically explain away he is a minion
of the Deep State.
The protest movement is directed and controlled by the same zionists who control the
government and their goal is the destruction of America and they are being allowed to do the
wrecking and destruction that they are doing, as this helps full fill the zionist communist
takeover of America.
To see where this is leading read up on the bolshevik-communist revolution in Russia and
the communist revolution in China and Cuba and Cambodia, and there is the future of
America.
@Christophe GJ They enjoy human suffering. Who knows maybe their compensation is linked
to dead bodies. The deep state types will dwell in gate communities that will never be
breached. The perks of owning both segments of the "opposition." As for the CIA's owners, a
sharp depopulation has been their goal for some time. Why it has to be so ghoulish and
prolong is anyone's guess.
@Brian Reilly "To the issue at hand, black people should only be policed, arrested,
charged, prosecuted, defended, judged, and (if found guilty) punished by other blacks."
Yeah, some city tried that. To try to satisfy the "Get White police out of our
neighborhoods" they did -- they re-orged and sent only black cops into black neighborhoods,
and let the White cops police the White neighborhoods. And the BLACK POLICE SUED to end that!
They were, they claimed (and legitimately, too!) being treated unfairly by making THEM police
the most violent, the most dangerous, the most deadly neighborhoods, and "protecting" the
White cops from that duty by letting only the White cops work the nice neighborhoods. They
WON too!
(note: "IKAGO" = "I know a good one." the all-too-often excuse from the unawakened!)
=====================
I don't mourn the loss of Baltimore. Or Detroit, Chicago, Gary, Atlanta, etc etc etc.
It is ultimately a huge benefit to have Negroes concentrated in these huge teeming Petri
dishes.
As always I advocate the complete White withdrawal from these horrible urban sh_tholes,
and as always I advocate that since Negroes do not want to be policed, to immediately stop
policing them.
And to anyone who might be naive enough to say "hey, there are good people in those
neighborhoods, who try to work and raise their kids, who obey the law and who abhor the
lawlessness and rioting as much as anyone" . my response is that these same IKAGO's voted for
a Negro president, for Negro mayors, Negro city council members, Negro police chiefs and
Negro school superintendents, and now they are getting exactly what they deserve, good and
effing hard.
I have ZERO sympathy for blacks.
=====================
And the new rule:
Remember when seconds count, the police are not even obligated to respond.
Of course "deep state elements" operate in protests! What A STUPID question, Whitney. All
kinds of political tricksters, manipulators, provocateurs, idiots, fools, people suffering
from ennui, you name it Mike, they're involved. And yes, the murder of the black man in
Minneapolis was the trigger.
That's not the only cause of social unrest. There are lots of reasons that drive the
displeasure of the mass of people and it's not the silly "deep state". Before you use that
term, if you want any sort of salute from intelligent people, you need to define your terms.
Or are just just waving a red flag so you can attract a bunch of stupid Trumpsters?
There's a whole lot of deep state out there, good buddy. Just examine the federal budget
and whatever money you cannot assign to a particular institution or specific purpose, that is
funding your your "deep state". It's billions and billions. But there is no Wizard of Oz
behind the curtain to spend it all on nefarious purposes. Sure, the deep state destroyed the
WTC and killed a few thousand people. These hidden operators can do things civilians can only
imagine, but they cannot create movements, Whitney. You just can't fool all of the people all
of the time.
Are you having a touch of brain degeneration, Mike, like dear autocrat in the White
House?
A great article. While Trump may have some ties to the Deep State, I doubt very much that he
is their puppet. He won the nomination because he was against some of the Deep States key
policies. He even tried to implement his policies but mostly failed due to traitors in his
administration and all the coordinated coup attempts.
One recent development that causes me to think that this article is spot on is the blatant
attacks by retired generals and even currently serving generals against a sitting president.
Even Defense Sec. Esper (the Raytheon lobbyist) criticized Trump's comments on the
Insurrection Act, which was totally unnecessary since Trump only said that he had the
authority to use it.
The coordinated criticism of the generals just reminds me of how similar it is to the
coordinated effort by the CIA, FBI, State Department and NSA to use the Russiagate hoax and
impeachment hoax to remove Trump. The riots, the money funneled from BLM to Biden 2020,
support of Antifa by the MSM and the generals treasonous actions are not coincidences.
I'm surprised by the generally low level of the responses.
Mr. Whitney:
There haven't been 'millions' of protestors, maybe some thousands.
Please list the "valid grievances" that negros hold concerning the cops; are the cops
supposed to raise black IQ? These riots need to be suppressed pronto; don't waste your time
waiting for the fat orange buffoon to do anything.
Negros have no 'communities', and never will.
I'm wondering why Mr. Unz thinks he is required to let leftists like Whitney post
here.
(1)-There is a 'deep state'
(2)-(1) does NOT imply that negros are a noble race.
The opening statement is quite true. They've apparently been organizing under the radar for
some years now. Diversity is our greatest weakness and these fissures that run through the
country can be exploited. Blacks have been weaponized and used as the spearpoint along with
the more purposeful real Antifa (lots of wannabes walking around clad in black). Everything
has really been well coordinated and the Gene Sharp playbook followed. These 'color
revolution' employees are actually all over the globe, funded by various front groups and
NGOs. The money trail often leads to various billionaires like the ubiquitous Soros but
people like that may just be acting as fronts themselves. Supposed leftists working against
the interests of the value producing working class?
The George Floyd murder was a obviously a wholly staged Deep State event, complete with
the usual crisis actors, as this video summary clearly illustrates :
@Brian Reilly"To the issue at hand, black people should only be policed, arrested,
charged, prosecuted, defended, judged, and (if found guilty) punished by other blacks. No
white person should have anything to do with it. "
And when these same blacks attack or steal from a White person, which they often do, do
you think they'll get a just punishment from their fellow blacks or a high five?
The solution to the black problem is complete separation, there is no other way.
@Mike Whitney But why do you assume the CIA wants to get rid of Trump? Isn't that
tantamount to judging a book by its cover? Americans have been on to the evil shenanigans of
the intelligence community for decades. Trump is nothing more than controlled opposition and
a false sense of security for "patriots". One needs look no further than the prognostications
of Q to see that Trump is the beneficiary of deep state propaganda. The CIA's modus operandi,
together with the rest of the IC, is to deceive. So if they appear to be doing one thing
(fighting Trump) you can be sure they intend the opposite.
Americans are nose deep in false dichotomies, and Trump is a pole par excellence. Despite
his flagrant history as an NYC liberal, putative fat cat, swindler, and network television
superstar, he is now depicted as either a populist outsider, or a literal Nazi. The simple
fact is that he is an actor and confidence artist. He is playing a role, and he is playing to
both sides of the aisle, and his work is to deceive the entirety of the American public,
together with the mockingbird media, which is merely the yin to his pathetic yang.
Too many Americans think they have a choice, or a chance, by simply minding their own
business, consuming their media of choice, and voting. In fact, Americans are face to face
with the end of their history, as the country has been systematically looted for decades, and
will soon be demolished as it is no longer profitable to the oligarchs who manage the globe.
Obama-Trump is a 1-2 knockout punch.
@Uomiem That's a good point, and it's of the main problems I do have with Trump: his
cabinet picks and financial backers (Adelsen, Singer, et al.). But in fairness, what happens
when he tries to pick someone who's not approved by the system? Well, if they're cabinet
officers, they'll never get approved by the senate. And even if they're not, they will be
driven out of the White House somehow–just like Gen. Flynn and Steve Bannon. In short,
when it comes to staffing, Trump's choices are limited by the same swamp he's fighting. Sad
but true
@Thomasina Interesting comments by the Duran but I cannot find any evidence of a direct
investment by the CIA in Facebook. The CIA's investment arm, In-Q-Tel, did invest in early
Facebook investor Peter Theil's company Palantir and other companies. Also, Graylock Partners
were also early investors in Facebook along with Peter Theil and the head of Graylock is
Howard Cox who served on In-Q-Tel's board of directors. But these are indirect inferences.
Unlike the clear and direct investment of the CIA in the company that was eventually
purchased by Google and is now called Google Earth, I can't find any evidence of a direct
investment by the CIA in Facebook. I have no doubt it's true since it's a perfect tool for
data gathering. Do you have any direct evidence of such an investment?
Is the Deep State stage-managing the "BLM" protests to further an agenda? Absolutely.
The main influence of the Deep State is felt in its complete dominance of the controlled
media.
Like mantras handed down by the commissars, the mainstream media keep repeating key
phrases to narrowly define what's happening: "mostly peaceful protests", "anti-black
racism".
The media is an organ of the Deep State. The Deep State will decide when the protests will
end, and when that day arrives, the media will suddenly pivot on cue like a school of fish or
a flock of birds.
Perhaps some non believers in the Deep State would like to explain why the multi trillion
dollar corporations in America are supporting BLM, Antifa and other anarchy groups since on
the face of it anarchy would be antithetical to these corporations?
Hint: The wealthy and powerful (aka Deep State) know that anarchy divides a populous
thereby removing their ability to resist their true enemy and even more draconian laws. The
die is being cast at this moment and the complete subjugation of the American people will,
probably, be effectuate by the end of this year. A full court press is under way and life is
about to change for 99% of the American people.
If you disagree with my hint correct it.
Too many Americans think they have a choice, or a chance, by simply minding their own
business, consuming their media of choice, and voting. In fact, Americans are face to face
with the end of their history, as the country has been systematically looted for decades,
and will soon be demolished as it is no longer profitable to the oligarchs who manage the
globe. Obama-Trump is a 1-2 knockout punch.
Your points are excellent. All tragic, devastating events in the last, at least, 20
years have been staged or played to facilitate the total control by the Deep State.
The problem is power – and the nature of those who lust for it. The police are very
powerful, by necessity and the nature of police work is the exercise of power – on the
street.
Not to mention the fact that police forces, like every other institution, are managed from
the top. Sgt. Bernstein back at the station calls the shots, gets to decide who is hired /
fired and generally runs the department like a CEO runs a company. Not all cops are rotten,
but if Sgt. Bernstein is a scumbag, the whole department tends to behave as a scumbag.
I'll give you two guesses, the second one doesn't count, as to which tribe of psychopaths
– who call themselves "chosen" – have mastered the art of playing both sides
against the middle, using the police as a very powerful tool to accomplish an ancient agenda
of world-domination, straight out of The Torah.
The police are just another sad story of the destruction of America, by Shlomo.
@Mike Whitney Any explanation that ignores that the catalyst for what is happening is the
Federal Reserve Notes free fall is not a good explanation.
This is a failed Communist Putsch. The people pushing it have enough control of major
cities to keep it alive but not enough to push it into the heartland. 400 million guns and a
few billion bullets are protecting freedom in the USA just like they were intended to.
All failed communist revolutions end in fascism taking power. The Yahoo news comments
sections are way to big to censor properly and they are already taking on a Fascist tone with
almost half the posters. This is only just beginning and most people are beginning to
understand that these lies non whites tell about the fake systemic racism are too dangerous
to go unchallenged. The idea that the protests ,the protests not the riots, have no
foundation in truth is starting to work its way to the forefront of white peoples minds.
Non whites are coddled by the establishment in the USA and no real racists have any power
in the USA so this whole thing is and has been for 50 years based on lies.
The jew mob is going to lose all their economic power over the next year or so as the Fed
Note hyper-inflates. The mob knows this and made a grab for ideological power using low IQ
ungrateful non whites they have been inculcating with anti white ideals for decades as their
foot soldiers.
They are screwed because the places they control are parasitic just like they are. Cities
are full of people making nothing and pretty much just doing service jobs for each other. All
the things needed to keep cities going come from outside the cities and the jew mob is not in
charge in the places that actually produce things. Not like they are in the cities
anyway.
Ignoring the currency rises makes you dishonest Mike.
I think the leadership and tactics of the police are deplorable. I can only surmise that the
local political leadership in many cities is on the inside of this latest scam.
The police should be able to launch attacks on the crowd to single out those who are
Antifa activists. That is what the riot police in France would do. They should try to ignore
the rabble behind which these activists are sheltering.
By remaining on the defensive and without using the element of surprise to capture these
activists, the police are sitting ducks.
My dad told me what it was like in Cairo when the centre of the city was destroyed in
1952. I was tiny at that time and remember my mother carrying me. We watched Cairo burning in
the distance. We were on the roof of the huge house of my Egyptian grandfather in
Heliopolis.
The looters and arsonists were well-equipped. It was not by any means spontaneous. They
smashed the locks on the draw-down shutters of the shops with sledge hammers. Next, they
looted the shop. Lastly, they tossed in Molotov cocktails. The commercial heart of Cairo was
largely destroyed in a few hours. Cinemas and the Casino were burnt. Cairo was a very
pleasant metropolis in those days. It became prosperous during WW2 by supplying the
Allies.
My family's small factory was in the very centre of Cairo – in Abbassia. My father
rounded up his workers to defend the factory. Many lived on the premises. They were all tough
Sa'idi from Upper
Egypt. Many were Coptic Christians. They all had large staffs that they knew how to use. The
arsonists and looters kept well clear.
JUNE 9, 2020 CityLab University: A Timeline of U.S. Police Protests
The latest protests against police violence toward African Americans didn't appear out of
nowhere. They're rooted in generations of injustice and systemic racism.
@Sean said:
"While it is a possibility that whites could lose control of their society, and see it fall
into the hands of an explicitly anti -[r]acist elite/ minorities alliance,"
"Anti-racist?
The entire matter is "explicit" racism directed against Euro-whites.
@gay troll "But why do you assume the CIA wants to get rid of Trump?"
John Brennan collaborated with James Comey on the Russian collusion narrative. Brennan is
indicative of the upper-echelon CIA and its orientation towards the globalist billionaire
class.
@Loup-Bouc Maybe you also noticed that the opening pages of the article suggested that
the author was unhinged when he made so much of an alleged editorial in the NYT which wasn't
an editorial but an opinion piece by an activist. And what about the spontaneous eruptions of
protest all round the world? Masterminded by the US "Deep State"? Absurd.
Mr. Whitney may have got to an age when he can no longer understand the young and their
latest fashionable fatuities and follies.
@obwandiyag " The assholes on this asshole site will not let you say that what is
important is how the super-billionaires control us. "
Nonsense, I rant against the largely Jewish super-billionaires all the time.
Truth is that blacks and working class whites are in relatively similar positions compared
to the 1%. We should be seeking alliances with people like Rev. Farrakhan, but instead, for
some curious reason, big Jewish money is pouring into keeping racial grievances alive and
kicking. It looks very much like a divide and conquer strategy.
Where did the antiwar and Occupy Wall Street movements go after Obama's election? My guess
is that the financial elite saw the danger of having OWS ask questions about the bailouts, so
they devoted a ton of time and energy into pushing racial grievance politics, gender neutral
bathrooms and the like. Their co-ethnics in the media collaborated with them in making sure
only one perspective made the news.
PS: if you don't like the website, simply avoid visiting it. Trust me, no one will miss
your inane posts.
"90% of Americans are unlikely to even see more than ten black people in their entire
lives."
I sure hope you're talking about IRL, because I see more than ten black people in any
commercial break on any TV show on any cable or network TV station every hour of every day.
In fact, it's at least 50/50 B/W and it feels more like 60/40 B/W. And it's always the blacks
who are in charge, the whites spill chips all over the kitchen floor
@SunBakedSuburb 15 seasons of The Apprentice on NBC is indicative of Trump's
orientation towards the globalist billionaire class. It sure was nice of NBC to thus
rehabilitate Trump's image after it became clear he was a cheat who could not even hold down
a casino. From fake wrestler to fake boardroom CEO, Trump has ALWAYS been made for TV.
As for Russiagate, it was a transparent crock of shit from the moment Clapper sent his
uncorrobated assertions under the aegis of "17 intelligence agencies". You assume the point
of the charade was to "get Trump", but really Russiagate was designed to deceive "liberals"
just as Q was designed to deceive "conservatives". It is the appearance of conflict that
serves to divide Americans into two camps who both believe the other is at fault for all of
society's ills. In fact, it is the Zionists and bankers who are to blame for society's ills,
and like the distraction of black vs. white, Democrat vs. Republican keeps everybody's
attention away from the real chauvinists and criminals.
@Sean Well, I can't deny that yours is an extremely original interpretation. It sure made
me think. I can't say I'm convinced, though it doesn't seem to have any conspicuous a priori
inconsistency with facts. I guess time will tell.
@Realist Agree. Someone posted he had a friend at Minneapolis airport. Incoming planes
were full of antifa types the day after Floyd died.
They are very well organized. They are notorious around universities. Well, not
universities in dangerous black neighborhoods. They live like students in crowded apartments
and organize all their movements. Plenty of dumb kids to recruit. Plenty of downwardly mobile
White grads who can't get jobs or into grad s hook because they're White. Those Whites go
into liberal rabble rousing instead of rabble rousing against affirmative action, so
brainwashed are they. Portland is a college town. That's why antifa is so well organized
there. Seattle's a college town too as is Chicago.
Why ANTIFA doesn't loot banks, doesn't stand in front od Soros home, JPMorgan headquarters,
big corporations, Bezos business .etc? Because rich are paying for riots ..the same way they
payed to support Hitler during WWII.
@Anon Thanks for highlighting the complex racial politics -- in this case between
Hispanics and Africans. That was something Ron Unz got right as well -- independently of the
numerology -- in the other article; basically saying that there have been a lot of various
social-engineering projects going on.
Naturally I'm liable for everything else you said ;/ no comment, no contest,
I think it will be alright if we can get back to basics, natural rights, republican
representative organization, pluralism, etc The corporate nightmare has everyone crammed into
a vat of human resources. Undo that, see how it goes, then take it from there.
@Mike Whitney The reason most of the rioters arrested were native New Yorkers is that
they were the useful idiots designated fall guys.
The organizers are adept at changing clothes hats and sunglasses. Their job is to get
things started by smashing windows of a Nike's store and running away letting a few looters
be arrested.
I remember something written by an Indian communist, not Indian nationalist How To Start a
Riot in the 1920s.
1 Start rumors about abuse of Indians by British.
2. Decide where to start the riots.
3 Best place is in the open air markets around noon. The merchants will have collected
substantial money. The local lay abouts will be up and about.
4 Instigators start fights with the merchants raid cash boxes overturn tables and the riot is
on.
The ancient Roman politicians started riots that way. It's standard procedure in every
country in every era. All this fuss and discussion by the idiot intelligentsia is ridiculous
as is everything the idiot intelligentsia thinks, writes and does.
We Americans experience a black riot every few years, just as we experience floods,
droughts, blizzards , earthquakes, forest fires, tornadoes floods and hurricanes.
As long as we have blacks and liberal alleged intellectuals we'll have riots.
Neocons like the historian Robert Kagan may be
connecting with Hillary Clinton to try to regain influence in foreign policy.
Credit...
Left,
Stephanie Sinclair/VII via Corbis; right, Colin McPherson/Corbis
WASHINGTON -- AFTER nearly a decade in the political wilderness, the
neoconservative movement is back, using the turmoil in Iraq and Ukraine to claim that it is President Obama,
not the movement's interventionist foreign policy that dominated early George W. Bush-era Washington, that
bears responsibility for the current round of global crises.
Even as they castigate Mr. Obama, the neocons may be preparing a more brazen
feat: aligning themselves with Hillary Rodham Clinton and her nascent presidential campaign, in a bid to
return to the driver's seat of American foreign policy.
To be sure, the careers and reputations of the older generation of neocons --
Paul D. Wolfowitz, L. Paul Bremer III, Douglas J. Feith, Richard N. Perle -- are permanently buried in the
sands of Iraq. And not all of them are eager to switch parties: In April, William Kristol, the editor of The
Weekly Standard, said that as president Mrs. Clinton would "be a dutiful chaperone of further American
decline."
But others appear to envisage a different direction -- one that might allow
them to restore the neocon brand, at a time when their erstwhile home in the Republican Party is turning
away from its traditional interventionist foreign policy.
It's not as outlandish as it may sound. Consider the historian Robert Kagan,
the author of a recent,
roundly praised article
in The New Republic that amounted to a neo-neocon manifesto. He has not only
avoided the vitriolic tone that has afflicted some of his intellectual brethren but also co-founded an
influential bipartisan advisory group during Mrs. Clinton's time at the State Department.
Mr. Kagan has also been careful to avoid landing at standard-issue neocon
think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute; instead, he's a senior fellow at the Brookings
Institution, that citadel of liberalism headed by Strobe Talbott, who was deputy secretary of state under
President Bill Clinton and is considered a strong candidate to become secretary of state in a new Democratic
administration. (Mr. Talbott called the Kagan article "magisterial," in what amounts to a public baptism
into the liberal establishment.)
Perhaps most significantly, Mr. Kagan and others have insisted on
maintaining the link between modern neoconservatism and its roots in muscular Cold War liberalism. Among
other things, he has frequently praised Harry S. Truman's secretary of state, Dean Acheson, drawing a line
from him straight to the neocons' favorite president: "It was not Eisenhower or Kennedy or Nixon but Reagan
whose policies most resembled those of Acheson and Truman."
Other neocons have followed Mr. Kagan's careful centrism and respect for
Mrs. Clinton. Max Boot, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations,
noted in The New Republic
this year that "it is clear that in administration councils she was a
principled voice for a strong stand on controversial issues, whether supporting the Afghan surge or the
intervention in Libya."
And the thing is, these neocons have a point. Mrs. Clinton voted for the
Iraq war; supported sending arms to Syrian rebels; likened Russia's president, Vladimir V. Putin, to Adolf
Hitler; wholeheartedly backs Israel; and stresses the importance of promoting democracy.
It's easy to imagine Mrs. Clinton's making room for the neocons in her
administration. No one could charge her with being weak on national security with the likes of Robert Kagan
on board.
Of course, the neocons' latest change in tack is not just about intellectual
affinity. Their longtime home, the Republican Party, where presidents and candidates from Reagan to Senator
John McCain of Arizona supported large militaries and aggressive foreign policies, may well nominate for
president Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, who has been beating an ever louder drum against American
involvement abroad.
In response, Mark Salter, a former chief of staff to Senator McCain and a
neocon fellow traveler, said that in the event of a Paul nomination, "Republican voters seriously concerned
with national security would have no responsible recourse" but to support Mrs. Clinton for the presidency.
Still, Democratic liberal hawks, let alone the left, would have to swallow
hard to accept any neocon conversion. Mrs. Clinton herself is already under fire for her foreign-policy
views -- the journalist Glenn Greenwald, among others, has condemned her as "like a neocon, practically." And
humanitarian interventionists like Samantha Power, the ambassador to the United Nations, who opposed the
second Iraq war, recoil at the militaristic unilateralism of the neocons and their inveterate hostility to
international institutions like the World Court.
But others in Mrs. Clinton's orbit, like Michael A. McFaul, the former
ambassador to Russia and now a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, a neocon haven at Stanford, are much
more in line with thinkers like Mr. Kagan and Mr. Boot, especially when it comes to issues like promoting
democracy and opposing Iran.
Far from ending, then, the neocon odyssey is about to continue. In 1972,
Robert L. Bartley, the editorial page editor of The Wall Street Journal and a man who championed the early
neocon stalwarts, shrewdly diagnosed the movement as representing "something of a swing group between the
two major parties." Despite the partisan battles of the early 2000s, it is remarkable how very little has
changed.
The national security establishment does represent the actual government of dual "double
government". And it is not unaccountable to, and unsupervised by, the elected branches of
government. Instead it controls them and is able to stage palace coups to remove "unacceptable"
Presidents like was the case with JFK, Nixon and Trump.
For them is are occupied country and then behave like real occuplers.
Notable quotes:
"... In Trumpian fashion, Kirkpatrick then goes on to warn Americans about the danger of an unaccountable "deep state" in foreign policy that is immune to popular pressures. ..."
"... She says that, no, "it has become more important than ever that the experts who conduct foreign policy on our behalf be subject to the direction of and control of the people." ..."
"... She points out that because America had for much of the twentieth century assumed global responsibilities, our foreign policy elites had developed "distinctive views" that are different from those of the electorate. ..."
"... foreign policy elites "grew accustomed to thinking of the United States as having boundless resources and purposes . . . which transcended the preferences of voters and apparent American interests . . . and eventually developed a globalist attitude." ..."
"... In support of Kirkpatrick's concern, Tufts professor Michael Glennon has more recently argued that the national security establishment has now become so "distinctive" in their separation from our constitutional processes that they represent one wing of a now "double government" that is not unaccountable to, and unsupervised by, the popular branches of government. The Russiagate investigations and the attempt to disable the Trump presidency, aided by many in the establishment, would appear to confirm Kirkpatrick's warning that foreign policy elites want no part of the electoral preferences of voting Americans. ..."
"... Kirkpatrick died in 2006 and had, like many neoconservatives, evolved from a Humphrey Democrat into a member of the GOP establishment. With William Bennett and Jack Kemp, in 1993 she cofounded a neoconservative group, Empower America, which took a very aggressive stance against militant Islam after the 9/11 attacks. However, she was quite ambivalent about the invasion of Iraq and was quoted in The Economist ..."
Kirkpatrick's essay begins by insisting that, because of world events since 1939, America
has given to foreign affairs "an unnatural focus." Now in 1990, she says, the nation can turn
its attention to domestic concerns that are more important because "a good society is defined
not by its foreign policy but its internal qualities . . . by the relations among its citizens,
the kind of character nurtured, and the quality of life lived." She says unabashedly that
"there is no mystical American 'mission' or purposes to be 'found' independently of the U.S.
Constitution and government."
One cannot fail to notice that this perspective is precisely the opposite of George W.
Bush's in his second inauguration. According to Bush, America's post –Cold War purpose
was to follow our "deepest beliefs" by acting to "support the growth of democratic movements
and institutions in every nation and culture." For three decades neoconservative foreign policy
has revolved around "mystical" beliefs about America's mission in the world that are unmoored
from the actual Constitution.
In Trumpian fashion, Kirkpatrick then goes on to warn Americans about the danger of an
unaccountable "deep state" in foreign policy that is immune to popular pressures. She
rejects emphatically the views of some elitists who argue that foreign policy is a uniquely
esoteric and specialized discipline and must be cushioned from populism. She says that, no,
"it has become more important than ever that the experts who conduct foreign policy on our
behalf be subject to the direction of and control of the people."
She points out that because America had for much of the twentieth century assumed global
responsibilities, our foreign policy elites had developed "distinctive views" that are
different from those of the electorate. Again, in Trumpian fashion, she argued that
foreign policy elites "grew accustomed to thinking of the United States as having boundless
resources and purposes . . . which transcended the preferences of voters and apparent American
interests . . . and eventually developed a globalist attitude."
In support of Kirkpatrick's concern, Tufts professor Michael Glennon has more recently
argued
that the national security establishment has now become so "distinctive" in their separation
from our constitutional processes that they represent one wing of a now "double government"
that is not unaccountable to, and unsupervised by, the popular branches of government. The
Russiagate investigations and the attempt to disable the Trump presidency, aided by many in the
establishment, would appear to confirm Kirkpatrick's warning that foreign policy elites want no
part of the electoral preferences of voting Americans.
Kirkpatrick concludes her essay with thoughts on "What should we do?" and "What we should
not do." Remarkably, her first recommendation is to negotiate better trade deals. These deals
should give the U.S. "fair access" to foreign markets while offering "foreign businesses no
better than fair access to U.S. markets." Next, she considered the promotion of democracy
around the world and, on this subject, she took the John Quincy Adams
position : that "Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be
unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be." However, she insisted:
"it is not within the United States' power to democratize the world."
When Kirkpatrick goes on to discuss America's post –Cold War alliances, she makes
clear that she is advocating, quite simply, an America First foreign policy. Regarding the
future of the NATO alliance, a sacrosanct pillar of the American foreign policy establishment,
she argued that "the United States should not try to manage the balance of power in Europe."
Likewise, we should be humble about what we can accomplish in Eastern Europe and the former
Soviet Union: "Any notion that the United States can manage the changes in that huge,
multinational, developing society is grandiose." Finally, with regard to Asia: "Our concern
with Japan should above all be with its trading practices vis-à-vis the United States.
We should not spend money protecting an affluent Japan, though a continuing alliance is
entirely appropriate."
She famously concludes her essay by making the plea for the United States to become "a
normal country in a normal time" and "to give up the dubious benefits of superpower status and
become again an unusually successful, open American republic."
Kirkpatrick became Ronald Reagan's United Nations ambassador because her 1979
article in Commentary , "Dictatorships and Double Standards," caught the eye of
the future president. In that article, she sensibly points out that authoritarian governments
that are allies of the United States should not be kicked to the curb because they are not free
and open democracies. The path to democracy is a long and perilous one, and nations without
republican traditions cannot be expected to make the transition overnight. Regarding the
world's oldest democracy, she remarked: "In Britain, the road from the Magna Carta to the Act
of Settlement, to the great Reform Bills of 1832, 1867, and 1885, took seven centuries to
traverse."
While at the time neoconservatives opportunistically embraced her for this position as a
tactic to fight the Cold War, the current foreign policy establishment would consider
Kirkpatrick's argument to be beyond the bounds of decent conversation, as it would lend itself
to an accommodation with authoritarian Russia as a counterweight to totalitarian China.
Kirkpatrick died in 2006 and had, like many neoconservatives, evolved from a Humphrey
Democrat into a member of the GOP establishment. With William Bennett and Jack Kemp, in 1993
she cofounded a neoconservative group, Empower America, which took a very aggressive stance
against militant Islam after the 9/11 attacks. However, she was quite ambivalent about the
invasion of Iraq and was quoted in The Economist as saying that George W.
Bush was "a bit too interventionist for my taste" and that Bush's brand of moral imperialism is
not "taken seriously anywhere outside a few places in Washington, DC."
The fact that Kirkpatrick's recommendations in her 1990 essay coincide with some of Donald
Trump's positions in the 2016 campaign (if not with many of his actual actions as president)
make her views, ipso facto, not serious. The foreign policy establishment gives something like
pariah status to arguments that we should negotiate better trade deals, reconsider our Cold War
alliances and, most especially, subject American foreign policy to popular preferences. If she
were alive today and were making the arguments she made in 1990, then she would be an outcast.
That a formidable intellectual like Kirkpatrick would be dismissed in such a fashion is a sign
of how obtuse our foreign policy debate has become.
William S. Smith is 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. He studied political philosophy
under Professor Jeane Kirkpatrick as an undergraduate at Georgetown University.
A strange mixture of Black nationalism with Black Bolshevism is a very interesting and pretty alarming phenomenon. It proved to
be a pretty toxic mix. But it is far from being new. We saw how the Eugène Pottier famous song
International lines "We have been naught we
shall be all." and "Servile masses arise, arise." unfolded before under Stalinism in Soviet Russia.
We also saw Lysenkoism in Academia before, and it was not a pretty picture. Some Russian/Soviet scientists such as Academician Vavilov
paid with their life for the sin of not being politically correct. From this letter it is clear that the some departments
already reached the stage tragically close to that situation.
Lysenkoism was "politically correct" (a term invented by Lenin) because it was consistent with the broader Marxist doctrine.
Marxists wanted to believe that heredity had a limited role even among humans, and that human characteristics changed by living
under socialism would be inherited by subsequent generations of humans. Thus would be created the selfless new Soviet man
"Lysenko was consequently embraced and lionized by the Soviet media propaganda machine. Scientists who promoted Lysenkoism with
faked data and destroyed counterevidence were favored with government funding and official recognition and award. Lysenko and his
followers and media acolytes responded to critics by impugning their motives, and denouncing them as bourgeois fascists resisting
the advance of the new modern Marxism."
The Disgraceful Episode Of Lysenkoism Brings Us Global Warming Theory
Notable quotes:
"... In the extended links and resources you provided, I could not find a single instance of substantial counter-argument or alternative narrative to explain the under-representation of black individuals in academia or their over-representation in the criminal justice system. ..."
"... any cogent objections to this thesis have been raised by sober voices, including from within the black community itself, such as Thomas Sowell and Wilfred Reilly. These people are not racists or 'Uncle Toms'. They are intelligent scholars who reject a narrative that strips black people of agency and systematically externalizes the problems of the black community onto outsiders . Their view is entirely absent from the departmental and UCB-wide communiques. ..."
"... The claim that the difficulties that the black community faces are entirely causally explained by exogenous factors in the form of white systemic racism, white supremacy, and other forms of white discrimination remains a problematic hypothesis that should be vigorously challenged by historians ..."
"... Would we characterize criminal justice as a systemically misandrist conspiracy against innocent American men? I hope you see that this type of reasoning is flawed, and requires a significant suspension of our rational faculties. Black people are not incarcerated at higher rates than their involvement in violent crime would predict . This fact has been demonstrated multiple times across multiple jurisdictions in multiple countries. ..."
"... If we claim that the criminal justice system is white-supremacist, why is it that Asian Americans, Indian Americans, and Nigerian Americans are incarcerated at vastly lower rates than white Americans? ..."
"... Increasingly, we are being called upon to comply and subscribe to BLM's problematic view of history , and the department is being presented as unified on the matter. In particular, ethnic minorities are being aggressively marshaled into a single position. Any apparent unity is surely a function of the fact that dissent could almost certainly lead to expulsion or cancellation for those of us in a precarious position , which is no small number. ..."
"... The vast majority of violence visited on the black community is committed by black people . There are virtually no marches for these invisible victims, no public silences, no heartfelt letters from the UC regents, deans, and departmental heads. The message is clear: Black lives only matter when whites take them. Black violence is expected and insoluble, while white violence requires explanation and demands solution. Please look into your hearts and see how monstrously bigoted this formulation truly is. ..."
"... The claim that black intraracial violence is the product of redlining, slavery, and other injustices is a largely historical claim. It is for historians, therefore, to explain why Japanese internment or the massacre of European Jewry hasn't led to equivalent rates of dysfunction and low SES performance among Japanese and Jewish Americans respectively. ..."
"... Arab Americans have been viciously demonized since 9/11, as have Chinese Americans more recently. However, both groups outperform white Americans on nearly all SES indices - as do Nigerian Americans , who incidentally have black skin. It is for historians to point out and discuss these anomalies. However, no real discussion is possible in the current climate at our department . The explanation is provided to us, disagreement with it is racist, and the job of historians is to further explore additional ways in which the explanation is additionally correct. This is a mockery of the historical profession. ..."
"... Donating to BLM today is to indirectly donate to Joe Biden's 2020 campaign. This is grotesque given the fact that the American cities with the worst rates of black-on-black violence and police-on-black violence are overwhelmingly Democrat-run. Minneapolis itself has been entirely in the hands of Democrats for over five decades ; the 'systemic racism' there was built by successive Democrat administrations. ..."
"... The total alliance of major corporations involved in human exploitation with BLM should be a warning flag to us, and yet this damning evidence goes unnoticed, purposefully ignored, or perversely celebrated. We are the useful idiots of the wealthiest classes , carrying water for Jeff Bezos and other actual, real, modern-day slavers. Starbucks, an organisation using literal black slaves in its coffee plantation suppliers, is in favor of BLM. Sony, an organisation using cobalt mined by yet more literal black slaves, many of whom are children, is in favor of BLM. And so, apparently, are we. The absence of counter-narrative enables this obscenity. Fiat lux, indeed. ..."
"... MLK would likely be called an Uncle Tom if he spoke on our campus today . We are training leaders who intend, explicitly, to destroy one of the only truly successful ethnically diverse societies in modern history. As the PRC, an ethnonationalist and aggressively racially chauvinist national polity with null immigration and no concept of jus solis increasingly presents itself as the global political alternative to the US, I ask you: Is this wise? Are we really doing the right thing? ..."
I am one of your colleagues at the University of California, Berkeley. I have met you both personally but do not know you closely,
and am contacting you anonymously, with apologies. I am worried that writing this email publicly might lead to me losing my job,
and likely all future jobs in my field.
In your recent departmental emails you mentioned our pledge to diversity, but I am increasingly alarmed by the absence of diversity
of opinion on the topic of the recent protests and our community response to them.
In the extended links and resources you provided, I could not find a single instance of substantial counter-argument or alternative
narrative to explain the under-representation of black individuals in academia or their over-representation in the criminal justice
system. The explanation provided in your documentation, to the near exclusion of all others, is univariate: the problems of
the black community are caused by whites, or, when whites are not physically present, by the infiltration of white supremacy and
white systemic racism into American brains, souls, and institutions.
Many cogent objections to this thesis have been raised by sober voices, including from within the black community itself,
such as Thomas Sowell and Wilfred Reilly. These people are not racists or 'Uncle Toms'. They are intelligent scholars who reject
a narrative that strips black people of agency and systematically externalizes the problems of the black community onto outsiders
. Their view is entirely absent from the departmental and UCB-wide communiques.
The claim that the difficulties that the black community faces are entirely causally explained by exogenous factors in the
form of white systemic racism, white supremacy, and other forms of white discrimination remains a problematic hypothesis that should
be vigorously challenged by historians . Instead, it is being treated as an axiomatic and actionable truth without serious consideration
of its profound flaws, or its worrying implication of total black impotence. This hypothesis is transforming our institution and
our culture, without any space for dissent outside of a tightly policed, narrow discourse.
A counternarrative exists. If you have time, please consider examining some of the documents I attach at the end of this email.
Overwhelmingly, the reasoning provided by BLM and allies is either primarily anecdotal (as in the case with the bulk of Ta-Nehisi
Coates' undeniably moving article) or it is transparently motivated. As an example of the latter problem, consider the proportion
of black incarcerated Americans. This proportion is often used to characterize the criminal justice system as anti-black. However,
if we use the precise same methodology, we would have to conclude that the criminal justice system is even more anti-male than it
is anti-black .
Would we characterize criminal justice as a systemically misandrist conspiracy against innocent American men? I hope you see
that this type of reasoning is flawed, and requires a significant suspension of our rational faculties. Black people are not incarcerated
at higher rates than their involvement in violent crime would predict . This fact has been demonstrated multiple times across multiple
jurisdictions in multiple countries.
And yet, I see my department uncritically reproducing a narrative that diminishes black agency in favor of a white-centric explanation
that appeals to the department's apparent desire to shoulder the 'white man's burden' and to promote a narrative of white guilt .
If we claim that the criminal justice system is white-supremacist, why is it that Asian Americans, Indian Americans, and Nigerian
Americans are incarcerated at vastly lower rates than white Americans? This is a funny sort of white supremacy. Even Jewish
Americans are incarcerated less than gentile whites. I think it's fair to say that your average white supremacist disapproves of
Jews. And yet, these alleged white supremacists incarcerate gentiles at vastly higher rates than Jews. None of this is addressed
in your literature. None of this is explained, beyond hand-waving and ad hominems. "Those are racist dogwhistles". "The model minority
myth is white supremacist". "Only fascists talk about black-on-black crime", ad nauseam.
These types of statements do not amount to counterarguments: they are simply arbitrary offensive classifications, intended to
silence and oppress discourse . Any serious historian will recognize these for the silencing orthodoxy tactics they are , common
to suppressive regimes, doctrines, and religions throughout time and space. They are intended to crush real diversity and permanently
exile the culture of robust criticism from our department.
Increasingly, we are being called upon to comply and subscribe to BLM's problematic view of history , and the department is
being presented as unified on the matter. In particular, ethnic minorities are being aggressively marshaled into a single position.
Any apparent unity is surely a function of the fact that dissent could almost certainly lead to expulsion or cancellation for those
of us in a precarious position , which is no small number.
I personally don't dare speak out against the BLM narrative , and with this barrage of alleged unity being mass-produced by the
administration, tenured professoriat, the UC administration, corporate America, and the media, the punishment for dissent is a clear
danger at a time of widespread economic vulnerability. I am certain that if my name were attached to this email, I would lose my
job and all future jobs, even though I believe in and can justify every word I type.
The vast majority of violence visited on the black community is committed by black people . There are virtually no marches
for these invisible victims, no public silences, no heartfelt letters from the UC regents, deans, and departmental heads. The message
is clear: Black lives only matter when whites take them. Black violence is expected and insoluble, while white violence requires
explanation and demands solution. Please look into your hearts and see how monstrously bigoted this formulation truly is.
No discussion is permitted for nonblack victims of black violence, who proportionally outnumber black victims of nonblack violence.
This is especially bitter in the Bay Area, where Asian victimization by black assailants has reached epidemic proportions, to the
point that the SF police chief has advised Asians to stop hanging good-luck charms on their doors, as this attracts the attention
of (overwhelmingly black) home invaders . Home invaders like George Floyd . For this actual, lived, physically experienced reality
of violence in the USA, there are no marches, no tearful emails from departmental heads, no support from McDonald's and Wal-Mart.
For the History department, our silence is not a mere abrogation of our duty to shed light on the truth: it is a rejection of it.
The claim that black intraracial violence is the product of redlining, slavery, and other injustices is a largely historical
claim. It is for historians, therefore, to explain why Japanese internment or the massacre of European Jewry hasn't led to equivalent
rates of dysfunction and low SES performance among Japanese and Jewish Americans respectively.
Arab Americans have been viciously demonized since 9/11, as have Chinese Americans more recently. However, both groups outperform
white Americans on nearly all SES indices - as do Nigerian Americans , who incidentally have black skin. It is for historians to
point out and discuss these anomalies. However, no real discussion is possible in the current climate at our department . The explanation
is provided to us, disagreement with it is racist, and the job of historians is to further explore additional ways in which the explanation
is additionally correct. This is a mockery of the historical profession.
Most troublingly, our department appears to have been entirely captured by the interests of the Democratic National Convention,
and the Democratic Party more broadly. To explain what I mean, consider what happens if you choose to donate to Black Lives Matter,
an organization UCB History has explicitly promoted in its recent mailers. All donations to the official BLM website are immediately
redirected to ActBlue Charities , an organization primarily concerned with bankrolling election campaigns for Democrat candidates.
Donating to BLM today is to indirectly donate to Joe Biden's 2020 campaign. This is grotesque given the fact that the American
cities with the worst rates of black-on-black violence and police-on-black violence are overwhelmingly Democrat-run. Minneapolis
itself has been entirely in the hands of Democrats for over five decades ; the 'systemic racism' there was built by successive Democrat
administrations.
The patronizing and condescending attitudes of Democrat leaders towards the black community, exemplified by nearly every Biden
statement on the black race, all but guarantee a perpetual state of misery, resentment, poverty, and the attendant grievance politics
which are simultaneously annihilating American political discourse and black lives. And yet, donating to BLM is bankrolling the election
campaigns of men like Mayor Frey, who saw their cities devolve into violence . This is a grotesque capture of a good-faith movement
for necessary police reform, and of our department, by a political party. Even worse, there are virtually no avenues for dissent
in academic circles . I refuse to serve the Party, and so should you.
The total alliance of major corporations involved in human exploitation with BLM should be a warning flag to us, and yet this
damning evidence goes unnoticed, purposefully ignored, or perversely celebrated. We are the useful idiots of the wealthiest classes
, carrying water for Jeff Bezos and other actual, real, modern-day slavers. Starbucks, an organisation using literal black slaves
in its coffee plantation suppliers, is in favor of BLM. Sony, an organisation using cobalt mined by yet more literal black slaves,
many of whom are children, is in favor of BLM. And so, apparently, are we. The absence of counter-narrative enables this obscenity.
Fiat lux, indeed.
There also exists a large constituency of what can only be called 'race hustlers': hucksters of all colors who benefit from stoking
the fires of racial conflict to secure administrative jobs, charity management positions, academic jobs and advancement, or personal
political entrepreneurship.
Given the direction our history department appears to be taking far from any commitment to truth , we can regard ourselves as
a formative training institution for this brand of snake-oil salespeople. Their activities are corrosive, demolishing any hope at
harmonious racial coexistence in our nation and colonizing our political and institutional life. Many of their voices are unironically
segregationist.
MLK would likely be called an Uncle Tom if he spoke on our campus today . We are training leaders who intend, explicitly,
to destroy one of the only truly successful ethnically diverse societies in modern history. As the PRC, an ethnonationalist and aggressively
racially chauvinist national polity with null immigration and no concept of jus solis increasingly presents itself as the global
political alternative to the US, I ask you: Is this wise? Are we really doing the right thing?
As a final point, our university and department has made multiple statements celebrating and eulogizing George Floyd. Floyd was
a multiple felon who once held a pregnant black woman at gunpoint. He broke into her home with a gang of men and pointed a gun at
her pregnant stomach. He terrorized the women in his community. He sired and abandoned multiple children , playing no part in their
support or upbringing, failing one of the most basic tests of decency for a human being. He was a drug-addict and sometime drug-dealer,
a swindler who preyed upon his honest and hard-working neighbors .
And yet, the regents of UC and the historians of the UCB History department are celebrating this violent criminal, elevating his
name to virtual sainthood . A man who hurt women. A man who hurt black women. With the full collaboration of the UCB history department,
corporate America, most mainstream media outlets, and some of the wealthiest and most privileged opinion-shaping elites of the USA,
he has become a culture hero, buried in a golden casket, his (recognized) family showered with gifts and praise . Americans are being
socially pressured into kneeling for this violent, abusive misogynist . A generation of black men are being coerced into identifying
with George Floyd, the absolute worst specimen of our race and species.
I'm ashamed of my department. I would say that I'm ashamed of both of you, but perhaps you agree with me, and are simply afraid,
as I am, of the backlash of speaking the truth. It's hard to know what kneeling means, when you have to kneel to keep your job.
It shouldn't affect the strength of my argument above, but for the record, I write as a person of color . My family have been
personally victimized by men like Floyd. We are aware of the condescending depredations of the Democrat party against our race. The
humiliating assumption that we are too stupid to do STEM , that we need special help and lower requirements to get ahead in life,
is richly familiar to us. I sometimes wonder if it wouldn't be easier to deal with open fascists, who at least would be straightforward
in calling me a subhuman, and who are unlikely to share my race.
The ever-present soft bigotry of low expectations and the permanent claim that the solutions to the plight of my people rest exclusively
on the goodwill of whites rather than on our own hard work is psychologically devastating . No other group in America is systematically
demoralized in this way by its alleged allies. A whole generation of black children are being taught that only by begging and weeping
and screaming will they get handouts from guilt-ridden whites.
No message will more surely devastate their futures, especially if whites run out of guilt, or indeed if America runs out of whites.
If this had been done to Japanese Americans, or Jewish Americans, or Chinese Americans, then Chinatown and Japantown would surely
be no different to the roughest parts of Baltimore and East St. Louis today. The History department of UCB is now an integral institutional
promulgator of a destructive and denigrating fallacy about the black race.
I hope you appreciate the frustration behind this message. I do not support BLM. I do not support the Democrat grievance agenda
and the Party's uncontested capture of our department. I do not support the Party co-opting my race, as Biden recently did in his
disturbing interview, claiming that voting Democrat and being black are isomorphic. I condemn the manner of George Floyd's death
and join you in calling for greater police accountability and police reform. However, I will not pretend that George Floyd was anything
other than a violent misogynist, a brutal man who met a predictably brutal end .
I also want to protect the practice of history. Cleo is no grovelling handmaiden to politicians and corporations. Like us, she
is free. play_arrow
Blacks will always be poor and fucked in life when 75% of black infants are born to single most likely welfare dependent mothers...
And the more amount of welfare monies spent to combat poverty the worse this problem will grow...
taketheredpill , 37 minutes ago
Anonymous....
1) Is he really a Professor at Berkeley?
2) Is he really a Professor anywhere?
3) Is he really Black?
4) Is he really a He?
LEEPERMAX , 44 minutes ago
BLM is an international organization. They solicit tax free charitable donations via ActBlue. ActBlue then funnels billions
of dollars to DNC campaigns. This is a violation of campaign finance law and allows foreign influence in American elections.
CRM114 , 44 minutes ago
I've pointed this out before:
In 2015, after the Freddie Gray death Officers were hung out to dry by the Mayor of Baltimore (yes, her, the Chair of the DNC
in 2016), active policing in Baltimore basically stopped. They just count the bodies now. The clearance rate for homicides has
dropped to, well, we don't know because the Police refuse to say, but it appears to be under 15%. The homicide rate jumped 50%
almost immediately and has stayed there. 95% of homicides are black on black.
The Baltimore Sun keeps excellent records, so you can check this all for yourself.
Looking at killings by cops; if we take the worst case and exclude all the ones where the victim was armed and independent
witnesses state fired first, and assume all the others were cop murders, then there's about 1 cop murder every 3 years, which
means that since has now stopped and the homicide rate's gone up...
For every black man now not murdered by a cop, 400 more black men are murdered by other black men.
taketheredpill , 46 minutes ago
"As an example of the latter problem, consider the proportion of black incarcerated Americans. This proportion is often used
to characterize the criminal justice system as anti-black. However, if we use the precise same methodology, we would have to conclude
that the criminal justice system is even more anti-male than it is anti-black ."
It is the RATIO of UNARMED BLACK MALES KILLED to UNARMED WHITE MALES KILLED in RELATION TO % OF POPULATION. RATIO.
RATIO. UNARMED.
BLACK % POPULATION 13% BLACK % UNARMED MEN KILLED 37%
WHITE % POPULATION 74% BLACK % UNARMED MEN KILLED 45%
Is there a trend of MORE Black people being killed by police?
No. But there is an underlying difference in the numbers that is bad.
>>>>> As of 2018, Unarmed Blacks made up 36% of all people UNARMED killed by police. But black people make up 13% of the (unarmed)
population.
There's a massive Silent Majority of Americans , including black Americans, that are fed up with this absurd nonsense.
While there's a Vocal Minority of Americans : including Democrats, the media, corporations and race hustlers, that wish to
continue to promulgate a FALSE NARRATIVE into perpetuity...because it's a lucrative industry.
Gaius Konstantine , 57 minutes ago
A short while ago I had an ex friend get into it with me about how Europeans (whites), were the most destructive race on the
planet, responsible for all the world's evil. I pointed out to him that Genghis Khan, an Asian, slaughtered millions at a time
when technology made this a remarkable feat. I reminded him the Japanese gleefully killed millions in China and that the American
Indian Empires ran 24/7 human sacrifices with some also practicing cannibalism. His poor libtard brain couldn't handle the fact
that evil is a human trait, not restricted to a particular race and we parted (good riddance)
But along with evil, there is accomplishment. Europeans created Empires and pursued science, The Asians also participated in
these pursuits and even the Aztec and Inca built marvelous cities and massive states spanning vast stretches of territory. The
only race that accomplished little save entering the stone age is the Africans. Are we supposed to give them a participation trophy
to make them feel better? Is this feeling of inferiority what is truly behind their constant rage?
Police in the US have been militarized for a long time now and kill many more unarmed whites than they do blacks, where is
the outrage? I'm getting the feeling that this isn't really about George, just an excuse to do what savages do.
lwilland1012 , 1 hour ago
"Truth is treason in an empire of lies."
George Orwell
You know that the reason he is anonymous is that Berkley would strip him of his teaching credentials and there would be multiple
attempts on his life...
Ignatius , 1 hour ago
" The vast majority of violence visited on the black community is committed by black people . There are virtually no marches
for these invisible victims, no public silences, no heartfelt letters from the UC regents, deans, and departmental heads. The
message is clear: Black lives only matter when whites take them. Black violence is expected and insoluble, while white violence
requires explanation and demands solution. Please look into your hearts and see how monstrously bigoted this formulation truly
is."
A former fed who trained the police in Buffalo believes the elderly protester who was hospitalized after a cop pushed him
to the ground "got away lightly" and "took a dive," according to a report.
The retired FBI agent, Gary DiLaura,
told The Sun
he thinks there's no chance Buffalo officers will be convicted of assault over the
now-viral video showing the
longtime
peace activist Martin Gugino fall and left bleeding on the ground.
" I can't believe that they didn't deck him. If that would have been a 40-year-old guy going up there, I guarantee you they'd
have been all over him, " DiLaura said.
" He absolutely got away lightly. He got a light push and in my humble opinion, he took a dive and the dive backfired because
he hit his head. Maybe it'll knock a little bit of sense into him, " added the former fed, who trained Buffalo police on firearms
and defensive tactics, according to the report...
It's a great brainwashing process, which goes very slow[ly] and is divided [into] four basic stages. The first one [is]
demoralization ; it takes from 15-20 years to demoralize a nation. Why that many years? Because this is the minimum number
of years which [is required] to educate one generation of students in the country of your enemy, exposed to the ideology of
the enemy. In other words, Marxist-Leninist ideology is being pumped into the soft heads of at least three generations of American
students, without being challenged, or counter-balanced by the basic values of Americanism (American patriotism).
The result? The result you can see. Most of the people who graduated in the sixties (drop-outs or half-baked intellectuals)
are now occupying the positions of power in the government, civil service, business, mass media, [and the] educational system.
You are stuck with them. You cannot get rid of them. T hey are contaminated; they are programmed to think and react to certain
stimuli in a certain pattern. You cannot change their mind[s], even if you expose them to authentic information, even if you
prove that white is white and black is black, you still cannot change the basic perception and the logic of behavior. In other
words, these people... the process of demoralization is complete and irreversible. To [rid] society of these people, you need
another twenty or fifteen years to educate a new generation of patriotically-minded and common sense people, who would be acting
in favor and in the interests of United States society.
Yuri Bezmenov
American Psycho , 16 minutes ago
This article was one of the most articulate and succinct rebuttals to the BLM political power grab. I too have been calling
these "allies" useful idiots and I am happy to hear this professor doing the same. Bravo professor!
@Ashino Wolf Sushanti As far as I know BLM is also dead silent on the black slave markets
care of Obama and the EU in Libya.
There are also stories that money contributed to BLM will end up going to the DNC.
This is looking like another 1960's type insurrection that will end up the same way: it
will be used by the rich and powerful elites (notice how the corporate controlled media has
gone on one knee for BLM and has gone outright anti-white?), there will be a back lash that
will crush it (right after the election), and its leaders will be either absorbed into the
establishment or offed.
America looks like a hybrid of Stephen King, Brave New World, and 1984, and the rich and
powerful US elites and intel agencies stroke it and love it. Notice that the US super rich
have been raking it in since January 2020? While at the same time Trump is busy making the US
a vassal state of Israel and accelerating the roll-out of Cold War v2 which is just fine with
US elites that will not change with the election of moron Biden (if the people elect Biden
they are electing his VP as Biden will not last long; he is a lot like Yeltsin that was
pumped up on mental stimulants and nutriments to perform for short periods until the next
treatment). What a country, what a ship of fools.
He observes too, the anticipatory raising of bail money; the preparing of medical teams,
ready to treat injuries; and of caches of flammable materials (suitable for torching official
vehicles), pre-positioned in places where protests would later occur. All this – with
simultaneous protests in more than 380 U.S. cities – in my experience, signals much
bigger, silent backstage organization. And behind 'the organisation', the instigators lie, far
back: maybe even thousands of miles back; and somewhere out there will be the financier.
However, in the U.S., commentators say they see no leadership; the protests are amorphous.
That is not unusual to see no leadership – a 'leadership' appears only if negotiations
are sought and planned; otherwise key actors are to be protected from arrest. The most telling
sign of a backstage organisation is that on one day, it is 'full on', and the next all is quiet
– as if a switch has been pulled. It often has.
Of course, the overwhelming majority of protestors in the U.S. this last week, were –
and are – decent sincere Americans, outraged at George Floyd's killing and continuing
social and institutional racism. Was this then, an Antifa
and anarchist operation, as the White House contends? I doubt it – any more than those
Palestinian youth in Beit El constituted anything other than fodder for the front of stage. We
simply don't know the backstage. Keep an open mind.
Tom Luongo presciently suggests that should we wish
to understand better the context to these recent events – and not be stuck at stage
appearances – we need to look to Hong Kong for indicators .
Writing in October 2019, Luongo noted that: "What started as
peaceful protests against an extradition law and worry over reunification with China has
morphed into an ugly and vicious assault on the city's economic future. [This is] being
perpetrated by the so-called "Block Bloc", roving bands of mask-wearing, police-tactic defying
vandals attacking randomly around the city to disrupt people going to work ".
An exasperated local man exclaims : "Not only you
[i.e. Block Bloc protestors are] harming the people making their living in businesses,
companies, shopping malls. You're destroying subway stations. You're destroying our streets.
You're destroying our hard-earned reputation as a safe, international business centre. You're
destroying our economy". The man cannot explain why there was not a single police officer in
sight, for hours, as the rampage continued.
What is going on? Luongo quotes a September Bloomberg
interview with HK tycoon, Jimmy Lai, billionaire publisher of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)
scourge, the Apple Daily, and the highly visible interlocutor of official Washington notables,
such as Mike Pence, Mike Pompeo and John Bolton. In it, Lai pronounced himself convinced that
if protests in HK turned violent, China would have no choice but to send the People's Armed
Police units from Shenzen into Hong Kong to put down unrest: "That," Lai said on Bloomberg TV,
"will be a repeat of the Tiananmen Square massacre; and that will bring in the whole world
against China Hong Kong will be done, and China will be done, too".
In brief, Lai proposes to 'burn' Hong Kong – to 'save' Hong Kong. That is, 'burn it to
save it' from the CCP – to keep its residue in the 'Anglo-sphere'.
"Jimmy Lai", Luongo writes, "is telling you what the strategy is here. The goal is to
thoroughly undermine China's standing on the world stage and raise that of the U.S. This is
economic warfare, it's a hybrid war tactic. And the soldiers are radicalized kids in uniforms
bonking old men on the heads with sticks and taunting cops. Sound familiar? Because that's
what's going on in places like Portland, Oregon with Antifa And that cause is chaos". (Recall,
Luongo wrote this more than six months ago).
Well, here we are today: Steve Bannon, closely allied with what he, himself, terms the U.S.'
China super-hawks , and
allied with yet another Chinese billionaire financier, Guo Wengui ( a fugitive
from the Chinese Authorities, and member at Trump's Mar-a-Lago Club), is pursuing an
incandescent campaign of denigration and vitriol against the Chinese Communist Party –
intended, like Lai's campaign, to destroy utterly China's global standing.
Here it is again – the tightly-knit band of U.S. and exile super-hawks want to 'burn'
down the CCP, to 'save' what? To save the 'Empire Waning' (America), through 'burning' the
'Empire Rising' (China). Bannon (at least, and to his credit), is explicit about the risk:
A failure to prevail in
this this info-war mounted against the CCP, he says, will end in "kinetic war".
So, back to the U.S. protests, and drawing on Luongo's insights from Hong Kong – I
wrote last week that Trump sees himself fighting a hidden global 'war' to retain America's
present dominance over global money (the dollar) – now America's principal source of
external power. For America to lose this struggle to a putative multi-lateral cosmopolitan
governance – Trump perceives – would result in the whole, white Anglo-sphere's
ejection from control over the global financial system – and its associated political
privilege. It would entail control of the global financial and political system slipping away
to an amorphous multi-lateral financial governance, operated by an international institution,
or some global Central Bank. Since before WW1, control of global financial governance has been
in the hands of the Anglo-American nexus running between London and New York. It still does,
just about – albeit that today's Wall Street elite is cosmopolitan, rather than Anglo,
yet still it is firmly anchored to Washington, via the Fed and the U.S. Treasury. For this to
slip would be the 'end of Empire'.
To maintain the status of the dollar, Trump therefore has assiduously devoted himself to
disrupting the multi-lateral global order, sensing this danger to the unique privileges
conveyed by control of the world's monetary base. His particular concern would be to see a
Europe that was umbilically-linked to the financial and technological heavy-weight that is
China. This, in itself, effectively would presage a different world financial
governance.
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But, is the fear that the threat principally lies with Europe's Soros-style vision
justified? There may – just as well – be a fifth-column at home. The billionaires'
club of the very rich has long ceased to be culturally 'Anglo'. It has become a borderless,
'self-selecting', governing entity unto itself.
Perhaps an earlier 'end of Époque' metamorphosis shows us how readily an
old-established elite can swap horses in order to survive . In the historical Sicilian novel,
The Leopard, Prince Salina's nephew tells his uncle that the old order
is 'done' , and with it, the family is 'done' too, unless "Unless we ourselves take a hand
now, they'll foist a republic on us. If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to
change".
It is clear that some billionaire oligarchs – whether American or not – can see
the 'writing on the wall': A financial crisis is coming. And so, too, is a social one. A recent
survey done by one such member, showed that 55% of American millennials supported the end to
the capitalist system. Perhaps the brotherhood of billionaires is thinking that 'unless we
ourselves take a hand now, they'll foist socialism on us'. If we want things to stay as they
are, things will have to change. The recent disorder in the U.S. will have unnerved them
further.
The push towards radical change – towards that global financial, political and
ecological governance that threatens dollar hegemony – paradoxically may emerge from
within: from within America's own financial elite. 'Burning' the dollar's privileged global
status may become seen as the price for things to stay as they are -- and for the elite to be
saved. The future of Empire hangs on this issue: Can US dollar hegemony be preserved, or might
the financial 'nobility' see that things must change – if they are to stay as they are?
That is, the Revolution may come from within -- and not necessarily from abroad.
In recent days, Trump has pivoted to being the President of 'Law and Order' – a shift
which he explicitly connected to 1968, when, in response to protests in Minneapolis after the
police suffocation last week of George Floyd, Trump tweeted: "When the looting begins, the
shooting starts". These were the words used by Governor George Wallace, the segregationist
third-party candidate, in the 1968 Presidential election: Republicans launched their "southern
strategy" to win over resentful white Democrats after the civil rights revolution.
Trump is determined to prevail – but today is not 1968. Can a Law and Order platform
work now? U.S. demography in the south has shifted, and it is not clear that the liberal, urban
electorates of America would sign up to a law-and-order platform, which implicitly appeals to
white anxieties?
In a sense, President Trump finds himself between a rock and a hard place. If the protests
are not quelled, and "the right normal (not) restored" (as per Esper's words), Trump may lose
those remaining 'law and order' conservatives. But, were he to lose control and over-react
using the military, then it may be Trump who has his own 'Tiananmen Square' – one, which
Jimmy Lai (gleefully) predicted in Hong Kong's case would bring in the whole world against
China: "Hong Kong will be done, and China will be done, too."
Or, in this instance, Trump might be done, and the U.S. too.
Heck US aircraft carriers used to visit HK quite often until recently, even after the hand
over. They anchored in the harbor while thousands of sailors headed to the Wanchai bars,
although after the hand over they anchored in a less visible part of the harbor. China didn't
have a problem.
I doubt China sweats a couple of aircraft carriers when we have large bases in Japan and
South Korea, not to mention Guam.
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.
If the US were serious about confronting China there would be sanctions and not tariffs.
China and US are partners. We sell them chips that they put in our electronics and sell to
us, so we can spy on our people, and they test out our social control technology on their own
people. They clothe us, sell cheap API's for drugs and they invest in treasuries and other US
assets and we educate their young talent and give them access to our research and technology
and fund some of their own research and share numerous patents
Since this nothing-burger appears to have kicked off with an article in the NYT, it looks to
me as though someone reminded The Swamp that Iran hasn't been disarmed and is thus not the
kind of soft target that can be pushed around with impunity by AmeriKKKa. Imo, Iran is a lot
closer to the top of the Military Genius pecking order than AmeriKKKa. i.e. Iran has made it
quite clear that "Israel" will cop the blowback if Iran is attacked, and has also
demonstrated its ability to conduct high-precision strikes on US bases & bunkers in the
region. Iran is also quite good at swapping insults with AmeriKKKa and Iran's insults are
usually funnier than AmeriKKKa's...
Threatening North Korea probably seemed like a better/safer idea than threatening Iran but
only until China's diplomatic comedians start ripping into AmeriKKKa's loud-mouthed dorks and
daydreamers.
The case of Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn is inevitably heading toward
its conclusion. While the presiding district judge, Emmet Sullivan , is trying to keep it
going, there's only so much he can do, chiefly because there's nobody left to prosecute the
case after the Department of Justice (DOJ) dropped it
last month .
In the latest developments, the District of Columbia appeals court set a hearing in the case
for tomorrow (June 12), while the DOJ's solicitor general himself, as well as five of his
deputies, urged the court to order the lower-court judge to accept the case dismissal.
"I cannot overstate how big of a deal this is," commented appellate attorney John Reeves,
former assistant Missouri attorney general, in a series of tweets on June
1 .
Personal involvement of the solicitor general "is highly unusual and rare," he said .
" Unusual " seems a fitting euphemism for the Flynn case, which has been filled with
contradictions, falsehoods, apparent blunders, extraordinary moves, and strange
coincidences.
The Epoch Times has so far counted 85 such instances.
Flynn, former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency during the Obama administration and
former national security adviser to President Donald Trump, pleaded guilty on Dec. 1, 2017, to
one count of lying to FBI agents during a Jan. 24, 2017, interview.
The FBI officially opened an investigation on Flynn on Aug. 16, 2016, based on a suspicion
that he "may wittingly or unwittingly be involved in activity on behalf of the Russian
Federation which may constitute a federal crime or threat to the national security."
What activity? The case was opened under a broader investigation into whether the Trump 2016
presidential campaign conspired with Russia to steal emails from the Democratic National
Committee and release them through Wikileaks.
The bureau learned from the Australian government that its then-ambassador to the UK,
Alexander Downer, spoke with Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos, who "suggested" that the
campaign received "some kind of suggestion" that Russia could help it by anonymously releasing
some information damaging to Trump's opponent, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
The FBI didn't know what Papadopoulos actually said or what he was talking about.
Officially, this information was used by the FBI to comb through its databases for
information on people associated with the Trump campaign and open investigations on four
individuals supposedly linked to Russia.
Because Flynn's paid speaking engagements in years past included some for Russian companies
-- one for Kaspersky Lab and one for RT television in Moscow -- the FBI decided to open a
counterintelligence investigation on the retired three-star general.
But the FBI seemed to have trouble getting its story straight.
1. Comey
Contradiction
The FBI officially opened the four individual cases in mid-August 2016.
But former FBI Director James Comey testified to Congress that he was
briefed already "at the end of July that the FBI had opened counterintelligence investigations
of four individuals to see if there was a connection between any of those four and the Russian
effort."
2. Unlikely Target
Suspecting a man with patriotic bona fides of Flynn's caliber of having colluded with Russia
based on two speaking engagements seemed particularly unusual.
Flynn's command of military intelligence to aid American troops in combat has earned him
great praise.
"Mike Flynn's impact on the nation's War on Terror probably trumps any other single person,"
wrote then-Brig. Gen. John Mulholland in Flynn's
2007 performance review .
Mulholland went as far as calling Flynn "easily the best intelligence professional of any
service serving today."
Flynn was driven out of his post in 2014 after he repeatedly embarrassed President Barack
Obama by insisting, contrary to the administration's official stance, that a resurgence of
Islamic terrorism in the Middle East was imminent.
Two months after his resignation, the rise of ISIS proved him right.
3. A Name for the
Spotlight
The Russia probe was titled "Crossfire Hurricane" (CH), and Flynn was given the code name
"Crossfire Razor."
This was unusual, according to Marc Ruskin, a 27-year veteran of the FBI and an Epoch Times
contributor.
Rank-and-file agents would never pick a name like this, he told The Epoch Times in a
previous interview.
"They would mock it as being overly dramatic," he said.
4. Snooping During
Briefing
The day after opening the Flynn case, the FBI participated in a strategic intelligence
briefing given to Donald Trump and two of his advisers by the Office of the Director of
National Intelligence.
Because Flynn was to be present, the FBI took the extraordinary step of sending in
supervisory special agent Joe Pientka to collect intel on Flynn for the investigation. Pientka
was to assess Flynn's "overall mannerisms" and listen for "any kind of admission" that could be
used by the bureau, the DOJ's inspector general (IG) said in a Dec. 9 report on the CH
investigation ( pdf ).
The IG raised the question of whether snooping on officials the FBI is supposed to brief
could have a "chilling effect" on any such intelligence briefings in the future.
5.
Dossier Coincidence
The FBI directly targeted four Trump campaign aides, opening cases on three of them --
Papadopoulos, Carter Page, and Paul Manafort -- on Aug. 10, 2016. The IG never received an
explanation for why the Flynn case was opened later. Incidentally, Page and Manafort had
already been mentioned in the infamous Steele dossier since July 28, 2016. Flynn's name,
however, was only mentioned in the dossier report dated Aug. 10, 2016.
The dossier, which drummed up unsubstantiated allegations of a Trump–Russia
conspiracy, was being spread to the media, the FBI, the State Department, the DOJ, and Congress
by operatives funded by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee.
One of the CH case agents, Stephen Somma, happened to have a longstanding relationship with
Stephan Halper, a Cambridge professor who was also a longtime political operative and FBI
informant.
Somma and another agent met with Halper on Aug. 11, 2016, and learned that, in a stunning
coincidence, Halper was already in contact with Page, had known Manafort for years, and "had
been previously acquainted with Michael Flynn," the IG report said
The CH team "couldn't believe [their] luck," Somma told the IG.
7. Halper's Story
Halper was accused of spreading rumors, starting in late 2016, that Flynn had an affair with
a Russian woman while visiting the UK in 2014 for a dinner hosted by the Cambridge Intelligence
Seminar co-convened at the time by Halper.
An "established" FBI informant told the CH team that the woman jumped in a cab with Flynn
after the dinner and joined him for a train ride to London (
pdf ).
She said Halper was the one spreading the rumor to the media and the FBI, even though he
didn't actually attend the event. She unsuccessfully
sued Halper for defamation in May 2019.
Somehow, Steele also became privy to the rumor and
shared it with Adam Kramer , an aide to the late Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). Kramer
testified to Congress that he was in regular contact with Steele between Nov. 28, 2016, and
early March 2017.
8. Unmasking
The names of Americans are normally masked -- that is, replaced with generic names -- in
foreign intelligence reports. Many senior government officials have the authority to ask for
names to be unmasked for various reasons, such as to understand the intelligence. There were
dozens of unmasking requests for reports related to Flynn, between Nov. 8, 2016, and Jan. 31,
2017 (
pdf ). The number of unmasking requests has been described as alarming by some
commentators, while others described it as routine.
9. Non-masking
There are also indications that Flynn's name was never masked in summaries or
transcripts of his calls with then-Russian Ambassador to the United States Sergey Kislyak
on Dec. 29, 2016, and in the following days. FBI leaders were distributing the documents to top
Obama officials. Even President Barack Obama himself was briefed on them on or before Jan. 5,
2017.
10. Who Briefed Obama?
Comey testified to Congress that it was then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper
who briefed Obama on the Flynn–Kislyak calls (
pdf ). Clapper, however, denied this to Congress.
11. 'Unusual'
Obama's national security adviser, Susan Rice, memorialized a Jan. 5, 2017, meeting with
Obama, Comey, and then-Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates . Rice wrote in an email to
herself that Obama asked Comey whether he should withhold any Russia-related information from
the incoming administration and from Flynn in particular.
"Potentially," Comey replied, adding that "the level of communication" between Flynn and
Kislyak was "unusual,"
she wrote . There's no indication Flynn was talking to Kislyak unusually often. He was at
the time responsible for laying the groundwork for Trump's foreign relations as president and
was frequently on the phone with foreign dignitaries.
12. Late Memo
Rice's memo itself is unusual. She emailed it to herself more than two weeks after the
meeting took place, on the day of Trump's inauguration.
13. Strzok Intervention
On Jan. 4, the FBI was already in the process of closing Flynn's case. But the bureau's
counterintelligence operations head at the time, Peter Strzok,
scrambled to keep it open , noting that the "7th floor," meaning the FBI's top leadership,
was involved.
14. McCabe–Comey Contradiction
Comey testified that he authorized the Flynn case "to be closed at the end of December,
beginning of January."
"I don't think a closure would have been soon," he said.
15. Shaky Theory
FBI documents and Comey's testimony indicate that the
bureau kept the Flynn case open solely based on a legal theory that he may have violated
the Logan Act, even though the DOJ made clear that such charges wouldn't pass muster in court
-- nobody has ever been successfully prosecuted for a Logan Act violation and the government
last tried in 1852.
The law prohibits private citizens from engaging in diplomacy on their own with countries
the United States is in dispute with. Not only have questions been raised as to whether the law
would pass today's constitutional scrutiny, which places greater emphasis on First Amendment
protections, but also there's no indication the law was conceived to apply to a
president-elect's incoming top adviser.
16. Call Leaks
In early January, information about Flynn's calls with Kislyak was leaked to then-Washington
Post reporter Adam Entous. He said there was a discussion at the paper about what to do with
the information, as it would have been expected of Flynn, given his position, to talk to
Kislyak (
pdf ). In the end, the paper
ran a column on Jan. 12 by David Ignatius speculating that Flynn may have violated the
Logan Act if he discussed fresh sanctions imposed on Russia during the calls.
Obama imposed the sanctions on Russian entities, including its intelligence services, on
Dec. 29, 2016. At the same time, he also expelled 35 Russian intelligence officers.
17.
Denial
The calls "had nothing whatsoever to do with the sanctions," incoming Vice President Mike
Pence told CBS News on Jan. 15, 2017, in an interview the network almost wholly dedicated to
questions about Russia.
This wasn't completely true.
Kislyak did bring up the issue of sanctions during the call, though Flynn didn't engage him
in a conversation on the topic.
Flynn raised the issue of the expulsions, which is technically a separate issue from
sanctions, though both were announced at the same time. He asked for "cool heads to prevail"
and for Russia to only respond reciprocally, as further escalation into a "tit for tat" could
lead to the countries shutting down each other's embassies, complicating future
diplomacy.
18. 'Blackmailable'
Yates said she wanted to inform Trump's White House about the Kislyak calls as Russia would
know that what Pence said wasn't true and could thus blackmail Flynn with the information,
according to an Aug. 15, 2017, FBI report from her interview
with the Mueller team.
According to Ruskin, this was hardly a blackmail situation, which ordinarily involves
serious compromising information, such as evidence of bribery or sexual misconduct.
Comey acknowledged to Congress in March 2017 that the idea that Flynn was compromised struck
him "as a bit of a reach."
19. Comey Blocked Information
Despite issues with Yates's argument, informing the White House may have indeed cleared up
the situation. However, Comey blocked it, saying it could have interfered with the
investigation of Flynn -- despite that it appears there was nothing for the bureau to
investigate. At that point, the DOJ already had disapproved of the Logan Act idea. In any case,
the probe was supposed to be about Russian collusion. The bureau could have closed it and
opened a new one on the Logan Act, if it indeed had had sufficient predication. But it never
opened such an investigation, the DOJ noted in its motion to dismiss Flynn's case.
20.
Another Comey–McCabe Contradiction
In the days before Jan. 24, 2017, top FBI officials were discussing plans to interview
Flynn. Comey said the point of the interview was to find out why Flynn didn't tell Pence that
sanctions were discussed during the call (even though Flynn wasn't actually the one talking
about sanctions).
"My judgment was we could not close the investigation of Mr. Flynn without asking him what
is the deal here. That was the purpose," Comey testified.
McCabe, however, told a different story when then-Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) asked him, "Was
[Flynn] interviewed because the Vice President relied upon information from him in a national
interview?"
"No. I don't remember that being a motivating factor behind the interview," McCabe
said.
21. No Mention of Pence
During the interview, the agents didn't ask Flynn about what he did or didn't tell Pence --
an unusual approach if the point, as Comey said, was to find out why Flynn hadn't "been candid"
with Pence. The FBI, in fact, had no idea what Flynn did or didn't tell Pence.
22.
Slipped-In Warning
Agents regularly warn interviewees that lying to federal officers is a crime. Before the
Flynn interview, however, McCabe's special counsel Lisa Page emailed another FBI lawyer asking
how the warning should be given and whether there was a way "to just casually slip that
in."
23. No Warning
In the end, the agents never gave Flynn any such warning.
24. 'Get Him to Lie Get Him
Fired?'
The FBI officials agreed that the agents wouldn't show Flynn the transcripts of the calls.
If he said something that diverged from them, they would ask again, slipping in some words from
the transcript. If that didn't jog his memory, they were not to confront him about it.
On the day of the interview, then-FBI head of counterintelligence
Bill Priestap wrote a note saying he told other officials to "rethink" the approach.
"What's our goal? Truth/Admission or to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him
fired?" he wrote, noting, "We regularly show subjects evidence."
Apparently, his concerns were ignored.
25. Discouraging Having a Lawyer Present
On the day of the interview, McCabe spoke with Flynn on the phone to ask him for the
interview. McCabe said he told Flynn he wanted the interview done "as quickly, quietly, and
discreetly as possible." If Flynn wanted anybody to sit in, such as one of the White House
lawyers, the DOJ would have to be involved, McCabe told him.
According to Ruskin, that was "egregious" behavior akin to discouraging a subject of an
investigation from having a lawyer present for an interview.
26. No White House
Notice
An FBI interview of a president's national security adviser is a big deal. Normally, it
would warrant a back-and-forth between the White House and the bureau on the scope, content,
purpose, and other parameters. Most likely, multiple White House lawyers would sit in.
Comey, however, said in a public forum
that he just sent the agents in, taking advantage of the fact that it was "early enough" --
only four days after the inauguration.
27. No Notice Given to DOJ
According to Yates, Comey didn't consult the DOJ about his intention to interview Flynn,
even though the department would usually be involved in such decisions.
28. Not Quite a
Denial From Flynn
After the interview, in which Strzok and supervisory special agent Pientka extensively
questioned Flynn about his conversations with Kislyak, Comey said that Flynn denied talking to
the ambassador about the sanctions. But the agents' notes indicate that though Flynn denied it
at first, he seemed unsure when the agents asked again.
"Not really. I don't remember. It wasn't, 'Don't do anything,'" he said, according to the
notes.
"I told the agents that 'tit-for-tat' is a phrase I use, which suggests that the topic of
sanctions could have been raised," he
said .
29. UN Vote Denial
Based on the agent's notes, Flynn did deny asking for Russia to delay a U.N. vote in Israeli
settlements. One of the call transcripts indicates he in fact made such a request.
Flynn told the agents he was calling multiple countries regarding the vote, but it was more
an exercise of how quickly he could get foreign officials on the phone since there was no way
the transition team could convince enough countries to actually change the outcome. Indeed, the
vote passed with only the United States abstaining.
30. No Indication of Deception
The agents came back with the impression "that Flynn was not lying or did not think he was
lying," according to Strzok.
Comey seemed on the fence.
"I don't know. I think there is an argument to be made that he lied. It is a close one," he
testified.
31. Flynn Knew They Knew
According to McCabe, Flynn expressed awareness before the interview that the FBI knew
exactly what he said during the Kislyak calls.
"You listen to everything they [Russian representatives] say," Flynn told him, according to
McCabe's notes from that day.
32. Belated Report
The FBI interview summary, form FD-302, is required to be completed within five days of the
interview. Flynn's, however, took more than two weeks.
33. Rewritten 302
Strzok texted Page on Feb. 10, 2017, he was "trying to not completely rewrite" the 302 "so
as to save [redacted] voice." The redacted name was most likely Pientka's.
34. Missing
Original
Flynn was ultimately provided two draft versions of the 302 -- one from Feb. 10, 2016, and
one from the day after. But based on Strzok's texts, there should have been at least two draft
versions produced on Feb. 10, 2016, or before.
In fact, Judge Sullivan said in a Dec. 17, 2018, minute order that the 302 "was drafted
immediately after Mr. Flynn's FBI interview." It's not clear what the judge was basing this
assertion on or what happened to the early draft.
Flynn's current attorney, former federal prosecutor Sidney Powell , later said she'd found a
witness who saw an earlier draft and that it said "that Flynn was honest with the agents
and did not lie."
35. No Reinterview
It is common that when the FBI has questions after an interview about the candor of the
subject, it would question the person again. But in this case, the FBI showed no interest in
doing so.
36. Still Investigating What?
After the interview, Comey promptly agreed to Yates informing the White House about the call
transcripts. Flynn was fired two weeks later. But, somehow, the investigation was still not
over.
Comey said in his March 2, 2017, testimony that the bureau wasn't investigating any possible
Logan Act violation by Flynn and wouldn't do so unless the DOJ directed it.
But he said the investigation was "obviously" still ongoing and "criminal in nature."
McCabe said that "even following the interview on the 24th, we had a lot of work left to do
in that investigation."
By mid-February, the status of the probe wouldn't have "changed materially" in his belief,
he said.
"Like we were pursuing phone records and toll records at that time," he said. "There were
all kinds of really very basic foundational investigative activity that had to take place and
we were committed to getting that done."
It's unclear what the point of the investigation was.
37. FARA Papers
Around Christmas 2016, Flynn found in the office of his defunct consultancy, Flynn Intel
Group (FIG), a letter from the DOJ telling him he may need to file foreign lobbying disclosures
under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).
The DOJ's National Security Division (NSD) wanted to know about a job FIG did earlier that
year for Turkish businessman Kamil Ekim Alptekin.
It should have been a routine procedure. Washington lobbyists commonly flunk FARA rules and
the NSD usually just asks them to register retrospectively because FARA cases are difficult to
prosecute. Flynn hired a team from Covington and Burling led by Robert Kelner, a
"never-Trumper" and an expert on FARA, to prepare the paperwork.
This time, the NSD was unusually eager. Heather Hunt, then-FARA unit chief herself, was
repeatedly prompting the lawyers to expeditiously file the papers.
Comey's leaking the content of this and other memos to the media served as a catalyst for
then-Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointing former FBI head Robert Mueller as a
special counsel to take over the CH probe.
39. Rosenstein's Scope Memo Still Alludes to
Logan Act
Even though Comey said in March 2017 that the FBI wasn't investigating Flynn for a Logan Act
violation, Mueller received in August 2017 a mandate from Rosenstein ( pdf
) to probe whether Flynn "committed a crime or crimes by engaging in conversations with Russian
government officials during the period of the Trump transition." That appears to be an allusion
to the Logan Act.
Rosenstein testified
to Congress that he simply put in the scope of Mueller's mandate whatever the CH team was
investigating at the time.
The scope memo also tasked Mueller with probing whether Flynn lied to the FBI during the
interview, whether he failed to report foreign contacts or income on his national security
disclosure forms, and whether the Turkey job by his firm meant that he "committed a crime or
crimes by acting as an unregistered agent for the government of Turkey."
40. Lawyers
Delay Informing Flynn?
By mid-August 2017, Covington learned that prosecutors were looking at Flynn's FARA filings.
But the lawyers didn't inform Flynn until weeks later, according to his current lawyer,
Powell.
41. Conflict of Interest
Convington faced a conflict of interest in Flynn's case, because it was in their interest to
say any problems with the FARA papers were Flynn's fault, while it was in Flynn's interest to
say the lawyers were responsible.
Covington and the Mueller team agreed the firm can continue to represent Flynn if they tell
him about the conflict and he consents to it. Powell said the conflict was so serious bar rules
required the lawyers to withdraw.
42. Lawyers Don't Take Responsibility
In Flynn's situation, it would have been the ethical thing to do for the lawyers to take
responsibility for any problems with the FARA papers, according to Powell. But they didn't do
that.
43. Lawyers Express Apprehension About Being Targeted Themselves
The Covington lawyers on several occasions expressed concern that Mueller may target them
with a crime-fraud order, a measure that allows prosecutors to break through the
attorney-client privilege if they get a judge to agree that the client was conferring with
lawyers to further a crime or some misconduct. The lawyers were aware Mueller's team had
already used the order against Manafort.
Facing a crime-fraud order would cause bad publicity for Covington, Powell noted. Leading
Flynn into the plea allowed the firm to avoid it.
44. Perilous Interviews
In early November 2016, Mueller prosecutors, led by Brandon Van Grack, told Covington that
Flynn was facing charges for lying to the FBI and lying on the FARA papers. They asked for
Flynn's cooperation with the broader Russia probe, particularly regarding any communications he
or other Trump people had with foreign officials.
Van Grack wanted Flynn to sit down for a series of interviews. He offered Flynn limited
immunity, but acknowledged that Flynn could still be charged for lying during the
interviews.
The lawyers noted that this could have been dangerous for Flynn, even if he was completely
honest.
"To ask someone about meetings and calls during an incredibly busy period of his life as an
evaluation of candor is not a particularly attractive option," Kelner told the prosecutors
during a conference call (
pdf ).
Yet ultimately the Covington lawyers agreed to make Flynn available for the
questioning.
45. Belated Consent
Covington only asked Flynn for consent with their conflict of interest in writing on Nov.
19, 2017, after Flynn had already been through two days of interviews with the
prosecutors.
46. Wrong Standard
The consent request, sent via email, cited the wrong bar rule for handling of conflicts. The
correct rule "creates a much lower threshold at which a lawyer must bow out," Powell said in a
court filing.
47. Innocent but Guilty
The Covington lawyers repeatedly told the prosecutors that they didn't think Flynn was
guilty of a felony. They were also told that Strzok and Pientka "saw no indication of
deception" on Flynn's part and had the impression after the interview that he wasn't lying or
didn't think he was lying. But the lawyers still convinced Flynn that he should plead guilty to
the felony charge.
48. Threat to Son
According to Flynn's declaration, the Covington lawyers told him that if he didn't plead,
the prosecutors would charge his son (who had a four-month-old baby at the time) with a FARA
violation, because the son worked for Flynn's firm and was involved in the Turkey project. If
he did plead, however, his son "would be left in peace," Flynn said.
The pressure campaign, it seems, was also reflected in media leaks.
"If the elder Flynn is willing to cooperate with investigators in order to help his son it
could also change his own fate, potentially limiting any legal consequences,"
NBC News reported on Nov. 5, 2017, referring to "sources familiar with the
investigation."
"To twist the father's arm with regard to his child is a pretty low thing to do," Ruskin
commented.
49. 302 Not Shared
The prosecutors refused to share with Flynn the 302 from his January interview until shortly
before he agreed to plead. Also, they only shared the final version of the report, which was
significantly different from its previous drafts, Flynn later learned.
50. Strzok Texts
Understatement
Shortly before Flynn signed his plea, the prosecutors disclosed to his lawyers that one of
the agents who interviewed Flynn (Strzok) was being investigated by the IG for potential
misconduct. They also disclosed that the agent expressed in electronic communications "a
preference for one of the candidates for President."
This was far from covering the bombshell the Strzok texts actually were, Powell noted.
Strzok not only voiced preference for Clinton, but cursed at and repeatedly derided Trump.
In one 2016 text, he argued that the FBI needed to take action akin to an "insurance policy" in
case Trump won. Strzok later said he was referring to proceeding in the CH probe more
aggressively out of a worry that Trump may interfere with it if elected.
51. Lawyers
Never Told Flynn?
Flynn said the Convington lawyers never told him that the FBI agents didn't think he lied.
Even after he specifically asked about the agents' impression, the lawyers didn't disclose the
information and instead told him that "the agents stood by their statement."
"I then understood them to be telling me that the FBI agents believed that I had lied,"
Flynn said, explaining that had he known, he wouldn't have signed the plea.
52. Statement
of Offense Inaccurate
As part of his statement of offense, Flynn affirmed that FIG's FARA papers contained three
false statements and one omission. Yet, on all four points the statement of offense was
inaccurate, Powell demonstrated (
pdf ).
"The prosecutors concocted the alleged 'false statements' by their own misrepresentations,
deceit, and omissions," she said in a court filing (
pdf ).
The FARA papers were "substantially correct" and any deficiencies were the fault of
Covington, she said.
53. Lawyers Knew
In an internal email three days before Flynn signed his plea, one of the Covington lawyers
pointed out that some of the "false statements" attributed to Flynn in the statement of offense
regarding the FARA filings were "contradicted by the caveats or qualifications in the
filing."
It seems the lawyers failed to correct the issue, since the statement of offense remained
inaccurate. They also never informed Flynn of the issue, according to Powell.
54. Judge
Recusal
Flynn entered his plea on Dec. 1, 2017. Shortly after, the judge who accepted the plea,
Rudolph Contreras, recused himself from the case. The apparent but undisclosed reason was
likely his personal relationship with Strzok.
55. Strzok Texts Media Coincidence
While the IG had found Strzok's texts already in June 2017, their first disclosure in the
media came from The Washington Post the day after Flynn entered his guilty plea. Powell noted
how convenient the timing was for the prosecutors.
56. Side Deal
The prosecutors conveyed to Covington an "unofficial understanding" that they were
"unlikely" to charge Flynn's son in light of Flynn's agreement to continue to cooperate with
the Mueller probe, one of the lawyers said in an internal email.
Such an under-the-table deal is "unethical," Ruskin said.
57. Avoiding Giglio
Disclosure
Another internal Covington email suggests the prosecutors intentionally kept the deal
regarding Flynn's son unofficial to make future prosecutions easier.
"The government took pains not to give a promise to MTF [Michael T. Flynn] regarding Michael
[Flynn] Jr., so as to limit how much of a 'benefit' it would have to disclose as part of its
Giglio disclosures to any defendant against whom MTF may one day testify," the email reads.
"Giglio" refers to a 1972 Supreme Court opinion that requires prosecutors to disclose to the
defense that a witness used by the prosecutors has been promised an escape from prosecution in
exchange for cooperation.
58. Questionable Disclosures
After the case was assigned to Judge Sullivan, he entered an order for the DOJ to give Flynn
all exculpatory information it had, as the judge does in all cases.
The prosecutors, however, weren't prompt in revealing the information. The Strzok texts, for
instance, were only provided to Flynn after they were released publicly.
59. Business
Partner Coincidence
One day before Flynn's sentencing hearing, his former business partner, Bijan Rafiekian, was
charged with a failure to register as a foreign agent in relation to FIG's Turkey job.
Powell called it a "shot across the bow" which the Mueller team wanted to "leverage" against
Flynn.
"Mr. Van Grack used the possibility of indicting Flynn in the Rafiekian case at the
sentencing hearing to raise the specter of all the threats he had made to secure the plea a
year earlier -- including the indictment of Mr. Flynn's son," she said in a court filing (
pdf ).
60. Judge Makes False Accusations, Backtracks
During a Dec. 18, 2018, sentencing hearing, Sullivan questioned the prosecutors about
whether they considered charging Flynn with treason.
"Arguably, you sold your country out," he told Flynn, saying that he acted as an agent of
Turkey while in the White House.
That was wrong on multiple levels. Not only does treason not apply to unregistered lobbying,
but the Turkey job had virtually no impact on American interests. It prepared a plan to lobby
for the extradition of an Islamic cleric, Fethullah Gülen, who lives in exile in the
United States, and whom Ankara blamed for instigating a coup attempt in 2016. Almost none of
the plan materialized. Most importantly, Flynn shuttered his firm shortly after the election to
comply with Trump's promise of no lobbyists in his administration.
Sullivan corrected himself later in the hearing, but many media outlets still put his
original remarks in headlines.
61. MSNBC Coincidence
While Sullivan's question about treason and his gaffe about the Turkey job seemed to come
out of left field, they mirrored MSNBC talking points from days prior.
The day before Flynn's sentencing hearing, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow claimed Flynn and Rafiekian "disguised" the
origins of payments for the Turkey job so they could "secretly work in the interest of a
foreign country without anybody knowing it while they were also working high-level jobs in
intelligence inside the U.S. government."
"Flynn really thought he could be a national security adviser, the national security adviser
in the White House, and a secret foreign agent at the same time," Maddow said .
Three days before Flynn's sentencing hearing, Malcolm Nance, a counterterrorism commentator,
said on MSNBC that Flynn "may have been one step away from treason" and "pulled back by
cooperating" with Mueller.
62. Judge Fails to Satisfy Plea Rules
Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure state in Rule 11 that "before entering judgment on a
guilty plea, the court must determine that there is a factual basis for the plea."
As such, Sullivan was required to check that Flynn's alleged lies to the FBI were
"material," meaning relevant enough to potentially affect an FBI investigation.
But the judge acknowledged during the sentencing hearing that he hadn't done so.
"It probably won't surprise you that I had many, many, many more questions. such as, you
know, how the government's investigation was impeded? What was the material impact of the
criminality? Things like that," he said at the conclusion of the hearing.
There's no indication Sullivan has asked those questions since.
63. Unacceptable
Plea
Not only could Sullivan not have accepted Flynn's plea before determining materiality,
there's evidence he was in fact required to refuse it.
Rule 11 requires the court to "determine that the plea is voluntary and did not result from
force, threats, or promises (other than promises in a plea agreement)."
In Flynn's case, there actually was a threat and a promise left out of the deal -- the
"unofficial understanding" that his son was "unlikely" to be charged if Flynn
cooperated.
64. Lawyers Insisted Flynn 'Stay on the Path'
Before the sentencing hearing, the Covington lawyers told Flynn to "stay on the path" and to
refuse if Sullivan offered him to take his plea back, Flynn said in his court declaration.
"If the judge offers you a chance to withdraw your plea, he is giving you the rope to hang
yourself. Don't do it," the lawyers said, according to Powell.
65. Unprepared
Flynn said the lawyers only prepared him for a "simple hearing" and not for the extended
questioning Sullivan engaged in.
"I was not prepared for this court's plea colloquy, much less to decide, on the spot,
whether I should withdraw my plea, consult with independent counsel, or continue to follow my
existing lawyers' advice," he said.
In the end, he affirmed his plea during the hearing.
66. Prosecutors Asked for False
Testimony?
Flynn was expected to testify against Rafiekian in 2019, but when the moment was to come,
prosecutors asked him to say that he signed FIG's FARA papers knowing there were lies in them.
Flynn, who had already fired Convington and hired Powell by that point, refused. He said he
only acknowledged in hindsight that the FARA papers were inaccurate, but didn't know it at the
time.
67. Prosecutors Knew?
Powell has argued that the prosecutors knew they were asking for a false testimony. She
filed with the court a draft of Flynn's statement of offense, which shows that the words "FLYNN
then and there knew" (pertaining to the FARA registration) were cut from the final version.
Moreover, Powell submitted emails that indicate the words were cut by the prosecutors
themselves after the Covington lawyers raised some objections to the draft.
68.
Retaliation?
Flynn's refusal to say what prosecutors wanted angered Van Grack, contemporaneous notes show
(
pdf ). Shortly after, prosecutors tried to label Flynn as a co-conspirator in the Rafiekian
case and put Flynn's son on the list of witnesses for the prosecution. According to Powell,
this was retaliation for Flynn's refusal to lie.
69. Rafiekian Case Collapses
Prosecutors in the Rafiekian case tried to argue that anybody who does something political
at the request of a foreign official and fails to disclose it to the DOJ is an "agent of a
foreign government" and can be put in prison for up to 10 years.
The presiding judge, Anthony Trenga, rejected the theory, ruling that an "agent" -- as used
in that context -- needs to have a tighter relationship with the foreign government, a
relationship that includes "the power of the principal to give directions and the duty of the
agent to obey those directions."
Starting in August, Powell started to bombard the prosecutors with demands for exculpatory
evidence she was convinced the DOJ possessed. But the prosecutors repeatedly claimed the
government already provided all it had and had no more.
The main issue was, Powell noted, that the DOJ had a very narrow view of what is
exculpatory.
"If something appears on its face to be favorable to the defense the government will claim
it was said 'with a wink and a nod,' and therefore it showed the defendant's guilt after all,"
she complained in an Aug. 30, 2019, filing (
pdf ).
As it later turned out, the FBI was sitting on a number of documents favorable to the
defense.
71. Contradicting Notes
When Flynn finally obtained the hand-written notes Strzok and Pientka took during the
interview, it turned out they didn't quite match the final 302.
The 302, for instance, says that Flynn remembered making four to five phone calls to Kislyak
on Dec. 29, 2016. Both sets of notes indicate that Flynn didn't remember that.
Also, the 302 says that Flynn denied that Kislyak got back to him with the Russian response
a few days later. There's no mention of a Russian response in the notes.
72. Notes
Mixup
It took the prosecutors until November 2019 to find out and tell Flynn that the notes they
said belonged to Strzok were actually Pientka's and vice versa.
73. No Date, Name
The notes mixup wasn't that easy to spot because neither set of notes was signed or dated,
even though they should have been, according to Powell.
74. Harsher Sentence
Since his sentencing hearing, Flynn was expected to receive a light sentence, possibly
probation. In January 2020, however, the prosecutors indicated that Flynn should be treated
more harshly because he reneged on his promise to cooperate on the Rafiekian case.
This was part of the retaliation for Flynn's refusal to lie for the prosecutors, according
to Powell.
Shortly after that, Flynn asked the court to let him withdraw his plea.
Any limitation the court puts on how the attorney-client information can be used shouldn't
"preclude the government from prosecuting the defendant for perjury if any information that he
provided to counsel were proof of perjury in this proceeding," they said.
It's not clear what specifically they were referring to.
76. Thousands More
Documents
In April, Covington told Flynn they
found thousands more documents related to his case that they failed to give to Powell due
to "an unintentional miscommunication involving the firm's information technology
personnel."
77. Van Grack Out
On May 7, 2020, Van Grack withdrew from Flynn's case as well as others. The reason is not
clear.
The same day, the DOJ moved to withdraw the Flynn case.
78. Judge Delays
A government motion to withdraw a case usually marks the end of the case. The court still
needs to accept the motion, but there's not much it can do, since there's nobody left to
prosecute the case.
Sullivan, however, didn't accept it.
79. Appointing Amicus
On May 13, 2020, Sullivan appointed former federal Judge John Gleeson as an amicus curiae
(friend of court) "to present arguments in opposition to the government's Motion to Dismiss" as
well as to "address" whether the court should make the defense explain why "Flynn should not be
held in criminal contempt for perjury."
This was an unusual move. Amici are normally only appointed in civil or higher court cases.
Powell has said Sullivan doesn't have authority to do so.
80. Another Washington Post
Coincidence
Just two days earlier, Gleeson co-authored an op-ed in The Washington Post where he accused
the DOJ of "impropriety," "corruption," and "improper political influence" for dropping the
Flynn case.
81. More Delays
On May 19, 2020, Sullivan issued a scheduling order that set an oral argument for July 16,
when third parties invited by the judge would get a chance to voice their opinions. As such,
the judge
set to prolong the case for about two more months and possibly beyond.
In a rare move , the appeals court
ordered Sullivan to respond to Flynn's petition within 10 days. Usually, the court would
appoint an amicus curiae to argue the case on behalf of the judge. Sometimes, the court would
invite the judge to respond. Ordering a response is "very rare," Reeves commented.
Wilkinson has in the past represented major corporations such as Pfizer, Microsoft, and
Phillip Morris, as well as Hillary Clinton aides during the FBI's investigation of Clinton's
use of a private email server. She also assisted then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh in
preparing his 2018 defense against a sexual assault allegation.
Wilkinson is married to CNN analyst David Gregory, the former host of the NBC News' "Meet
the Press."
84. DOJ Brings Big Guns
In another unusual move, the DOJ's Solicitor General and five of his deputies responded to
the appeals court in support of Flynn's petition. The Solicitor General usually argues cases on
behalf of the DOJ before the Supreme Court. His personal involvement in an appeals court
petition "is highly unusual and rare," Reeves said.
"For non-lawyers, a ten day notice for oral argument may seem like a long time, but it
isn't. It's an increidibly [sic] short amount of time," he said, noting that a call for a
hearing "shows that the DC Circuit is gravely concerned about this matter."
If one ventures into the vast wasteland of American television it is possible to miss the
truly ridiculous content that is promoted as news by the major networks. One particular feature
of media-speak in the United States is the tendency of the professional reporting punditry to
go seeking for someone to blame every time some development rattles the National Security plus
Wall Street bubble that we all unfortunately live in. The talking heads have to such an extent
sold the conclusion that China deliberately released a lethal virus to destroy western
democracies that no one objects when Beijing is elevated from being a commercial competitor and
political adversary to an enemy of the United States. One sometimes even sees that it is all a
communist plot. Likewise, the riots taking place all across the U.S. are being milked for what
it's worth by the predominantly liberal media, both to influence this year's election and to
demonstrate how much the news oligarchs really love black people.
As is often the case, there are a number of inconsistencies in the narrative. If one looks
at the numerous photos of the protests in many parts of the country, it is clear that most of
the demonstrators are white, not black, which might suggest that even if there are significant
pockets of racism in the United States there is also a strong condemnation of that fact by many
white people. And this in a country that elected a black man president not once, but twice, and
that black president had a cabinet that included a large number of African-Americans.
Also, to further obfuscate any understanding of what might be taking place, the media and
chattering class is obsessed with finding white supremacists as
instigators of at least some of the actual violence. It would be a convenient explanation
for the Social Justice Warriors that proliferate in the media, though it is supported currently
by little actual evidence that anyone is exploiting right-wing groups.
Simultaneously, some on the right, to include the president, are blaming legitimately dubbed
domestic
terrorist group Antifa , which is perhaps more plausible, though again evidence of
organized instigation appears to be on the thin side. Still another source of the mayhem
apparently consists of some folks getting all excited by the turmoil and breaking windows and
tossing Molotov cocktails, as did
two upper middle class attorneys in Brooklyn last week.
Nevertheless, the search goes on for a guilty party. Explaining the demonstrations and riots
as the result of the horrible killing of a black man by police which has revulsed both black
and white Americans would be too simple to satisfy the convoluted yearnings of the likes of
Wolf Blitzer and Rachel Maddow.
Which brings us to Russia. How convenient is it to fall back on Russia which, together with
the Chinese, is reputedly already reported to be working hard to subvert the November U.S.
election. And what better way to do just that than to call on one of the empty-heads of the
Barack Obama administration, whose foreign policy achievements included the destruction of a
prosperous Libya and the killing of four American diplomats in Benghazi, the initiation of
kinetic hostilities with Syria, the failure to achieve a reset with Russia and the
assassinations of American citizens overseas without any due process. But Obama sure did talk
nice and seem pleasant unlike the current occupant of the White House.
The predictable Wolf Blitzer had a recent interview with perhaps the emptiest head of all
the empowered women who virtually ran the Obama White House. Susan Rice was U.N. Ambassador and
later National Security Advisor under Barack Obama. Before that she was a Clinton appointee who
served as Undersecretary of State for African Affairs. She is reportedly currently being
considered as a possible running mate for Joe Biden as she has all the necessary qualifications
being a woman and black.
While Ambassador and National Security Advisor, Rice had the reputation of being
extremely abrasive . She ran into trouble when she failed to be convincing in support of
the Obama administration exculpatory narrative regarding what went wrong in Benghazi when the
four Americans, to include the U.S. Ambassador, were killed.
"We have peaceful protesters focused on the very real pain and disparities that we're all
wrestling with that have to be addressed, and then we have extremists who've come to try to
hijack those protests and turn them into something very different. And they're probably also,
I would bet based on my experience, I'm not reading the intelligence these days, but based on
my experience this is right out of the Russian playbook as well. I would not be surprised to
learn that they have fomented some of these extremists on both sides using social media. I
wouldn't be surprised to learn that they are funding it in some way, shape, or form."
It should be noted that Rice, a devout Democrat apparatchik, produced no evidence whatsoever
that the Russians were or have been involved in "fomenting" the reactions to the George Floyd
demonstrations and riots beyond the fact that Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden all
believe that Moscow is responsible for everything. Clinton in particular hopes that some day
someone will actually believe her when she claims that she lost to Trump in 2016 due to Russia.
Even Robert Mueller, he of the Russiagate Inquiry, could not come up with any real evidence
suggesting that the relatively low intensity meddling in the election by the Kremlin had any
real impact. Nor was there any suggestion that Moscow was actually colluding with the Trump
campaign, nor with its appointees, to include National Security Advisor designate Michael
Flynn.
Fortunately, no one took much notice of Rice based on her "experience," or her judgement
insofar as she possesses that quality. Glenn Greenwald
responded :
"This is fuxxing lunacy -- conspiratorial madness of the worst kind -- but it's delivered
by a Serious Obama Official and a Respected Mainstream Newscaster so it's all fine This is
Infowars-level junk. Should Twitter put a 'False' label on this? Or maybe a hammer and sickle
emoji?"
Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Maria Zakharova accurately described the
Rice performance as a "perfect example of barefaced propaganda." She wrote on her Facebook
page "Are you trying to play the Russia card again? You've been playing too long – come
back to reality" instead of using "dirty methods of information manipulation" despite "having
absolutely no facts to prove [the] allegations go out and face your people, look them in the
eye and try telling them that they are being controlled by the Russians through YouTube and
Facebook. And I will sit back and watch 'American exceptionalism' in action."
It should be assumed that the Republicans will be coming up with their own candidate for
"fomenting" the riots and demonstrations. It already includes Antifa, of course, but is likely
to somehow also involve the Chinese, who will undoubtedly be seen as destroying American
democracy through the double whammy of a plague and race riots. Speaking at the White House,
National Security Adviser Robert O'Brien
warned about foreign incitement , including not only the Chinese, but also Iran and even
Zimbabwe. And, oh yes, Russia.
One thing is for sure, no matter who is ultimately held accountable, no one in the Congress
or White House will be taking the blame for anything.
General Flynn needs to sue for all the money he spent defending himself for this scam. Yet
we had liar Adam Schiff lie daily nothing happens to that loser.
This is another reason I dislike Obama so much; he has deceived the American public with
his alleged good intentions to only want to take more rights away from us citizens!
Agree with your post but hope to deepen it -- this "geostrategy" goes way back before
Brzezinski wrote about it in his The Grand Chessboard, or for that matter before Nixon's The
Real War as well. Both followed in the footsteps of the US Admiral Alfred Mahan and the
British strategist Halford Mackinder who laid the basis for this imperialist strategic vision
of world domination over a century ago.
Mahan, author of The Influence of Sea Power upon History, in the late 1800s developed the
worldview of seeing history as a series of confrontations between a Sea Power and a Land
Power (Athens-Sparta, Rome-Carthage, Britain vs. a series of European Land Powers, etc.),
paving the way for US "manifest destiny" to transcend North America to become truly global
imperialism. One of Mahan's most famous concepts is that either the Land Power or Sea Power
could win at any time, but that time was on the side of the Land Power since with more people
and resources it could eventually just build a bigger navy than the Sea Power could match --
therefore the Sea Power had to go on an especially aggressive offensive early on to prevent
this.
Mackinder in his 1904 presentation of
The Geographical Pivot of History first developed the concept of the "world island" or
"world continent" with its concentric "crescents". His most famous quote: "Who rules East
Europe commands the Heartland; Who rules the Heartland commands the World Island; Who rules
the World Island commands the World."
With the beginning of the "special relationship" between the US and UK after WW1 it was
the easiest of mergers for these two imperialist strategic visions to join together. They've
had various interpretations and refinements ever since, but Mahan and Mackinder are the
originators of this "geostrategy" that predates the Cold War, WW2 and even WW1. That it
predates the Russian and Chinese Revolutions indicates that it exists irrespective of
ideology (thus the US's continued hostility to a non-subservient capitalist Russia), though
anti-communism lends it an especially fevered tone, especially focused on China now.
At its outset this geostrategy was oriented toward European empires attempting to conquer
the "heartland" or "pivot" to obtain the sheer imperial mass that would be needed for world
conquest. But the Russian Revolution allowed the "heartland" to stand up as a Land Power in
its own right, rapidly industrializing. Toward the end of his life Mackinder attempted to
update his work, observing that if ever Eurasia were economically developed and spanned by
rail and telecommunications lines from East Europe to the Pacific, this would result in a
Land Power so vast -- with the majority of the world's people and resources -- that no Sea
Power could conquer or even blockade it.
Sound familiar? For a number of reasons beyond our scope here the USSR fell and broke
apart, but not before China could pick up that torch, rapidly industrialize itself and now
bring forth the Belt and Road Initiative. Russia joining China in a strategic relationship
that is for all intents and purposes an alliance (that the US brought on itself -- both
Beijing and Moscow have read Mahan and Mackinder very thoroughly) is effectively Mackinder's
nightmare made manifest. The antithesis of Manifest Destiny, LOL.
Nixon, Brzezinski and their wannabe successor Bannon are all simply continuing this
more-than-century-old strategic tradition. But no "geostrategy" will save global capitalism
from its own inner rot and sharpening contradictions, as the events of recent years have
shown. This year especially recalls Lenin's observation that "There are decades where nothing
happens, and weeks where decades happen."
The protests in Hong Kong are led by an assortment of US-backed proxies who have separation
from China as their principle goal.
"In Hong Kong, the US sees not a war for 'democracy' but rather a key battleground for
its larger hybrid war against China."
The rebellions in Hong Kong and Minneapolis have received vastly different responses from
the U.S. ruling class. In Minneapolis, masses of peoplet took to the streets on May 26th to
express their outrage over the police murder of George Floyd and the many Black Americans who
have shared a similar fate. The rebellion quickly spread to cities across the country with
corporations, police stations, and even the CNN headquarters in Atlanta, GA all facing
some form of property destruction. Since June of 2019, Hong Kong protestors have held regular
demonstrations to demand "democracy" and autonomy from China. The protests have once again
picked up momentum after the National People's Congress, China's highest legislative body,
pushed forward new national security legislation that will enforce Article 23 of the Basic Law
which prohibits secessionist or separatist political activity.
Protestors in Hong Kong have been treated with honor from the corporate media in stark
contrast to the homegrown uprisings occurring in U.S. cities. The New York Times and the
rest of the corporate media have parroted Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's alarm that Hong Kong
is being usurped by China's central government and losing its Western-style freedoms. A brief
scan of CNN , The New York Times , and The Washington Post 's coverage of
the Hong Kong protests reads as a sympathetic tragedy of a people under siege from a tyrannical
government. The protestors are described as defying "crackdowns" and resisting an unjust
authority. Of course, none of these outlets have taken much time to investigate exactly what
the Hong Kong protests seek to achieve.
"Protestors in Hong Kong have been treated with honor from the corporate media in stark
contrast to the homegrown uprisings."
Behind demands for universal suffrage and amnesty for detained protestors lies an agenda
that works quite well for the United States and its imperial allies. The protests in Hong Kong
are led by an assortment of U.S.-backed proxies who have separation from China as their
principle goal. One of the biggest donors of the protests, Jimmy Lai, is called the Rupert
Murdoch of Asia and owns a large tabloid media corporation, Apple Daily . In 2012, Lai's
publication likened pregnant Chinese women to "locusts"
invading Hong Kong . Lai poured
millions of his own dollars into the 2014 precursor to the current unrest otherwise known
as the "Occupy Central" protests. He has repeatedly called for the Trump administration to
intervene in Hong Kong and has received a platform in The
New York Times and other corporate media outlets to communicate his nativist and
rightwing demand for the U.S. to privilege "Hong Kongers" and punish China.
Jimmy Lai is joined by Freedom House award winners Joshua Wong and Martin Lee to round out
the most prominent faces of Hong Kong's "pro-democracy" leadership. Martin Lee is the
chairperson of Hong Kong's Democratic Party. Lee possesses close ties to the National Endowment
for Democracy (NED), having won the organization's Democracy
Award in 1997. The NED is a non-profit front organization of the Central Intelligence
Agency (CIA) and is principally funded by the U.S. Congress. The NED has generously provided
tens of millions of U.S. dollars to a coalition of pro-independence organizations. The
impact of U.S.-support on the ideological and class character of the Hong Kong protests is not
difficult to discern. Protestors regularly wave the regalia of the Union Jack and the American
flag as they clamor for
the U.S. to "liberate" them from China . The NED-backed unrest in Hong Kong has also
received solidarity from members of the neo-Nazi paramilitary organization Azov
Battalion , which in 2014 helped engineer the violent overthrow of the government of
Ukraine with extensive U.S.
support.
"Protestors regularly wave the regalia of the Union Jack and the American flag."
In many ways, the Hong Kong protests have more in common with U.S. police departments than
the protestors in the U.S. seeking justice for George Floyd. Hong Kong protestors have used
xenophobia and violence against
elderly citizens and anyone considered to be sympathetic to mainland China. During weekend
protests beginning on May 30th, videos surfaced in cities across the country that showed how
U.S. police routinely wield the deadly stick of white supremacy to kill Black Americans such as
George Floyd and then
run over, shoot, and arrest journalists and activists present at the protests. Hong Kong
protestors possess a distinct nativist ideology that aligns with the racist underpinnings of
the U.S. national security state. Police departments protect the U.S.' racist corporate order
and lobby for policies such as
the 1033 program that provides weaponry, coordination, and training directly from the
Pentagon. Hong Kong protestors have successfully lobbied U.S. Congress to pass the Hong Kong Human
Rights and Democracy Act of 2019 . The bill allows the U.S. to sanction Chinese leaders and
assets accused of getting in the way of the underlying aim of the Hong Kong protests to
completely sever the former colony from China under the guise of Western style "democracy."
There is thus no shortage of reasons why the U.S. ruling class loves the protests in Hong
Kong but desperately wants to stifle the rebellion against police brutality occurring in the
United States. Neoliberal war hawks such as Susan Rice have once again raised the specter of
Russian
interference and its potential influence over people in the U.S. standing up to police
violence. Rightwing elements in the U.S. have accused protestors of being backed by
billionaire George Soros . Donald Trump has labeled Antifa a terrorist organization and
threatened to unilaterally deploy the U.S. military to crush the protests. The "outside
agitators" narrative possesses a long standing racist and anti-communist history in the U.S.
that gained prominence when the Communist Party was accused of infiltrating Black American
communities to subvert the fascist order of Jim Crow. The real "outside agitators" are the
undercover cops, spooks, and white nationalist organizations working to sew chaos within the
uprising to justify the criminalization and demonization of the masses in the streets.
"Hong Kong protestors possess a distinct nativist ideology that aligns with the racist
underpinnings of the U.S. national security state."
Perhaps no better word can summarize the current situation for U.S. imperialism at this
juncture in history than crisis. The U.S. ruling class has thrown its full weight behind the
protests in Hong Kong to undermine China. But China's new national security legislation is
geared toward curbing the foreign-backed influence of protestors and nothing short of U.S.
military intervention can stop China from asserting the right to self-determination over its
own territory. The U.S. ruling class' response to the protests over George Floyd's death is
filled not only with a natural hatred toward any sign of popular unrest but also with deep
confusion. Massive anger over the killing of Floyd has roots in hundreds of years of settler
colonial and racist terror and is only buttressed by a pandemic-induced economic crisis worse
than the Great Depression. The U.S. ruling class desperately wants to suppress the protests
entirely but has been confronted with the prospect that only a nation-wide massacre can do the
job. As the Trump administration and its military spooks coordinate with police departments to
figure out the most effective means to repress the protests, the corporate media has feigned
lukewarm support for "peaceful" demonstrations while condemning any "violence" against private
property.
On May 31st, CNN ran a loop of protestors in Philadelphia robbing corporations and
burning police vehicles. That same day, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo joined the chorus of
condemnations against protestors destroying "their own house." Ruling class hatred toward
private property destruction negates the fact that when the U.S. emerged from its war of
independence from the Union Jack, Black people were the literal property of the slave owning
class. Trillions worth in wealth was
stolen from free Black labor to build the U.S.' capitalist infrastructure. A violent,
racist state apparatus was erected to maintain this arrangement.
"The U.S. ruling class desperately wants to suppress the protests entirely."
Of course, the U.S. ruling class has always expressed much more concern about the condition
of private property and capital than the condition of Black life. History tells us that the
U.S. exists on a foundation of a centuries-long racist war to prevent Black freedom. The
American road to Ferguson's uprising in 2014, Baltimore's uprising in 2015, and Minnesota's
uprising in 2020 was paved with the blood of millions of Black lives that were killed in slave
rebellions, Jim Crow lynch mobs, and COINTELPRO's operations to subvert the Black liberation
movement. The U.S. remains very much engaged in a racist war against Black America, which
explains why the cops, media outlets, and all sections of the ruling order share a similar
hatred toward the Minneapolis-led uprising.
In Hong Kong, the U.S. sees not a war for "democracy" but rather a key battleground for its
larger hybrid war against China . China has been deemed the biggest threat to the U.S.'
economic and military interests abroad just as the specter of Black freedom has always been the
biggest threat to U.S. "national security" at home. The NED-backed movement in Hong Kong is not
without precedent. The NED has spent billions of U.S. dollars supporting rightwing and
terroristic forces in Syria, Ukraine, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Korea
to name just a few . In a word, the U.S. ruling class loves any unrest that its soft power
apparatus can control and direct toward its own geopolitical aims.
" The U.S. remains very much engaged in a racist war against Black America."
Protests of police brutality offer no such opportunity. In fact, Floyd's death triggered a
popular response that only exacerbates the broader crisis of legitimacy facing U.S. imperial
hegemony worldwide. China and Iran, often the target of Western criticism for being
"authoritarian regimes," could not help but condemn the utter hypocrisy of the United States'
human rights agenda. COVID-19 and the economic collapse that followed has further exposed
American capitalism to be a system with nothing left to offer workers but austerity and war.
China came out of the pandemic with even more reason to be confident about its domestic and
international leadership in the face of U.S. decline. White supremacy, economic crisis, and
imperial stagnation has created a perfect storm for rebellion and has sown the seeds of
uncertainty within the ruling class. What comes next is a question that must be seized by the
masses. Anyone who claims to stand for peace, justice, and liberation should suspect foul play
when the U.S. ruling class shows love to a protest movement abroad given how this same ruling
class treats the genuine outcry of the Black masses and their allies against the mass
incarceration regime right here in the belly of the beast.
Danny Haiphong is an activist and journalist in the New York City area. He and Roberto
Sirvent are co-authors of the book entitled American Exceptionalism and American Innocence:
A People's History of Fake News--From the Revolutionary War to the War on Terror (Skyhorse Publishing). He can be reached at[email protected], on Twitter@spiritofho, and on Youtube at The Left Lens with Danny Haiphong.
" .a white president and a black president both signed off on drone attacks "
Who was this "black president"? I'm only aware of Nobel Peace Prize "winner", destroyer of
Libya, sponsor of jihadis in Syria and Nazis in Ukraine, genocidaire of Yemenis, and mass
murderer extraordinaire Barack Hussein Obama, who, if being the child of a black father makes
him "half-black", is, from being the child of a white mother, equally "half-white".
Problem here that the George Floyd protestors/rioters are a happy counter-cultural mix
of SJW, young blacks and young whites – impossible to portray them as the white power
KKK.
Same way that the Polish communist government couldn't effectively attack the Solidarity
worker's uprising. Government propaganda was designed to attack capitalists, exploiters of
the working class etc. which didn't make any sense against shipyard workers.
Anyone saying that this is class war, is simply hiding behind their white privilege and
denying the essential RACISM of the United States. That's the corporate meme. And it's
probably going to work.
Problem here that the George Floyd protestors/rioters are a happy counter-cultural mix of
SJW, young blacks and young whites – impossible to portray them as the white power
KKK
In fact the RACISM shield doesn't work. The ZioGlob are left exposed, and in my opinion
they're scared by these protests. If they crack down with the national Guard or the military
it only makes the situation worse. Things polarize, with them being further identified as a
privileged exploitative elite.
Problem here that the George Floyd protestors/rioters are a happy counter-cultural mix
of SJW, young blacks and young whites – impossible to portray them as the white power
KKK.
Same way that the Polish communist government couldn't effectively attack the Solidarity
worker's uprising. Government propaganda was designed to attack capitalists, exploiters of
the working class etc. which didn't make any sense against shipyard workers.
Thanks for that link, a very interesting and detailed article. It seems Haftar is an
erratic and unreliable character and the LNA's major foreign allies/sponsors, including
Russia, make no secret of the fact that they basically consider him a temporary "necessary
evil" until a more solid and reliable leader can be found.
In many way this is just a wishful thinking. Saker's hyperbolic rhetoric is just cheap
propaganda and does not help to decifer the issues the USA faces!
Looks like Clinton wing of Dems is willing to burn their own house to get rid of Trump. "If I
had to guess, I'd say it's the neoliberal, CIA-Obama faction vs. the Trump-Military faction,
(Pompeo et al)" But why? Why Obamagate is picking up steam? Looks Barry CIA Obama is still a
player. Is he also a reason we have senile Biden is the candidate for President on the Dem side?
Are we seeing the power of a CIA community organizer, color-revolutionary pulling strings across
multiple strata of society?
The current riots create pressure of Trump and attempt are made to use them as the third act
of anti-Trump revolution but this clearly is nor a civil war. Like other protests before it
(Civil rights marches, anti-Vietnam and Iraq wars, Occupy) little to no substantive changes have
been introduced insofar as reining in of the war machine, the pursuit of social and economic
justice (universal free education and health care, equal employment and housing opportunities,
scaling down of the MIC and the Prison Industrial Complex, degrade Israel and Saudi lobbies,
etc.
They are not about any of these because they encompass all of these issues, and more.
It is important to always keep in mind the distinction between the concepts of " cause " and
"pretext". And while it is true that all the factors listed above are real (at least to some
degree, and without looking at the distinction between cause and effect), none of them are the
true cause of what we are witnessing. At most, the above are pretexts, triggers if you want,
but the real cause of what is taking place today is the systemic collapse of the US
society.
The next thing which we must also keep in mind is that evidence of correlation is not
evidence of causality . Take, for example, this article from CNN entitled "US
black-white inequality in 6 stark charts" which completely conflates the two concepts and
which includes the following sentence (stress added) " Those disparities exist because of a
long history of policies that excluded and exploited black Americans, said Valerie Wilson,
director of the program on race, ethnicity and the economy at the Economic Policy Institute, a
left-leaning group. " The word "because" clearly point to a causality, yet absolutely nothing
in the article or data support this. The US media is chock-full of such conflations of
correlation and causality, yet it is rarely denounced.
For a society, any society, to function a number of factors that make up the social contract
need to be present. The exact list that make up these factors will depend on each individual
country, but they would typically include some kind of social consensus, the acceptance by most
people of the legitimacy of the government and its institutions, often a unifying ideology or,
at least, common values, the presence of a stable middle-class, the reasonable hope for a
functioning "social life", educational institutions etc. Finally, and cynically, it always
helps the ruling elites if they can provide enough circuses (TV) and bread (food) to most
citizens. This is even true of so-called authoritarian/totalitarian societies which, contrary
to the liberal myth, typically do enjoy the support of a large segment of the population (if
only because these regimes are often more capable of providing for the basic needs of
society).
Right now, I would argue that the US government has almost completely lost its ability to
deliver any of those factors, or act to repair the broken social contract. In fact, what we can
observe is the exact opposite: the US society is highly divided, as is the US ruling class
(which is even more important). Not only that, but ever since the election of Trump, all the
vociferous Trump-haters have been undermining the legitimacy not only of Trump himself, but of
the political system which made his election possible. I have been saying that for years: by
saying "not my President" the Trump-haters have de-legitimized not only Trump personally, but
also de-legitimized the Executive branch as such.
This is an absolutely amazing phenomenon: while for almost four years Trump has been
destroying the US Empire externally, Trump-haters spent the same four years destroying the US
from the inside! If we look past the (largely fictional) differences between the Republicrats
and the Demolicans we can see that they operate like a demolition tag-team of sorts and while
they hate each other with a passion, they both contribute to bringing down both the Empire
and the United States. For anybody who has studied dialectics this would be very predictable
but, alas, dialectics are not taught anymore, hence the stunned "deer in the headlights" look
on the faces of most people today.
Finally, it is pretty clear that for all its disclaimers about supporting only the "peaceful
protestors" and its condemnation of the "out of town looters", most of the US media (as well as
the alt media) is completely unable to give a moral/ethical evaluation of what is taking place.
What I mean by this is the following:
And this ain't nothing. Nothing. Not compared to 1967-68.
But you young people don't know nothing. Especially about history. So, no surprise
there.
Si1ver1ock says: Show
Comment
June 5, 2020 at 3:14 am GMT • 100 Words If I had to guess, I'd say it's the
neoliberal, CIA-Obama faction vs the Trump-Military faction, (Pompeo et al)
This came to a head just as Obama-gate was picking up steam. Obama is still a player. He
is the reason we have Biden for President on the Dem side, for example.
My guess is that you are seeing the power of a CIA community organizer,
color-revolutionary, Jedi psyop master, pulling strings across multiple strata of
society.
Trump and Obama don't like each other for some reason.
Begun? It's been in process for many decades. It might have begun in the early 20th
century. What's new here? Focusing on recent times, jobs disappeared in the 70's. Inflation
exploded at the same time. Negro antagonism began in the 60's. Replacement of the white
population accelerated in 1965 and continued relentlessly to the current moment.
We are seeing the looting phase of the business known as the United States of America.
Refer to an informative scene from the movie Goodfellas. The criminals got control of a
business, looted it into bankruptcy and burned the place down. Except in this case there
are no Italians involved. And you know who replaces them in our real life experience.
Espinoza says: Show
Comment
June 5, 2020 at 6:44 am GMT It's controlled demolition. First unjustified lockdown.
Then unjustified race riots. The deep state is intent on destroying Trump.
If US is divided into mutually hostile territories, guess where the majority will go.
That is right. They will go to white dominated areas as they do now to white dominated
neighborhoods.
Can no one stop the deep state?
Brewer says: Show Comment
June 5, 2020 at 7:17 am GMT • 100 Words Seen it all before. How short do memories
have to be to forget Kent State, Rodney King, the Civil Rights protests of the sixties,
Harlem riot of 1964, the Watts riot of 1965 et al ?
America is and will remain a deeply disturbed society given that their entire
philosophy, lifestyle and Politics is based on consumerism. Winners (no matter how
unethical) are heroes, losers (no matter how unjustly) are despised.
America will bump and grind on through bankruptcy, both morally and economically. It is
the Judaic way.
Simple fact is that most Americans are ignorant of History and are therefore condemned
to go on repeating the past.
Powell on Sunday aimed a broad critique at Trump's approach to the military, a foreign policy
he said was causing "disdain" abroad, and a president he portrayed as trying to amass
excessive power.
"We have a Constitution and we have to follow the Constitution, and the president has
drifted away from it," Powell said. Trump also, he said, "lies about things."
Trump responded swiftly on Twitter, mocking Powell and calling the retired four-star
general "a real stiff" who got the U.S. into wars after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks
on the U.S.
Colin Powell, a real stiff who was very responsible for getting us into the disastrous
Middle East Wars, just announced he will be voting for another stiff, Sleepy Joe Biden.
Didn't Powell say that Iraq had "weapons of mass destruction?" They didn't, but off we went
to WAR!
-- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 7, 2020
Credit when credit is due, Trump is completely right when he says Powell is an complete
hack and fraud who helped scam the US people into the Iraq war. Years after his UN appearance
Powell's own chief of staff Lawrence Wilkerson, admitted that he and Powell knew that the fix
was in to attack Iraq and the information they were presenting to the UN was falsified, i.e.
they knowingly lied to the UN to start a war, a war crime (was of aggression)! Rather than do
the honourable thing and resign in protest and go public with the truth they stayed quite and
obey their illegal orders, presumably reasoning that a competently managed crime would be
less damaging then an incompetently managed crime. As it turns out though, Powell was an
utterly incompetent Secretary of State who was outmaneuvered at every stage of the conflict
by the mad dog crazies in the administration that he thought he was controlling. in the end,
all Powell's shameful behaviour accomplished was to destroy his honour and leave him forever
known as a war criminal (even if the UN is too cowardly to charge him as such). So, seeing
Powell and the lamestream media try to croon about him as some sort of moral authority is
laughable and Trump is right to rub all of Powell's crimes right in his face.
Not to forget (as a Vietnam Vet, I can't) that Maj. Colin Powell - after a cursory
investigation into the massacre at My Lai - drafted a response on Dec. 13, 1968 stating -
among other lies - that "[it] is the fact that relations between Americal soldiers and the
Vietnamese people are excellent" while denying any pattern of wrong-doing.
Powell was simply protecting other murderous gang members (especially his bosses) from
justice, thus becoming another un-indicted accessory to murder. The gods are not interested
in justice, though, and he roams free.
Wow I wish I had know that little tidbit back then when I watched the full uninterrupted UN
broadcasts from the Security Council before the war. He pretty much managed to get the US a
free pass with his testimony of lies. I believed him and so did a lot of other people. Now
his whitewash of My Lai is even on his Wikipedia page. Thank you Trisha.
Several years earlier I got to know about My Lai during relatively brief military
education (non-US but NATO) on the rules of the Geneva Convention, it was used as the prime
example of when to resist and disobey unlawful orders (I have to wonder if it still is).
If there had been a free press they should have shouted this little fact at the top of
their lungs while mocking the US, maybe someone somewhere did but I never heard any mention
of it, not even from any of all the people I knew that were opposing the war and who never
seemed to have anything substantive to say (a bit like BLM: who isn't against murder and
particularly murder committed by "cops"? There's a serious communication problem going
on).
I find this so strange that I'm starting to wonder if I have an extremely selective
memory. Did anyone here learn about this at the time? Not counting anyone who already
knew it well before that time.
It started as a reaction to the attitude of the Left during the 1999 Kosovo war, which was
largely accepted on humanitarian grounds and to the rather weak opposition of the peace
movement before the 2003 invasion of Iraq: for example, many "pacifists" have accepted the
policy of sanctions at the time of the 1991 first Gulf war and even after it, and were
favorable to inspections in the run-up to the war, without realizing that this was just a
maneuver to prepare the public to accept the war (this became even public knowledge through
later leaks, like the Downing Street memos).
It seemed to me that the ideology of humanitarian intervention had totally destroyed, on the
left, any notion of respect for international law, as well as any critical attitude with
respect to the media.
Àngel Ferrero: What do you think it has changed in this last 10 years?
A lot of things have changed, although, I am afraid, not because of my book. It is rather
reality that has asserted itself, first with the chaos in Iraq, then in Libya and now in Syria
and Ukraine, leading to the refugee crisis and a near state of war with Russia, which would not
be a "cakewalk".
The humanitarian imperialists are still busy pushing us towards more wars, but there is now
a substantial fraction of public opinion that is against such policies; that fraction is
probably more important on the right than on the left.
Àngel Ferrero: The role of the intellectuals in legitimizing Western interventions
and interferences is heavily criticized, as well as their symbolic actions (signing public
letters or manifestos). Why?
The problem with "intellectuals" is that they love to pretend that they are critics of
power, while in reality legitimizing it. For example, they will complain that Western
governments do not do enough to promote "our values" (through interventions and subversions)
which of course reinforces the notion that "our side" or "our governments" mean well, a highly
dubious notion, as I try to explain in my book.
Those intellectuals are sometimes criticized, but by whom? In general, by marginal figures I
think. They still dominate the media and the intellectual sphere.
Àngel Ferrero: Another of the preoccupations of your book is the degradation of
the public discourse. Do you think that the situation worsened? How do you assess the impact of
social media?
The public discourse goes from bad to worse, at least in France. This is related to the
constant censorship, either through lawsuits or through campaigns of demonization, of
politically incorrect speech, which includes all the questioning of the dominant discourse about the crimes of our enemies and the
justifications for wars.
The social media is the only alternative left to "dissidents", with the drawback that there,
anything goes, including the wildest fantasies.
Àngel Ferrero: Some commentators point that Russia is now using their own version
of the "human rights' ideology" to justify their intervention in Crimea or the air campaign in
Syria against the Islamic State. Is it fair?
I don't think that Russia even claims to intervene on humanitarian grounds. In the case of
Crimea, it bases itself on the right of self-determination of a people which is basically
Russian, has been attached to Ukraine in an arbitrary fashion in 1954 (at a time when it did
not matter too much, since Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union) and had every reason to be
afraid of a fanatically anti-Russian government in Kiev.
For Syria, they respond to the request for help of the government of that country in order
to fight foreign supported "terrorists". I don't see why it is less legitimate than the
intervention of France in Mali (also requested by the government of that country) or of the
more recent intervention of the U.S. in Iraq, against ISIS.
Of course, those Russian moves may prove to be unwise and maybe debatable from a "pacifist"
point of view. But the fundamental question is: who started the total dismantling of the
international order based on the U.N. Charter and the premise of equal sovereignty of all
nations? The answer, obviously, is the U.S. and its "allies" (in the old days, one used to say
"lackeys"). Russia is only responding to that disorder and does so in rather legalistic
ways.
Àngel Ferrero:Let's stay in Syria. Several European politicians demand a
military intervention in Syria and Libya to restore the order and stop the influx of refugees
to the European Union. What do you think of this crisis and the solutions proposed by the
EU?
They do not know how to solve the problem that they have created. By demanding the departure
of Assad as a precondition to solving the Syrian crisis and by supporting so-called moderate
rebels (the label moderate meaning in practice that they had been chosen by "us"), they
prevented any possible solution in Syria. Indeed, a political solution should be based on
diplomacy and the latter presupposes a realistic assessment of forces. In the case of Syria,
realism means accepting the fact that Assad has the control of an army and has foreign allies,
Iran and Russia. Ignoring this is just a way to deny reality, and to refuse to give diplomacy a
chance.
Then came the refugee crisis: this was probably not expected, but occurred at a time when
European citizens are increasingly hostile to immigration and to the "European construction".
Most European governments face what they call "populist movements", i.e. movements that demand
more sovereignty for their own countries. The flux of refugees could not come at a worst
moment, from the European governments' point of view.
So, they try to fix the problem as they can: having peripheral countries like Hungary build
walls (that they denounce in public but are probably happy about in private), reinstall border
controls, pay Turkey to keep the refugees etc.
There are of course also calls to intervene in Syria to solve the problem "at the source".
But what can they do now? More support for the rebels, trough a no-fly zone for example, and
running the risk of a direct confrontation with the Russians? Help the Syrian army fight the
rebels, as the Russian do? But that would mean reversing years of anti-Assad propaganda and
policies.
In summary, they are hoisted by the own petard, which is always an unpleasant situation.
Àngel Ferrero:Why do you think that the Greens and the new left are so
adamant in defending the humanitarian interventions?
Ultimately, one has to do a class analysis of the "new left". While the old left was based
on the working class and their leaders often came from that class, the new left is almost
entirely dominated by petit-bourgeois intellectuals. Those intellectuals are neither the
"bourgeoisie", in the sense of the owners of the means of production not are they exploited by
the latter.
Their social function is to provide an ideology that can serve as a lofty justification for
an economic system and a set of international relations that are based ultimately on brute
force. The human rights ideology is perfect from that point of view. It is sufficiently
"idealistic" and impossible to put consistently into practice (if one had to wage war against
every "violator of human rights", one would quickly be at war with the entire world, including
ourselves) to allow those defenders the opportunity to look critical of the governments (they
don't intervene enough). But, by deflecting attention from the real relations of forces in the
world, the human rights ideology offers also to those who hold real power a moral justification
for their actions. So, the petit-bourgeois intellectuals of the "new left" can both serve power
and pretend to be subversive. What more can you ask from an ideology?
Àngel Ferrero: In the conclusions of your book you recommend a sort of pedagogy
for the Western audience, so they accept the end of the Western hegemony and the emergence of a
new order in the international relations. How can we contribute to this?
As I said above, it is reality that forces the Western audience to change. It was always a
pure folly to think that human rights would be fostered by endless wars, but now we see the
consequences of that folly with our own eyes. There should be a radical reorientation of the
left's priorities in international affairs: far from trying to fix problems in other countries
through illegal interventions, it should demand strict respect of international law on the part
of Western governments, peaceful cooperation with other countries, in particular Russia, Iran
and China, and the dismantling of aggressive military alliances such as NATO.
Àngel Ferrero:I would like to ask you about the other book that made you
known to the general public, Fashionable Nonsense .
This book, co-written with Alan Sokal, is a critique to postmodernism. What is the influence of
postmodernism amongst scholars and the public opinion today? It fades away or is it still alive
and kicking?
It is difficult for me to answer that question, because it would require a sociological
study that I do not have the means to undertake. But I should say that postmodernism, like the
turn towards humanitarian interventions, is another way that the left has self-destructed
itself, although this aspect has had less dramatic consequences than the wars and the damage
was limited to "elite" intellectual circles.
But if the left wants to create a more just society, it has to have a notion of justice; if
it adopts a relativist attitude with respect to ethics, how can it justify its goals? And if it
has to denounce the illusions and mystifications of the dominant discourse, it better rely on a
notion of truth that is not purely a "social construction". Postmodernism has largely
contributed to the destruction of reason, objectivity and ethics on the left and that leads to
its suicide.
"The World Cannot Breathe!" Squashed By The U.S. - A Country Built On Genocide And Slavery
More than two centuries of lies are now getting exposed. Bizarre tales about freedom and
democracy are collapsing like houses of cards.
One man's death triggers an avalanche of rage in those who for years, decades and
centuries, have been humiliated, ruined, and exterminated.
It always happens just like this throughout the history of humankind – one single
death, one single "last drop", an occurrence that triggers an entire chain of events, and
suddenly nothing is the same, anymore. Nothing can be the same. What seemed to be
unimaginable just yesterday, becomes "the new normal" literally overnight.
*
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.
From its birth, in order to 'clear the space' for its brutal, ruthless European settlers,
it systematically liquidated the local population of the continent, during what could easily
be described as one of the more outrageous genocides in the human history.
When whites wanted land, they took it. In North America, or anywhere in the world. In what
is now the United States of America, millions of "natives" were murdered, infected with
deadly diseases on purpose, or exterminated in various different ways. The great majority of
the original and rightful owners of the land, vanished. The rest were locked up in
"reservations".
Simultaneously, the "Land Of The Free" thrived on slavery. European colonialist powers
literally hunted down human beings all over the African continent, stuffing them, like
animals, into ships, in order to satisfy demand for free labor on the plantations of North
and South America. European colonialist, hand in hand, cooperated, in committing crimes, in
all parts of the world.
What really is the United States? Is anyone asking, searching for its roots? What about
this; a simple, honest answer: The United States is essentially the beefy offspring of
European colonialist culture, of its exceptionalism, racism and barbarity.
Again, simple facts: huge parts of the United States were constructed on slavery. Slaves
were humiliated, raped, tortured, murdered. Oh, what a monstrous way to write the first
chapters of the country's history!
The United States, a country of liberty and freedom? For whom? Seriously! For Christian
whites?
How twisted the narrative is! No wonder our humanity has become so perverse, so immoral,
so lost and confused, after being shaped by a narrative which has been fabricated by a
country that exterminated the great majority of its own native sons and daughters, while
getting insanely rich thanks to unimaginable theft, mass-murder, slavery and later –
the semi-slavery of the savage corporate dictatorship!
The endemic, institutionalized brutality at home eventually spilled over to all parts of
the planet. Now, for many decades, the United Stated has treated the entire world as full of
its personal multitude of slaves. What does it offer to all of us: constant wars,
occupations, punitive expeditions, coups, regular assassinations of progressive leaders, as
well as thorough corporate plunder. Hundreds of millions of people have been sacrificed on
the grotesque U.S. altar of "freedom" and "democracy".
Freedom and democracy, really?
Or perhaps just genocide, slavery, fear and the violation of all those wonderful and
natural human dreams, and of human dignity?
"... People who bravely post about how the U.S. needs to invade some country in the Middle East or Asia or outer space will get a pop-up notice indicating they've been enlisted in the military. A recruiter will then show up at their house and whisk them away to fight in the foreign war they wanted to happen so badly. ..."
U.S. -- A new policy issued by the United States Department of Defense, in conjunction
with online platforms like Twitter and Facebook, will automatically enlist you to fight in a
foreign war if you post your support for attacking another country.
People who bravely post about how the U.S. needs to invade some country in the Middle East
or Asia or outer space will get a pop-up notice indicating they've been enlisted in the
military. A recruiter will then show up at their house and whisk them away to fight in the
foreign war they wanted to happen so badly.
"Frankly, recruitment numbers are down, and we needed some way to find people who are
really enthusiastic about fighting wars," said a DOD official. "Then it hit us like a drone
strike: there are plenty of people who argue vehemently for foreign intervention. It doesn't
matter what war we're trying to create: Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, North Korea,
China---these people are always reliable supporters of any invasion abroad. So why not get
them there on the frontlines?"
"After all, we want people who are passionate about occupying foreign lands, not grunts
who are just there for the paycheck," he added.
Strangely, as soon as the policy was implemented, 99% of saber-rattling suddenly
ceased.
Note: The Babylon Bee is the world's best satire site, totally inerrant in all its
truth claims. We write satire about Christian stuff, political stuff, and everyday life.
The Babylon Bee was created ex nihilo on the eighth day of the creation week, exactly
6,000 years ago. We have been the premier news source through every major world event, from
the Tower of Babel and the Exodus to the Reformation and the War of 1812. We focus on just
the facts, leaving spin and bias to other news sites like CNN and Fox News.
If you would like to complain about something on our site, take it up with God.
Unlike other satire sites, everything we post is 100% verified by Snopes.com.
"... Russiagate became a convenient replacement explanation absolving an incompetent political establishment for its complicity in what happened in 2016, and not just the failure to see it coming. ..."
"... Because of the immediate arrival of the collusion theory, neither Wolf Blitzer nor any politician ever had to look into the camera and say, "I guess people hated us so much they were even willing to vote for Donald Trump ..."
" Russiagate became a convenient replacement explanation absolving an incompetent political establishment for its complicity
in what happened in 2016, and not just the failure to see it coming.
Because of the immediate arrival of the collusion theory, neither Wolf Blitzer nor any politician ever had to look into
the camera and say, "I guess people hated us so much they were even willing to vote for Donald Trump ."
As a peedupon all I can see is that the elite seem to be fighting amongst themselves or (IMO) providing cover for ongoing elite
power/control efforts. It might not be about private/public finance in a bigger picture but I can't see anything else that makes
sense
Trump's threat to deploy the military here
is an excessive and dangerous one. Mark Perry reports on the reaction from military officers to
the president's threat:
Senior military officer on Trump statement: "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."
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.
It would hardly surprise me if the regime change obsession has come home and now the US is
"enjoying" all of the democracy building color revolutions they love so much. No matter how
this end it will not end well for 99% of Americans
"... The media would sensationalize any act of violence involving white on black and brown. They ignored all the violence of black and brown on white. This uneven media reporting was based on their desire to reinforce the mantra of "white people are evil racists, black and brown people are victims and good." ..."
"... Because it would paint themselves as supporters of "social justice" they created a false version of reality where everything bad in society was because of white people being racist. Never mind the actual causes of societal discontent being the exploitation by the elite. Because the media is the elite they don't want you to hate them. So they created a false victimizer they could blame for all the problems of society. ..."
"Partisan politics has created severe divisions in society. Such divisions restrict and
disturb people's thinking. People's support for a particular party is only a matter of
stance, which provides a shelter to politicians who violate people's interests.
"As elections come and go, it is simply about one group of elites replacing the other. The
intertwined interests between the two groups are much greater than those between the
victorious one and the electorate who vote for them.
"To cover such deception, the key agenda in the US is either a partisan fight or a
conflict with foreign countries. The severe racial discrimination and wealth disparities are
marginalized topics."
I wonder if the writer would like to see his conclusion proven wrong:
"Judging from the superficial comments and statements from US politicians on the protests,
the outsiders can easily draw the conclusion that solving problems is not on the minds of the
country, and elites are just fearlessly waiting for this wave of demonstrations to die
out."
In order to solve problems, one must know their components and roots, and that demands
honesty in making the assessment. Looking back at the assessments of Cornel West and the
producers of the Four Horsemen documentary, the main culprit is the broken political
system/failed social experiment, which are essentially one in the same as the flawed system
produced the failure. Most of us have determined that changing the system via the system will
never work because the system has empowered a Class that has no intentions on allowing its
power to be diminished, and that Class is currently using the system to further impoverish
and enslave the citizenry into Debt Peonage while increasing its own power. The #1 problem is
removing the Financial Parasite Class from power. Yes, at the moment that seems as difficult
as destroying the Death Star's reactor before it blows up Yavin 4, but the stakes involved
are every bit as high as those portrayed in Lucas's Star Wars , as the Evil of the
Empire and that of the Parasite Class are the same Evil.
What political demand could one possibly make by now, and of whom would you make it? Reform
is impossible, and there's no legitimate authority left (if there ever was in the first
place).
Posted by: Russ | Jun 1 2020 17:49 utc | 23
Indeed, apart from the shock of witnessing one of them murderd in plain daylight as if he
were a vermin, I think that the people, especially young, reacted that anarchic way because
they really see no future. They see how their country functions at steering wheel blows
especially through the pandemic, preview they will e in the need soon, even that they will be
murdered without contemeplation,and go out there to grab whatever they could...
We forget that they are under Trump regime and Trump has supported always their foes,
witnessing such assassination in plain daylight, without any officila doing nothing, not even
charging the obvious culprits was felt by tese people as if the hunting season on nigers and
lefties" had been declared. No other way yo ucan explain the sudden union of such ammount of
black and white young people. Thye felt all targets of the ops or of Trump´s white
supreamcist militias after four years of being dgreaded as subhumans. In fact, were not for
the riots to turn so violent, I fear carnages of all these peoples would have started.
The people, brainwashed or not, at least when they are young, still conserve some survival
instincts and some common sense too.
Yes, the republican model of organization is naturally unstable and doomed to collapse.
Everybody knows what happened to the Roman Republic: tendency to polarization, civil war and
collapse.
However, the reverse is also true: when the economy is flying high, every political system
works. Everybody is happy when there's wealth for everybody.
The present problem, therefore, is inherent to the capitalist system, not with the
republican system per se.
The media and politicians have repeated a mantra for years n order to gain power by
exploiting social and racial faultlines. They didn't want to deal with the actual cause of
societal discontent which is their own support of an exploitative economic system which
disempowers and pushed down everyone but the 1%. So they invented a false cause of discontent
in order to appear as saviors who are bringing a message of Hope and Change
White people are racist. White people are inherently evil and greedy. THAT IS THE PROBLEM.
Black and Brown people are good, Black and Brown people are victims of the racist greedy
evil white people.
White people are racist. White people are inherently evil and greedy. THAT IS THE
PROBLEM. Black and Brown people are good, Black and Brown people are victims of the racist
greedy evil white people.
After enough time has gone by, we have a generation of young people of all colors who
believe the above mantra with all their heart because of hearing that mantra every day in the
media, in schools, in movies, from leaders. The media knowing that, would then look for ways
to exploit their hatred of "white racism against black and brown people."
The media would sensationalize any act of violence involving white on black and brown.
They ignored all the violence of black and brown on white. This uneven media reporting was
based on their desire to reinforce the mantra of "white people are evil racists, black and
brown people are victims and good."
Because it would paint themselves as supporters of "social justice" they created a
false version of reality where everything bad in society was because of white people being
racist. Never mind the actual causes of societal discontent being the exploitation by the
elite. Because the media is the elite they don't want you to hate them. So they created a
false victimizer they could blame for all the problems of society.
Because violence from black and brown on white was never reported by the media except in
local news, people only heard from the national narrative of white violence of black and
brown because people don't pay attention to local news. They grew up believing the police
only abused black and brown people, they grew up believing that random street violence was
only from white people against black and brown. None of which is true.
This was bound to end up with a generation of people who believed the false narrative
where America is a nation where black and brown people are always the victims, and white
people are always the victimizers. And as you can see in the riots, the rioters are almost
all under 30. A generation has grown up being brainwashed by the mantra:
White people are racist. White people are inherently evil and greedy. THAT IS THE PROBLEM.
Black and Brown people are good, Black and Brown people are victims of the racist greedy
evil white people.
That is why so many people are perfectly fine with the violence and looting based on a few
recent incidents of white on black violence. During the same time period there was plenty of
black on black violence, plenty of brown on brown violence, and plenty of black and brown on
white violence. But the national media never highlights any violence but white on black and
brown. That is what has led to the new normal where any violence involving white on black or
brown will be blown up WAY out of proportion to the reality of violence in America. Which is
an equal opportunity game. A generation of people has grown up to believe that white racism
is the cause of all the problems.
Meanwhile the elites sit in their yachts and laugh. The rabble are busy fighting over race
when the real issue is ignored. The media has done their job admirably. Their job is to
deflect rage from the elite to racism. From wealthy exploitation of the commons, to racism.
As long as the underclasses are busy blaming racism then the politicians, business leaders,
and media are satisfied because they are the actual ones to blame. They are the enemy.
They blame racism for all the problems as a way to hide that truth of their own culpability
for the problems in society. THEIR OWN GREED AND CONTEMPT FOR THE UNDERCLASS.
The violence being inflicted upon the oppressed and disenfranchised public in the US, on a
lesser level parallels the crimes systematically committed by the Empire in significant parts
of the world, in order to maintain a hegemonic structure of domination and exploitation.
It perpetrates extreme economic and social injustice while extolling putative virtues of
human rights, freedom and democracy.
Such a monstrous evil must somehow be defeated, but when protests are perverted by
intentional disruption such as looting and wanton destruction, the message becomes tainted
and turns many law-abiding citizens against the cause or makes them unwilling to participate.
If there is to be an organized movement, there must also be a method of extracting those
selfish, cynical saboteurs.
Beyond that, the general public in the US and other developed countries must begin to
realize how our entire way of life is incompatible with peace and sustainable habitat on this
planet, which seems an insurmountable leap of consciousness evolution. The term "comfortably
numb" comes to mind.
Trump's threat
to deploy the military here is an excessive and dangerous one. Mark Perry reports on the reaction
from military officers to the president's threat:
Senior military officer on Trump statement: "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."
Earlier in the day yesterday, audio has leaked in which the Secretary of Defense
referred to U.S. cities as the "battlespace." Separately, Sen. Tom Cotton was
making vile remarks about using the military to give "no quarter" to looters. This is the
language of militarism.
It is a consequence of decades of endless war and the government's
tendency to rely on militarized options as their answer for every problem. Endless war has had a
deeply corrosive effect on this country's political system: presidential overreach, the
normalization of illegal uses of force, a lack of legal accountability for crimes committed in
the wars, and a lack of political accountability for the leaders that continue to wage pointless
and illegal wars. Now we see new abuses committed and encouraged by a lawless president, but this
time it is Americans that are on the receiving end. Trump hasn't ended any of the foreign wars he
inherited, and now it seems that he will use the military in an llegal mission here at home.
The military is the only American institution that young people still have any real degree of
faith in, it will be interesting to see the polls when this is all over with.
Burn Amerikastan burn. It's beautiful watching you burn
You who had your knee on our necks and killed us as the world looked on.
You who broke into our countries on false pretences, you who killed wives in front of
husbands, fathers in front of daughters, you who said it was your right to do so,
You who stole our resources, you who watched without words
You who claimed you were Exceptional
The world sees you for what you are
Now you burn.
Burn Amerikastan burn.
In the name of the children of Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Syria, Donbass, Yemen,
Afghanistan
@Fiendly Neighbourhood Terrorist You missed out the Serbs.
'Bombed back to the Stoneage' by direction of Bill Clinton and by the butcher of WACO.
Breaking international law by the stealing of Kosovo and handing it to a bunch of radical
islamists – the KLA – thousands of whom have been fighting for ISIS.
Kosovo is Serbia.
They will get it back.
[Hide MORE]
United Nations reports a death toll of 100,000 people!!!!!!!!!!!!! in that nation's
ongoing war
Additional 131 ,000 people !!!!!!!!!!!! dying from hunger, disease and a lack of
medical care.
Since then, 3.65 million people have been internally displaced
The worst cholera outbreak ever recorded has infected 2.26 million !!!!!! and cost
nearly 4,000 lives (Even so this number is just the official account.)
Attacks on hospitals, clinics by Saudis & Co. have led to the closure of more than half
of Yemen's prewar facilities.
The policies of the USA and much of the entire WEST are deeply implicated in Yemen's
suffering, through the sale of billions of dollars in munitions to Saudi Arabia and other
countries that have intervened in the civil war.
"If Trump sent in military troops on his own the press would call it
unconstitutional."
Since when has the constitution or any law – or anyone citing them – been an
obstacle to the evil orange clown?
If he can commit war crimes in Syria and illegally seize Syrian oilfields and seize
Russian and Venezuelan diplomatic property, etc., he can send in military troops or whatever
he feels like doing. He was accused of abusing his office and acquitted. He can do whatever
he pleases.
Wednesday, July 10, 2019Non-Agreement Capable, Or Agreement Incapable, Or...
Agreement-unworthy, or.... I didn't find many English-language report on Putin's last week
interview on this issue:
We knew this all along, didn't we? It is not just about personalities, however
repulsive in his narcissism and lack of statesmanship Obama was. It is systemic, no matter who
comes to power to the Oval Office--it will make no difference. No difference, whatsoever. What
is known as US power (political) elite has been on the downward spiral for some time and, in
some sense, the whole Epstein
affair with serious pedophilia charges, not to mention an unspeakable slap on the wrist in
which this well-connected pervert was let go ten years ago, is just one of many indications of
a complete moral and cognitive decomposition of this so called "elite" which continues to
provide one after another specimens of human depravity. Remarkably, as much as I always feel
nauseated when seeing GOPers, it is impossible to hide the fact that Epstein's clients in their
majority are mostly associated with putrid creatures from the so called "left", with Bill
Clinton featuring prominently in the company of this pervert.
There were some attempts to even conceive a possibility of somehow "progressives" and
"conservatives" getting together in their condemnation of this heinous crime (yeah, yeah, I
know, Presumption of Innocence).
Doesn't it sound wonderful, warm and fuzzy, or too good to be true? It sure does,
because, as much as most American elite "conservatives" are not really conservatives, what
passes as "progressive" in the United States is PRIMARILY based on sexual deviancy, including
implicit promotion of pedophilia by "intellectual class", and "environmental" agenda, period!
Everything else is secondary. Those who think that actual conservatism (not a caricature it is
known in the United States) has anything to discuss with the so called "progressives"--they
unwittingly support this very "progressive" cause which, in its very many manifestations, is a
realization of the worst kind of suppression of many millennia old natural, including
biological, order of things and, in the end, elimination of normality as such--a future even
Orwell would have had difficulty describing.
Of course, Pinkerton gets some flashes of common sense, when states that:
Most likely, a true solution will have "conservative" elements, as in social and cultural
norming, and "liberal" elements, as in higher taxes on city slickers coupled with conscious
economic development for the proletarians and for the heartland. Only with these economic and
governmental changes can we be sure that it's possible to have a nice life in Anytown, safely
far away from beguiling pleasuredomes.
Well, he puts it very crudely, but I see where he is at least trying to get it
from. I will add, until nation, as in American nation, recognizes itself as a nation, as people
who have common history, culture and mission, thus, inevitably producing this aforementioned
healthy social and cultural norming--no amount of wishful thinking or social-economic
doctrine-mongering will help. There is no United States without European-keen, white Christian,
heterosexual folk, both with acutely developed sense of both masculinity and femininity,
period. But this is precisely the state of the affairs which American "progressives" are
fighting against; this is the state of the affairs which they must destroy be that by
imposition of suffocating political correctness, the insanity of multi-gender and LGBT
totalitarianism, or by criminal opening of the borders to anyone, who, in the end, will vote
for the Democratic Party. You cannot negotiate with such people. In the end, WHO is going to
negotiate? A cowardly, utterly corrupt, current GOPers and geriatric remnants of Holy
Reaganites? Really? Ask how many of them are Mossad assets and are in the pockets of rich
Israeli-firsters and Gulfies?
True "Left" economics, which seeks more just distribution (not re-distribution) of wealth,
based on a fusion of economic models and types of property, cannot exist within cultural
liberal paradigm of "privileged" minorities, be them racial or sexual ones, aided by massive
grievance-generating machine--it is not going to last. Both economic and social normality can
exist ONLY within cohesive nation and that, due to activity on both nominal sides (in reality
it is the same) of American political spectrum, has been utterly destroyed. The mechanism of
this destruction is rather simple and it comes down, in the end, to the, pardon my French,
number of ass-holes populating unit-volume (density, that is) of political space in America. It
goes without saying that such a density in the US reached deadly toxic levels, and Russiagate
coup, Epstein's Affair, or the parade of POTUSes with the maturity levels of high school kids
are just numerous partial manifestations of what one can characterize as the end of the rope.
After all, who would be making any agreements with representatives of the system which is
rotting and decomposing?
Paul Craig Roberts penned today a good piece: The
Obituary for Western Civilization Can Now be Written . I have to disagree somewhat with
PCR's one assertion:
Europeans Are as Dumbshit as Americans
I would pause a little here. Yes and no. Here is Colonel Wilkerson who talks about
both wealth (starts roughly at 14:00) and about other very important strategic and operational
fact: overwhelming majority of weapons on hands today are among those who either support Trump
openly or simply had it with system in general.
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/kZA2yIFkhKg/0.jpg
And here is the issue: my bets are on people with military backgrounds, who had first hand
experience with military organization (standard manuals, combat manuals et al) and have
operational and command experience in their conflict with American Social Justice Warriors (you
know--"progressives") and other openly terrorist "progressive" organizations such as Antifa. At
least ruined Portland started to do something
about it . Is there any real left left in the US? And I don't mean this a-hole Bernie
Sanders.
And here is my rephrasing of Tolstoy's conclusion to War and Peace: there are too many
ass-holes in American politics today , very many of them being so called "progressives"
. This number must be reduced by all legal means today, and if American ass-holes can
work together terrorizing majority of good, not ass-hole people, what's precluding those good
people to work together? Nothing, except for the rotting corpse of GOP which had audacity to
call itself "conservative". If not, all is lost and we do not want to live in the world which
will come. And the guns will start speaking. UPDATE : 07/11/19
Oh goody, do they read me or is it one of those moments when, in Lenin's description of
Revolutionary Situation, economic slogans transform into political ones? Evidently Catholic
Conservative Michael Warren speaks in unison with Lenin and me, with both me and Warren
certainly not being Marxists or "communists". Here is what Warren has to say today:
It is a very loaded statement. It is also not an incorrect one. It is also
relevant to what I preach for years, decades really, that history of the so called "communism"
in USSR was a conservative history--a transition from depravity and corruption of Russian
Imperial "elites" to what resulted in the mutated nationalism of sorts in late 1930s and led to
the defeat of Nazism, historically unprecedented restoration of the destroyed country and then
breaking out into space. But that is a separate story--in USSR, as it is the case in Russia
today, sexual perversion and deviancy are not looked at lightly. Nor are, in general, "liberal
values" which are precisely designed to end up with the legitimization of pedophilia--a long
held, and hidden, desire of Western
"elites" . Guess why such an obsession with, realistically, literary mediocrity of
Nabokov's Lolita by Western moneyed and "intellectual" class. Who in their own mind,
unless one is a forensic psychiatrist or detective, would be interested in such a topic, not to
mention writing a book on it, not to mention a variety of Hollywood and, in general, Western
cinematography artsy class making scores of Lolita movies? Each time I read Lolita, in
both Russian and English, I felt an urgent desire to take a shower after reading this
concoction. I guess, I am not "sophisticated" enough to recognize appeals of this type of
"art". As Warren notes:
Yes: those passions are legitimate. We should feel contempt for our leaders when we
discover that two presidents cavorted with Epstein, almost certainly aware that he preyed on
minors. We should feel disgust at the
mere possibility that Pope Francis rehabilitated Theodore McCarrick. And we should be
furious that these injustices haven't even come close to being properly redressed. This is
how revolutions are born. America is reaching the point where, 200 years ago, a couple French
peasants begin eyeing the Bastille. The question is, can conservatives channel that outrage
into serious reform before it's too late? Can we call out the fetid, decadent elites within our
own ranks ? Are we prepared to hold our own "faves" to account -- even Trump himself?
Alas, it's only a matter of time until we find out.
In this, I, essentially an atheist, and a conservative Catholic, are speaking in
the same voice.
"... In recent years, U.S. troops were killed not only in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also Syria, Kenya, Somalia, Yemen, and Niger. Few Americans could locate these countries on a map; fewer knew its soldiers fought there. Additionally, Pentagon pilots and proxies killed people in Libya, Pakistan, and elsewhere in West Africa without losing a single soldier. ..."
"... The campaigns in Somalia and Yemen best expose the absurd casualty inequity of modern American warfare. In the former, only a few U.S. service members have been killed in an 18-year intervention. Conversely, hundreds of thousands of Somalis died or were displaced as a direct or indirect result (an exacerbated famine , for example) of a largely U.S.-catalyzed war. In Yemen, just one American soldier died in combat, compared to more than 100,000 locals -- including 85,000 children starved to death -- in a terror campaign the Saudis couldn't wage without U.S. complicity . ..."
"... With unemployment sky-rocketing to Great Depression rates, and income inequality at Gilded Age levels , both holidays now "celebrate" egregious blood and treasure disparity. For example, sifting through the Department of Labor's statistics reveals that some 8,000 contractors have been killed in America's war zones. That outnumbers U.S. military fatalities. Since Washington has progressively privatized and outsourced its wars, perhaps Americans should also observe a Mercenary Memorial Day. ..."
"... Faced with unrecognizable brands of war, most people substitute nostalgia and myth. Grappling with war's reality has implications that are too disturbing. Far simpler and more satisfying is to commemorate long past sacrifices at Normandy and Iwo Jima, rather than more confounding losses in Niger and Iraq. The temptation persists even as the last World War II veterans pass; old notions of what combat is ..."
"... The United States has lost its ethical and strategic way. Riddled with a virus that has now killed more Americans than the Revolutionary, Mexican, Spanish, Indian, Philippine, Vietnam, Persian Gulf, Iraq, and Afghan Wars combined , this nation requires serious soul-searching. Reimagining its bookended summer celebrations might be a good start; but it won't be easy. ..."
Pandemic or no, resilient Americans will celebrate Memorial Day together. Be it through Zoom
or spaced six feet apart from ten or less loved ones at backyard cookouts, folks will find a
way. In these peculiar gatherings, is it still considered cynical to wonder if people will
spare much actual thought for American soldiers still dying abroad -- or question the
utility of America's forever wars? Etiquette aside, we think it's obscene not to.
Just as the coronavirus has
exposed systemic rot, this moment also reveals how obsolete common conceptions of U.S.
warfare truly are -- raising core questions about the holiday devoted to its sacrifices. The
truth is that today's "
way of war " is so abstract, distant, and short on (at least American) casualties as to be
nearly invisible to the public. With little to
show for it, Washington still directs bloody global campaigns, killing thousands of locals.
America has no space on its calendar to memorialize these victims: even the
children among them.
"Just as the coronavirus
exposed much internal systemic rot, this moment also reveals how obsolete common
conceptions of U.S. warfare truly are."
Eighteen years ago, as a cadet and young marine officer, we celebrated the first post-9/11
Memorial Day -- both brimming with enthusiasm for the wars we knew lay ahead. In the
intervening decades, for
individual yet strikingly
similar reasons, we ultimately
chose paths of dissent. Since then, we've
penned critical editorials around Memorial Days. These challenged the wars'
prospects ,
questioned the efficacy of the volunteer military, and
encouraged citizens to honor the fallen by creating fewer of them.
Little has changed, except how America fights. But that's the point: outsourcing
combat to machines, mercenaries, and militias rendered war so opaque that Washington wages it
absent public oversight or awareness -- and empathy. That's the formula for forever war.
In recent years, U.S. troops were killed not only in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also Syria,
Kenya, Somalia, Yemen, and Niger. Few Americans could locate these countries on a map; fewer
knew its soldiers fought there. Additionally, Pentagon pilots and proxies
killed people in Libya, Pakistan, and
elsewhere in West Africa without losing a single soldier.
The campaigns in Somalia and Yemen best expose the absurd casualty inequity of modern
American warfare. In the former, only a
few U.S. service members have been killed in an 18-year intervention. Conversely,
hundreds of thousands of Somalis died or were displaced as a direct or indirect result (an
exacerbated famine , for example) of a largely U.S.-catalyzed war. In Yemen, just
one American soldier died in combat, compared to
more than 100,000 locals -- including 85,000 children
starved to death -- in a terror campaign the Saudis couldn't wage without U.S.
complicity .
No one wants to see American troops killed, but a death disparity so stark stretches classic
definitions of combat. Yet for locals, it likely feels a whole lot like "real" war on
the business end of U.S. bombs and bullets.
So this year, given the stark reality that even a deadly pandemic -- and
pleas for global ceasefire -- hasn't
slowed Washington's war machine, it's reasonable to question the very concept of Memorial
Day. There are also important parallels with Labor Day -- the holiday bookend to today's
seasonal kick off. Just as memorializing America's obscenely lopsided battle deaths is
increasingly indecent, a federal holiday devoted to a labor movement the government has
aggressively eviscerated is deeply troubling.
With unemployment
sky-rocketing to Great Depression rates, and income inequality at Gilded Age
levels , both holidays now "celebrate" egregious blood and treasure disparity. For example,
sifting through the Department of Labor's
statistics reveals that some 8,000 contractors have been killed in America's war zones.
That
outnumbers U.S. military fatalities. Since Washington has progressively privatized and
outsourced its wars, perhaps Americans should also observe a Mercenary Memorial Day.
Widening the aperture unveils thousands more "non-combat" -- but war-related -- uniformed
deaths in desperate need of memorializing. From 2006-2018
alone , 3,540 active-duty service members took their own lives -- just a fraction of the
15-20 daily veteran
suicides -- and another 640 died in accidents involving substance-abuse. Each death is
unique, but studies
demonstrate that the combined effects of PTSD and moral injury -- these wars' "
signature wound " -- contributed to this massive loss of life. On a personal level, at
least four soldiers under our commands took their own lives, as have several friends. These are
real folks who left behind real loved ones.
Faced with unrecognizable brands of war, most people substitute nostalgia and myth.
Grappling with war's reality has implications that are too disturbing. Far simpler and more
satisfying is to commemorate long past sacrifices at Normandy and Iwo Jima, rather than more
confounding losses in
Niger and Iraq. The temptation persists even as the last World War II veterans pass; old
notions of what combat is die with them.
The United States has lost its ethical and strategic way. Riddled with a virus that has now
killed more Americans than the Revolutionary, Mexican, Spanish, Indian, Philippine,
Vietnam, Persian Gulf, Iraq, and Afghan Wars
combined , this nation requires serious soul-searching. Reimagining its bookended summer
celebrations might be a good start; but it won't be easy.
In a new take on an old tradition, perhaps it's proper to not only pack away the whites, but
don black as a memorial to a republic in peril.
Matthew Hoh is a member of the advisory boards of Expose Facts, Veterans For
Peace and World Beyond War. He previously served in Iraq with a State Department team and with
the U.S. Marines. He is a Senior Fellow with the Center for International Policy.
Anybody who uses the term "Russiagate" seriously and not to recognize the actual and
serious Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election in support of Trump is
not to be taken remotely seriously.
Russiagate is a valid and IMHO very useful political discourse term which has two
intersecting meanings:
1. Obamagate : Attempt of a certain political forces around Clintons and Obama
with the support of intelligence agencies to stage a "color revolution" against Trump,
using there full control of MSM as air superiority factor. With the main goal is the return
to "classic neoliberalism" (neoliberal globalization uber alles) mode
Which Trump rejected during his election campaign painting him as a threat to certain
powerful neoliberal forces which include but not limited to Silicon Valley moguls (note bad
relations of Trump and Bezos), some part of Wall street financial oligarchy, and most MSMs
honchos.
2. Neo-McCarthyism campaign unleashed by Obama administration with the goal to
whitewash Hillary fiasco and to preserve the current leadership of the Democratic
Party.
That led to complete deterioration of relations between the USA and Russia and increase
of chances of military conflict between two. Add to this consistent attempts of Trump to
make China an enemy and politicize the process of economic disengagement between the two
countries and you understand the level of danger. .
When a senior Russian official implicitly calls the USA a rogue state and Trump
administration -- gangsters on international arena, that a very bad sign. See
But then again, it may well be so that the current Republican administration will in
effect become a line in history in which a considerable number of useful international
instruments were abrogated and that America exited them in the anticipation that this
approach would serve U.S. interests better. Having said that, I will never say or never
suggest that it was for us -- at least in the mid-2010s -- better with the previous
administration.
It was under the previous Obama administration that endless rounds of sanctions were
imposed upon Russia. That was continued under Trump. The pretext for that policy is
totally rejected by Russia as an invalid and illegal one. The previous administration,
weeks before it departed, stole Russian property that was protected by diplomatic
immunity, and we are still deprived of this property by the Trump administration. We have
sent 350 diplomatic notes to both the Obama and the Trump administrations demanding the
return of this property, only to see an endless series of rejections. It is one of the
most vivid and obvious examples of where we are in our relationship.
There is no such thing as "which administration is better for Russia in the U.S.?"
Both are bad, and this is our conclusion after more than a decade of talking to
Washington on different topics.
Heilbrunn: Given the dire situation you portray, do you believe that America has
become a rogue state?
Ryabkov: I wouldn't say so, that's not our conclusion. But the U.S. is clearly an
entity that stands for itself, one that creates uncertainty for the world. America is a
source of trouble for many international actors. They are trying to find ways to protect
and defend themselves from this malign and malicious policy of America that many of the
people around the world believe should come to an end, hopefully in the near future.
What I can't understand is this stupid jingoism, kind of "cult of death" among the US
neocons, who personally are utter chickenhawks, but still from their comfortable offices
write dangerous warmongering nonsense. Without understanding possible longer term
consequences.
Of course, MIC money does not smell, but some enthusiasts in blogs do it even without
proper remuneration
But this can be easily explained by imperial chamber politics: a struggle between many
forces within the empire to determine who's going to be the successor.
Remember: before Vespasian, there were Galba, Otho and Vitellius; and before Severus there
were Pertinax, Didius Iulianus, Clodius Albinus & Pescennius Niger. Just because you're
an empire doesn't mean everything must and will run smoothly. Donald Trump is simply seen as
a very weak emperor (POTUS), so it is only natural many contenders arise.
Speaking of empire, there are now protests in the UK and Canada, in support for the
rioters. This is strong evidence the USA is indeed an empire, as a domestic issue in the USA
is treated like a domestic issue in Canada and England. Those nations, after all, know their
own prosperity and prestige lies exclusively on the USA; if the USA falls they will fall with
it.
Every revolt of significant proportions has its spontaneous element and its fabricated
(infiltrated) element. That's not what defines a color revolution.
What defines a color revolution is the fabricated element trying to establish LoCs (Lines
of Communications) with a foreign (sponsor) State. The establishment of LoC is necessary as
the first step for installing a Command Center (CC) which is the intermediary step to
establish a parallel government (which will then be recognized by the sponsor State and
become the real government).
Take Hong Kong as an example: the protesters already had a substantial fabricated element
with direct financial support from American NGOs and financial and legal support from the
American embassy. They clearly had the equipment necessary to sustain chaos for years even.
When the CCP successfully suffocated the protesters, a desperate attempt of establishing an
LoC was made by an American destroyer, which tried to enter the HK port. This was easily
denied by the PLAN and after that the protests immediately begun to wither. This was a clear
color revolution attempt.
That's not what we're witnessing in the USA right now. Even if there is billionaire NGO
interference (and I'm sure there is), it doesn't fit the pattern of a color revolution. It
seems they are more likely trying to infiltrate the riots in order to destroy them from
within by discrediting them (divide et impera). They are trying to save the USA, not destroy
it. Even the ones who are seeking to fuel the riots are not yet equipping the rioters with
proper military equipment as would be the case of a classic color revolution, but with more
rudimentary resources such as bricks. This is probably aimed at just hurting Donald Trump in
the November elections, not at destroying the social fabric of the USA.
"... In any case it looks like Flynn helped to avoid "boxing in" the new administration after the expulsion of Russian diplomats by the lame duck President? . That does not help Trump one bit, because first of all he is incompetent, and secondly he was instantly cooped by neocons, but still ..."
"... The key question here is whether Obama administration has motives to set a trap for Flynn now can be answered positively. If this was an entrapment then this is clearly a criminal offense and Strzok, Comey and possibly Brennan and Clapper, are clearly in hot water. ..."
One plausible hypothesis is that Obama administration decided to revenge Flynn
maneuver to foil Obama last move -- the expulsion of Russian diplomats, which stated
neo-McCarthyism campaign in the USA. He explicitly asked Russians not to retaliate and I
would understand why Obama did not like this move.
In any case it looks like Flynn helped to avoid "boxing in" the new administration
after the expulsion of Russian diplomats by the lame duck President? . That does not help
Trump one bit, because first of all he is incompetent, and secondly he was instantly
cooped by neocons, but still
The key question here is whether Obama administration has motives to set a trap for
Flynn now can be answered positively. If this was an entrapment then this is clearly a
criminal offense and Strzok, Comey and possibly Brennan and Clapper, are clearly in hot
water.
Sound like wishful thinking. Looks like cutting US military budget is impossible as "Full
spectrum Dominance" doctrine is still in place and neocons are at the helm of the USA foreign
policy. COVID-19 or not COVID-19.
The other day an aerospace industry analyst asked me whether I thought the defense budget
would start to go down, courtesy of the huge cost of dealing with the pandemic and the massive
deficits the nation faces. I said it was unlikely and he agreed.
This is not the conventional wisdom in DC. Some national security analysts and advocates for
higher defense budgets have
warned that the defense budget
is now under siege . Critics of the Pentagon and its spending are equally
convinced that the pandemic opens the door to necessary, deep, sensible
cuts in defense in order to fund the mountain of debt and take care of pressing needs for
income, employment, health care, global warming, and other major threats to the well-being of
Americans.
Whatever the nation's strategy, critics argue, the pandemic has changed the face of the
threat to America. COVID-19 is an invisible, lethal threat to human security, a viral neutron
bomb that spares buildings but kills their occupants.
Congress has appropriated more than 20 percent of the nation's gross domestic product, so
far, to cope with this threat. Additional funds for the military, ironically, have become a
"rounding error" in this spending -- little more than $10 billion of the more than $4 trillion
appropriated to date. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper
warned about the likelihood of defense cuts and wanted more funds for the Pentagon, but
Rep. Adam Smith, Chair of the House Armed Services Committee
said there was no way defense would get more funds through the pandemic bills.
So it looks bad for defense, and good for the advocates of cuts. But not so fast. Yes, it is
true; history shows that defense budgets do decline. It happens, predictably, when we get out
of a war – World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Cold War. Even when we left Iraq in 2011,
the budget went down.
There is a secret ingredient in defense budget reductions: they seem to happen, as well,
when the politics of deficit reduction appear. Defense also declined after Korea because a
fiscal conservative, Eisenhower, was in office, with five virtual stars on his shoulders,
making it possible to put a lid
on the budgetary appetites of the services.
In fact, in 1985, well before the end of the Cold War, Congress, focused on the deficit,
passed the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act, which was then was reinforced in the 1990 Budget
Enforcement Act that set hard spending limits on domestic and defense spending. It had to cover
both parts of discretionary spending or Congress could not agree. It was 17 years before the
defense budget
began to rise .
Put the end of war together with a dollop of deficit reduction and defense budgets will go
down. They become the caboose, rather than the engine, of the budgetary train. But beware of
what you ask for. The price of constraints on defense has been constraints on domestic
spending, as the nation has learned over the past three decades. In fact, the Budget Control
Act of 2011 constrained domestic spending, while allowing defense to
escape almost unscathed, thanks to war supplementals.
When attention shifts to debates over priorities and deficits, it opens the door to a real
discussion about defense. But they do not ensure cuts. While the military services may not see
their appetite for real growth of 3-5 percent fulfilled, it is unlikely to decline very
much.
There is a floor under the defense budget. But you need to change the level of analysis to
see it and look at who actually makes defense budget decisions and why they make the decisions
they do. It's about something I called
the "Iron Triangle."
We all like to think that strategy drives defense budgets. For the most part, however,
defense decisions are made inside a political system involving constant,
relatively closed interaction between the military services, the Congress, and the
community and industry beneficiaries of defense spending.
In outline, budget planners in the military services start with last year's budget and graft
on new funds, rarely giving up a program, a mission, or part of the force. This dynamic points
the budgets upwards over time. Secretaries and under-secretaries work to add preferences and
projects, like national missile defense, to the services' budget plans. On top of that,
presidents have made promises, adding such things as bomber funds (Reagan) and space forces
(Trump) the services do not want.
Then there is the second leg of the triangle: Congress. For all their efforts to cut
Pentagon waste, progressive members do not drive defense decisions in the Congress. The defense
authorizers and appropriators do. The associated committees are dominated by defense spending
advocates, deeply interested in the outcomes, encouraged by industry campaign contributions and
community lobbying. These outside interests are the third leg of the triangle. Contracts and
community-based impacts give them a deep stake in the outcomes.
This system is not a conspiracy; it is a visible part of American politics, similar in shape
to the players in farm price supports or health care policy. But it is a system that operates
somewhat separately from and parallel to the politics of deficit reduction and has a major
impact on the content and levels of the defense budget. And its work bakes a kind of sclerosis
into efforts to have a broader debate over spending priorities.
The politics of the Iron Triangle will set limits on the defense budget debate making deep
cuts unlikely. So what might be the options to end-run this system? Politics, of course. If the
advocates of deeper defense reductions want to change America's spending and budgeting
priorities, they will need to join forces with advocates of a "new, new deal" in America -- one
that would put priority on the national health system, infrastructure investment, climate
change, immigration, and educational reform. Only a very
large, very deep coalition has a chance of overcoming the inertia imposed by the Iron
Triangle.
And that coalition will need to focus on Joe Biden. The president is the key actor here,
particularly at the start of an administration. As Bill Clinton learned, the first months are
critical to changing overall budget priorities, before the departments, including Defense, can
begin the Iron Triangle dance.
Even then, major cuts in defense budgets are an uphill fight. The opening for a broader
priorities debate has been provided by the COVID-19 pandemic. The outcome depends significantly
on bringing this kind of focus to actions over the next seven months.
lysias @ 109
... Here is a fine quote from Wolin's book (page 264) which illustrates the point (please
excuse the length of this quote):
A twofold moral might be drawn from the experience of Athens: that it is self-subverting
for democracy to subordinate its egalitarian convictions to the pursuit of expansive
politics with its corollaries of conquest and domination and the power relationships they
introduce. Few care to argue that, in political terms, democracy at home is advanced or
improved by conquest abroad.
As Athens showed and the United States of the twenty-first century confirmed,
imperialism undercuts democracy by furthering inequalities among its citizens. Resources
that might be used to improve health care, education, and environmental protection are
instead directed to defense spending, which, by far, con- sumes the largest percentage of
the nation's annual budget. Moreover, the sheer size and complexity of imperial power and
the expanded role of the military make it difficult to impose fiscal discipline and
accountability. Corruption becomes endemic, not only abroad but at home. The most dangerous
type of corruption for a democracy is measured not in monetary terms alone but in the kind
of ruthless power relations it fosters in domestic politics. As many observers have noted,
politics has become a blood sport with partisanship and ideological fidelity as the
hallmarks. A partisan judiciary is openly declared to be a major priority of a political
party; the efforts to consolidate executive power and to relegate Congress to a supporting
role are to some important degree the retrojection inwards of the imperial thrust.
Second, if Athens was the first historical instance of a confrontation between democracy
and elitism, that experience suggests that there is no simple recipe for resolving the
tensions between them. Political elites were a persistent, if uneasy and contested, feature
of Athenian democracy and a significant factor in both its expansion and its demise. In the
eyes of contemporary observers, such as Thucydides, as well as later historians, the
advancement of Athenian hegemony de- pended upon a public-spirited, able elite at the helm
and a demos will- ing to accept leadership. Conversely, the downfall of Athens was
attributed to the wiles and vainglory of leaders who managed to whip up popular support for
ill-conceived adventures. As the war dragged on and frustration grew, domestic politics
became more embittered and fractious: members of the elite competed to outbid each other by
pro\posing ever wilder schemes of conquest.
In two attempts (411–410 and 404–403) elites, abetted by the Spartans,
succeeded in temporarily abolishing democracy and installing rule by the Few.
...and while I am at it: lysias @ 106
Let's deconstruct what you've said. Even if he resisted arrest (by what degree was he
resisting?) that is not cause for applying deadly force on someone. Clearly he was restrained
and was going no where. Furthermore, the application of restraint should be one that ought
not induce death in someone with a previous health condition. By your rationale, you have no
business of walking the streets if you are not an able-bodied person and that death by
restraint by a police officer is excusable if you happen to be in bad health.
Although you don't explicitly say it, somehow it feels like you are saying that he had it
coming to him when you write "Floyd had a lengthy criminal record." Does that mean just
because he had a lengthy record he deserved to be roughed up like that? This sounds like
victim blaming, which is something commonly done in this country to continue to oppress
people who have no power.
The US empire is collapsing because the costs of maintaining the empire are hollowing out the
domestic economy of the US. Since the United States is the center of the empire it has to
spend the lion share of the money required to operate and maintain the empire (PaxAmerica)
these costs (the 800+ military bases, the hundreds of billions of dollars in foreign "aid",
and the funding of various international organizations like the IMF, World Bank, WTO, etc...)
all of that money comes at the expense of domestic needs.
Obviously all states have to spend money on world/regional/supranational organizations to
some extent, America's problem is that they have around 15% of world GDP, but they are
pursuing something called full spectrum dominance throughout the world, the ability to
dominate economic, military and political decisions in all regions of the world. However,
providing complete security control for the entire world requires the resources of the entire
world! This is why the US has become so messed up domestically and hugely indebted, they are
bitting off more than they can chew. For example, the US military's official policy is that
they MUST be able to fight two near-peer powers in different regions AND six regional
conflicts simultaneously. Its an impossible goal but they are still trying to fund it and
because of that domestic needs (educational, infrastructure, political and cultural spheres)
are being starved of resources and the society itself is becoming dysfunctional because only
those societal elements that benefit from the maintenance of the empire are being served (the
financial/military-industrial complex) and everyone else is at each others throats for the
leftover crumbs.
Ultimately, the US is a slow motion train wreck, like the Soviet union of the 1980s maybe
it can plow along for another decade or two on its own inertia. But without reform (i.e. the
end of the empire), the US will become increasingly ungovernable, lurching from crisis to
crisis, nothing ever solved, just pushed back to deal with the latest crisis. Just think
since Dec 2019 (6 months) we've gone from impeaching the US president, to a possible war with
Iran, to a health crisis (with 100K dead), to an economic crisis, to a (3rd) failed coup
against Venezuela, to the start of a new Cold War with China over Hong Kong to country-wide
riots over police brutality. In a normal country you might get crisis like over a decade, not
6 months and again, not one of these crises have been solved, a new crisis just pushed it off
the front page. Yet, the problems are still there percolating growing larger
"... You will find in Sheldon Wolin's final book "Democracy Incorporated" an intricate dissection of this precept in the modern form through his analysis of America's decaying trajectory. Thank you for reminding us of this. ..."
"... As Athens showed and the United States of the twenty-first century confirmed, imperialism undercuts democracy by furthering inequalities among its citizens. Resources that might be used to improve health care, education, and environmental protection are instead directed to defense spending, which, by far, consumes the largest percentage of the nation's annual budget. ..."
"... Second, if Athens was the first historical instance of a confrontation between democracy and elitism, that experience suggests that there is no simple recipe for resolving the tensions between them. Political elites were a persistent, if uneasy and contested, feature of Athenian democracy and a significant factor in both its expansion and its demise. ..."
"... As the war dragged on and frustration grew, domestic politics became more embittered and fractious: members of the elite competed to outbid each other by proposing ever wilder schemes of conquest. ..."
You can't be a Democracy at home and an empire aboard, the violence of empire will always turn against the very idea
of democracy.
Yes, a keen observation of what ultimately undid Athens. You will find in Sheldon Wolin's final book "Democracy Incorporated"
an intricate dissection of this precept in the modern form through his analysis of America's decaying trajectory. Thank you for
reminding us of this.
lysias @ 109
A variety of scholars who study that period would disagree with you: You cannot maintain an empire abroad and democracy at
home. The two principles are diametrically opposite to one another. It's what caused the democracy of Athens (which was limited
to men -- as usual) to ultimately lose its internal cohesion and reason to be. Yes, formally it was incorporated into the Macedonian
empire, but its demise came because Athens' imperial ambitions sapped domestic resources which further contributed to the trend
toward inequality within the society.
Here is a fine quote from Wolin's book (page 264) which illustrates the point (please excuse the length of this quote):
A twofold moral might be drawn from the experience of Athens: that it is self-subverting for democracy to subordinate its egalitarian
convictions to the pursuit of expansive politics with its corollaries of conquest and domination and the power relationships
they introduce. Few care to argue that, in political terms, democracy at home is advanced or improved by conquest abroad.
As Athens showed and the United States of the twenty-first century confirmed, imperialism undercuts democracy by furthering
inequalities among its citizens. Resources that might be used to improve health care, education, and environmental protection
are instead directed to defense spending, which, by far, consumes the largest percentage of the nation's annual budget.
Moreover, the sheer size and complexity of imperial power and the expanded role of the military make it difficult to impose
fiscal discipline and account- ability. Corruption becomes endemic, not only abroad but at home. The most dangerous type of
corruption for a democracy is measured not in monetary terms alone but in the kind of ruthless power relations it fosters in
domestic politics. As many observers have noted, politics has become a blood sport with partisanship and ideological fidelity
as the hallmarks. A partisan judiciary is openly declared to be a major priority of a political party; the efforts to consolidate
executive power and to relegate Congress to a supporting role are to some important degree the retrojection inwards of the
imperial thrust.
Second, if Athens was the first historical instance of a confrontation between democracy and elitism, that experience
suggests that there is no simple recipe for resolving the tensions between them. Political elites were a persistent, if uneasy
and contested, feature of Athenian democracy and a significant factor in both its expansion and its demise.
In the eyes of contemporary observers, such as Thucydides, as well as later historians, the advancement of Athenian hegemony
de- pended upon a public-spirited, able elite at the helm and a demos will- ing to accept leadership. Conversely, the downfall
of Athens was attributed to the wiles and vainglory of leaders who managed to whip up popular support for ill-conceived adventures.
As the war dragged on and frustration grew, domestic politics became more embittered and fractious: members of the elite
competed to outbid each other by proposing ever wilder schemes of conquest. In two attempts (411–410 and 404–403) elites,
abetted by the Spartans, succeeded in temporarily abolshing democracy and installing rule by the Few.
The administration also took off the gloves with China over U.S. listings by mainland
companies that fail to follow U.S. securities laws. This came after the Commerce Department
finally moved to limit access by Huawei Technologies to high-end silicon chips made with U.S.
lithography machines. The trade war with China is heating up, but a conflict was inevitable and
particularly when it comes to technology.
At the bleeding edge of 7 and 5 nanometer feature size, American tech still rules the world
of semiconductors. In 2018, Qualcomm confirmed its next-generation Snapdragon SoC would be
built at 7 nm. Huawei has already officially announced its first 7nm chip -- the Kirin 980. But
now Huawei is effectively shut out of the best in class of custom-made chips, giving Samsung
and Apple a built-in advantage in handsets and network equipment.
It was no secret that Washington allowed Huawei to use loopholes in last year's blacklist
rules to continue to buy U.S. sourced chips. Now the door is closed, however, as the major
Taiwan foundries led by TSMC will be forced to stop custom production for Huawei, which is
basically out of business in about 90 days when its inventory of chips runs out. But even as
Huawei spirals down, the White House is declaring financial war on dozens of other listed
Chinese firms.
President Donald Trump said
in an interview with Fox Business News that forcing Chinese companies to follow U.S.
accounting norms would likely push them to list in non-U.S. exchanges. Chinese companies that
list their shares in the U.S. have long refused to allow American regulators to inspect their
accounting audits, citing direction from their government -- a practice that market authorities
here have been unwilling or unable to stop.
The attack by the Trump Administration on shoddy financial disclosure at Chinese firms is
long overdue, but comes at a time when the political evolution in China is turning decidedly
authoritarian in nature and against any pretense of market-oriented development. The rising
power of state companies in China parallels the accumulation of power in the hands of Xi
Jinping, who is increasingly seen as a threat to western-oriented business leaders. The trade
tensions with Washington provide a perfect foil to crack down on popular unrest in Hong Kong
and discipline wayward oligarchs.
The latest moves by Beijing to take full control in Hong Kong are part of the more general
retrenchment visible in China. "[P]rivate entrepreneurs are increasingly nervous about their
future," writes Henny Sender in the Financial Times . "In many cases, these
entrepreneurs have U.S. passports or green cards and both children and property in America. To
be paid in U.S. dollars outside China for their companies must look more tempting by the day."
A torrent of western oriented Chinese business leaders is exiting before the door is shut
completely.
The fact is that China's position in U.S. trade has retreated as nations like Mexico and
Vietnam have gained. Mexico is now America's largest trading partner and Vietnam has risen to
11th, reports Qian Wang of Bloomberg News . Meanwhile, China has dropped from 21 percent
of U.S. trade in 2018 to just 18 percent last year. A big part of the shift is due to the
U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade pact, which is expected to accelerate a return of production to North
America. Sourcing for everything from autos to semiconductors is expected to rotate away from
China in coming years.
China abandoned its decades-old practice of
setting a target for annual economic growth , claiming that it was prioritizing goals such
as stabilizing employment, alleviating poverty and preventing risks in 2020. Many observers
accept the official communist party line that the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic made it
almost impossible to fix an expansion rate this year, but in fact the lasting effects of the
2008 financial crisis and the aggressive policies of President Trump have rocked China back on
its heels.
As China becomes increasingly focused inward and with an eye on public security, the
economic situation is likely to deteriorate further. While many observers viewed China's "Belt
& Road" initiative as a sign of confidence and strength, in fact it was Beijing's attempt
to deal with an economic realignment that followed the 2008 crisis. The arrival of President
Trump on the scene further weakened China's already unstable mercantilist economic model, where
non-existent internal demand was supposed to make up for falling global trade flows. Or at
least this was the plan until COVID-19.
"Before the Covid-19 outbreak, many economists were expecting China to set a GDP growth
target of 6% to 6.5% to reflect the gradual slowdown in the pace of expansion over the past few
years," reports Caixin Global . "Growth slid to 6.1% in 2019 from 6.7% in 2018. But the
devastation caused by the coronavirus epidemic -- which saw the economy contract 6.8%
year-on-year in the first quarter -- has thrown those forecasts out of the window."
Out of the window indeed. Instead of presiding over a glorious expansion of the Chinese
sphere of influence in Asia, Xi Jinping is instead left to fight a defensive action
economically and financially. The prospective end of the special status of Hong Kong is
unlikely to have any economic benefits and may actually cause China's problems with massive
internal debt and economic malaise to intensify. Beijing's proposed security law would reduce
Hong Kong's separate legal status and likely bring an end to the separate currency and business
environment.
I honestly don't know if this article is or is not correct... But I wonder...
AmConMag publishes a major anti-China article on most days now. What is happening? What is
the mechanics of this... "phenomenon"?
A place where where Americans opposed to U.S. hegemony because it's harm on everyone
without being overwhelmed by the Neocon acolytes where can we go, anyone ever try to get a
word in on foxnews ?
If you try to reach out to twitter on Tom Cotton or Mike Waltz dismisses you as a
'Chinese govt / Iranian / Russian bot'
You know what, God will judge us and we will all be equal in he eyes of Him
Why should I be afraid. Why should I be silent. And thank you TAC for the opportunity to
post.
I too came here for interesting commentary, - and even better comments... five years ago or
so?
I found the original articles mostly okay, often too verbose, meandering for my taste but
the different point of view made them worthwhile. The readers' comments, now that is
priceless. That brings the real value. That's where we learn. That's where I learn, anyway.
:)
It never occurred to me to message to any politician, I think my voice would be lost in the
cacophony.
The target of my curiosity is that when all these articles start to point in one direction
(like belligerence toward China) how does it happen? Is there a chain of command? It seems
coordinated.
It's possible to be anti-neocon, for their being too ideological, and not pacifist. That is
basically my position.
I agree with most here on Russia and Iran. They are not threats, and in specific cases
should be partners instead. Agree on American imperialism being foolish and often evil. I
believe in a multipolar world as a practical matter. I don't take a soft view of China
however. I believe they do intend to replace nefarious American hegemony with their own
relevant, but equally nefarious, flavor of hegemony. There are few countries in the world
with such a pathological distrust of their own people. I truly believe that country is a
threat that needs to be checked at least for a couple of decades by the rest of the
world.
As to the editorial direction, I think it is merely capitalism. China's perception in
the world is extremely bad lately. I would fully expect the always somewhat Russophile
environment here to seize the moment to say 'see! Russia is not a true threat! It's China!'
RT itself soon after Trump's election I recall posted an article complaining about total
disregard for Chinese election meddling.
You can see when the people holding the leash give a tug on the collar. And it's clear that
the GOP is feeling the need for a warlike political environment.
The most blatant presstitution example, of course, was the National Review, going from
'Never Trump' to full time servicing.
Despite the economic ravages of the pandemic, the Pentagon continues to demand the lion's
share of the U.S. budget. It wants another $705 billion for 2021, after increasing its budget
by 20 percent between 2016 and 2020.
This appalling waste of government resources has already caused long-term damage to the
economic competitiveness of the United States. But it's all the money the Pentagon is spending
on "deterring China" that might prove more devastating in the short term.
The U.S. Navy announced
this month that it was sending its entire forward-deployed sub fleet on "contingency
response operations" as a warning to China. Last month, the U.S. Navy Expeditionary Strike
Group
sailed into the South China Sea to support Malaysia's oil exploration in an area that China
claims. Aside from the reality that oil exploration makes no economic sense at a time of record
low oil prices, the United States should be helping the countries bordering the South China Sea
come to a fair resolution of their disputes, not throwing more armaments at the problem.
There's also heightened risk of confrontation in the Taiwan Strait, the East China Sea, and
even in outer space . A huge portion of the Pentagon's budget goes toward preparing for war
with China -- and, frankly, provoking war as well.
What does this all have to do with the Great Disentanglement?
The close economic ties between the United States and China have always represented a
significant constraint on military confrontation. Surely the two countries would not risk
grievous economic harm by coming to blows. Economic cooperation also provides multiple channels
for resolving conflicts and communicating discontent. The United States and Soviet Union never
had that kind of buffer.
If the Great Disentanglement goes forward, however, then the two countries have less to lose
economically in a military confrontation. Trading partners, of course, sometimes go to war with
one another. But as the data
demonstrates , more trade generally
translates into less war.
There are lots and lots of problems in the U.S.-China economic relationship. But they pale
in comparison to World War III.
John Feffer is the director of Foreign
Policy In Focus , where this article originally appeared.
by
Los Angeles TimesUS Public Remain the Tacit Accomplice in America's Dead End Wars
Honor the fallen, but not every war they were sent to fight by Andrew Bacevich
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Comments A U.S. soldier fires an anti-tank rocket during a live-fire exercise in Zabul
province, Afghanistan, in July 2010. (Photo: U.S. Army /flickr/cc) Not
least among the victims claimed by the coronavirus pandemic was a poetry recital that was to
have occurred in March at a theater in downtown Boston.
I had been invited to read aloud a poem, and I chose "On a Soldier Fallen in the
Philippines," written in 1899 by William Vaughn Moody (1869-1910). You are unlikely to have
heard of the poet or his composition. Great literature, it is not. Yet its message is
memorable.
The subject of Moody's poem is death, a matter today much on all our minds. It recounts the
coming home of a nameless American soldier, killed in the conflict commonly but misleadingly
known as the Philippine Insurrection.
In 1898, U.S. troops landed in Manila to oust the Spanish overlords who had ruled the
Philippines for more than three centuries. They accomplished this mission with the dispatch
that a later generation of U.S. forces demonstrated in ousting regimes in Kabul and Baghdad.
Yet as was the case with the Afghanistan and Iraq wars of our own day, real victory proved
elusive.
Back in Washington, President McKinley decided that having liberated the Philippines, the
United States would now keep them. The entire archipelago of several thousand islands was to
become an American colony.
McKinley's decision met with immediate disfavor among Filipinos. To oust the foreign
occupiers, they mounted an armed resistance. A vicious conflict ensued, one that ultimately
took the lives of 4,200 American soldiers and at least 200,000 Filipinos. In the end, however,
the United States prevailed.
Denying Filipino independence was the cause for which the subject of Moody's poem died.
Long since forgotten by Americans, the war to pacify the Philippines generated in its day
great controversy. Moody's poem is an artifact of that controversy. In it, he chastises those
who perform the rituals of honoring the fallen while refusing to acknowledge the dubious nature
of the cause for which they fought. "Toll! Let the great bells toll," he writes,
Till the clashing air is dim,
Did we wrong this parted soul?
We will make it up to him.
Toll! Let him never guess
What work we sent him to.
Laurel, laurel, yes.
He did what we bade him do.
Praise, and never a whispered hint
but the fight he fought was good;
In actuality, the fight was anything but good. It was ill-advised and resulted in great
evil. "On a Soldier Fallen in the Philippines" expresses a demand for reckoning with that evil.
Americans of Moody's generation rejected that demand, just as Americans today balk at reckoning
with the consequences of our own ill-advised wars.
Yet the imperative persists. "O banners, banners here," Moody concludes,
That he doubt not nor misgive!
That he heed not from the tomb
The evil days draw near
When the nation robed in gloom
With its faithless past shall strive.
Let him never dream that his bullet's scream
went wide of its island mark,
Home to the heart of his darling land
where she stumbled and sinned in the dark.
At the end of the 19th century, the United States stumbled and sinned in the dark by waging
a misbegotten campaign to advance nakedly imperial ambitions. At the beginning of the 21st
century, new wars became the basis of comparable sin. The war of Moody's time and the wars of
our own have almost nothing in common except this: In each instance, through their passivity
disguised as patriotism, the American people became tacitly complicit in wrongdoing committed
in their name.
It is no doubt too glib by half to claim that today, besieged by a virus, we are reaping the
consequences caused by our refusal to reckon with past sins. Yet it is not too glib to argue
that the need for such a reckoning remains. Have we wronged the departed souls of those who
died -- indeed, are still dying -- in Afghanistan and Iraq? The question cries out for an
answer. In our cacophonous age, it just might be that we will find that answer in poetry.
CCP Mouthpiece Slams "Habitual Liar" Pompeo, Says US 'Incapable' Of Judging Hong Kong's
Autonomy by Tyler
Durden Wed, 05/27/2020 - 14:33 Update (1430ET): One of the most visible english-language
mouthpieces for the Communist Party has just weighed in on Secretary Pompeo's decision. Global
Times editor Hu Xijin accused Pompeo of being a habitual liar, and insisted it was not up to
the US Congress to decide whether Hong Kong is "autonomous".
Whether China's Hong Kong is autonomous, how could it possibly be up to the US to define?
Plus, it has a habitually lying Secretary of State who can tell the US Congress what Hong
Kong national security law is before it's even enacted. pic.twitter.com/JI1QLJNn6V
We imagine we'll be hearing more from the Foreign Ministry in a few hours.
* * *
In what appears to be a preview of the at-this-point inevitable White House decision to
strip Hong Kong of its preferred trading status over the new National Security law imposed by
Beijing, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tweeted on Wednesday that he has "reported to Congress
that Hong Kong is no longer autonomous from China."
Congress now has the power to strip Hong Kong of its "special status" under the United
States-Hong Kong Policy Act of 1992, which has allowed for the city-state to be treated more
favorably than the rest of China by the US.
The status is part of what's allowed Hong Kong to develop as a 'gateway to the West', a key
part of its appeal as an international city. Without the US 'special status', HK might lose its
international cachet as well, and eventually become just another Chinese city.
Indeed, without such easy access to the global economy, Hong Kong will become just an
extension of Shenzen, which lies just across the border on the mainland.
Today, I reported to Congress that Hong Kong is no longer autonomous from China, given
facts on the ground. The United States stands with the people of Hong Kong.
In a story published just minutes before Pompeo's tweet,
the Washington Post explains that "a US law passed last year requires the secretary of
state to certify - as part of an annual report to Congress - whether Hong Kong remains
'sufficiently autonomous' from Beijing to justify its unique treatment. That includes assessing
the degree to which Hong Kong's autonomy had been eroded by the government of China. (Hong Kong
is part of China but has a different legal and economic system, a holdover from its time as a
British colony.) The law also provides for sanctions against officials deemed responsible for
human rights abuses or undermining the city's autonomy. Such sanctions were also said to be
under consideration at the White House in the wake of the Chinese government's decision in May
to impose new national security laws on the city."
Stocks have shown a surprising degree of resilience, though the offshore yuan - a key
barometer of China-related risks - skidded lower.
Aside from the fact that the decision - which was widely anticipated - marks another
milestone in the deterioration in Washington-Beijing relations, as police in HK have already
begun arresting protesters brave enough to take the streets in the face of an unprecedented
police crackdown, it also jeopardizes nearly $40 billion in bilateral trade, as WaPo
explains.
"Longer term, people might have a second thought about raising money or doing business in
Hong Kong," said Kevin Lai, chief economist for Asia excluding Japan at Daiwa Capital Markets.
Another expert described revoking HK's special status as "the nuclear option" for the US, and
"the beginning of the death of Hong Kong as we know it".
For the last day or so, the editor of China's Global Times has been taunting the US in a
series of tweets, daring it to use its navy and come save the protesting Hong Kongers, some of
whom have written messages begging Trump to interfere.
Will you really send US troops to land on Hong Kong? If you don't', your "powerful"
response is nothing but bluffing, isn't it? Canceling Hong Kong's separate customs territory
status is not "powerful," and China has long been prepared for that. pic.twitter.com/WhMNCP5HAs
Senior administration officials have insisted that this likely won't be the end of Trump's
aggression toward China. Earlier on Wednesday, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who leads the
department in charge of Washington's crackdown on Huawei, said the president has more in
store.
While there's no question rescinding HK's special status will be interpreted as another
economy attack by Washington. But there's something else even more alarming possibly lying in
wait: The law passed last year in the US also requires the president to freeze US-based assets
and bar entry to anyone who helps China repress Hong Kong.
It's this possibility - which we could hear more about in the coming days - that should
really stick in investors' minds.
When it comes to
foreign policy, Pompeo's penchant for undermining America's credibility is top-notch
'Pompeo is a
natural Trumpist.' Donald Trump's disdain for the
people, country and values his office is supposed to represent is unmatched in recent memory.
And he has found in the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo , a kindred spirit who has
embraced his role as Trumpism's number one proselytizer to the world.
Pompeo doesn't wield nearly as much power or have the jurisdiction to inflict damage on as
wide a range of issues as the president. He's not as crass or erratic as Trump, and his Twitter
feed seems dedicated more to childish
mockery than outright attacks. But when it comes to foreign policy, Pompeo's penchant for
undermining America's credibility is top-notch.
At Pompeo's recommendation,
Trump fired the state department's inspector general, who is supposed to be an independent
investigator charged with looking into potential wrongdoing inside the department. Steve Linick
was just the latest in a series of inspectors general across
the government that Trump had fired in an attempt to hide the misconduct of his administration
– but it also shone a spotlight on how Pompeo has undermined his agency.
Watchdog was investigating Pompeo for arms deal and staff misuse
before firing
According to news reports, Pompeo was being investigated by the inspector general for
bypassing Congress and possibly breaking the law in sending weapons to Saudi Arabia, even
though his own department and the rest of the US government
advised against the decision. He was also supposedly
organizing fancy dinners – paid for by taxpayers – with influential
businesspeople and TV personalities that seemed geared more towards supporting Pompeo's
political career than advancing US foreign policy goals. And he was reportedly being
scrutinized for using department personnel to conduct personal business, such as getting
dry cleaning and walking his dog.
But these revelations merely reaffirm a pattern of activities by Pompeo unbecoming of the
nation's top diplomat. When the House of Representatives was in the process of impeaching Trump
over his attempt to extort Ukraine for personal political purposes – an act that Pompeo
was aware of – Pompeo defended Trump while throwing under the bus career state department
officials, like the ousted US ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, who spoke out. Pompeo
has regularly ignored Congress, withholding documents from lawmakers – including during
the Ukraine impeachment investigation – and refusing to appear for testimony. In 2019,
the IG released a report detailing
political retaliation against career state department officials being perpetrated by Trump
officials. And Pompeo has spent considerable time traveling to Kansas and conducting media
interviews there, fueling speculation that he has been using his position to tee up a run for
the Senate, a
violation of the Hatch Act.
Pompeo is a natural Trumpist. In her fantastic profile
of the secretary of state, Susan Glasser notes of his first congressional race: "Pompeo ran a
nasty race against the Democrat, an Indian-American state legislator named Raj Goyle, who,
unlike Pompeo, had grown up in Wichita. Pompeo's campaign tweeted praise for an article calling
Goyle a 'turban topper', and a supporter bought billboards urging residents to 'Vote American – Vote Pompeo'."
... ... ...
Facebook
Twitter Pinterest 'Trump is undermining American leadership in incalculable ways, and
Pompeo has weaponized the state department on the president's behalf.' Photograph: Kevin
Lamarque/Reuters
Next to Trump's assault on US values, Pompeo's role as top Trump lackey may seem
insignificant. But the secretary of state is often the most senior US official that other
countries and publics hear from on any number of issues. Even with Trump in the Oval Office, a
secretary of state that was committed to the constitution - not Trump - would at least be able
to fight for the values that US foreign policy should embody,
and shield the department's day-to-day business from Trump's outbursts.
The work that
department professionals conduct around the world – helping American citizens abroad get
home in the early days of the pandemic or coordinating assistance to other countries to cope
with the coronavirus – is vital to American national security, and at the core of the
image that America projects abroad.
Trump is undermining American leadership in incalculable ways, and Pompeo has weaponized
the state department on his behalf
From MoA comment
57: "Warmongering shit bags endlessly flatulent about their moral superiority while threatening to nuke nations on the other
side of the globe daily. ... the greatness of the US consists of how gullible its hyper-exploited populace has been to a long
series of Donald Trumps who use the resources of the land and people for competitive violence against other nations. the world
heaves a collective hallelujah that this bullshit is about to end. "
Notable quotes:
"... Lets reverse that point, shall we. There is a US spy base in Australia at a place called Pine Gap. Without it being operational the USA would lose its 3 dimensional vision across the planet. ..."
"... This Bannon/Trump bluster is weak as p!ss as 'sharing intelligence' is the cornerstone of the five eyes perversion that gives the USA some superiority in intelligence matters. So if sharing intelligence were withdrawn by the USA with Australia it would have meaningless consequences. ..."
"... Pompeo is blathering bullsh!t and he knows it and we all know it ..."
Pompeo Warns US May Stop Sharing Intelligence With Australia Over Victoria Inking Deal With
China's BRI
The battle for Australia's soul has begun.
Lets reverse that point, shall we. There is a US spy base in Australia at a place called
Pine Gap. Without it being operational the USA would lose its 3 dimensional vision across the
planet.
This Bannon/Trump bluster is weak as p!ss as 'sharing intelligence' is the cornerstone of
the five eyes perversion that gives the USA some superiority in intelligence matters. So if
sharing intelligence were withdrawn by the USA with Australia it would have meaningless
consequences.
On the other hand if Australia ceased its intelligence sharing and shut down all the data
traffic out of Australia - the USA would go ballistic. Not that the Oz government would ever
do such a thing being a craven water carrier for the new world order etc...
Pompeo is blathering bullsh!t and he knows it and we all know it.
Odd that you would reiterate his brainless threat vk.
China diplomacy is trying to thread very carefully to avoid the fallout. The answer of RIA
Novosti is good example here. Counterattacks are few (see the answer to CC question with the
following money quote: "I respect your right to ask the question, but I'm afraid you're not
framing the question in the right way. One has to have a sense of right and wrong. Without it, a
person cannot be trusted, and a country cannot hold its own in the family of nations. " This is
implicit slap in the face for the USA.
RIA Novosti: How do you assess China-Russia relations in the context of COVID-19? Do you
agree with some people's characterization that China and Russia may join force to challenge US
predominance?
Wang Yi: While closely following the COVID-19 response in Russia, we have done and will
continue to do everything we can to support it. I believe under the leadership of President
Vladimir Putin, the indomitable Russian people will defeat the virus and the great Russian
nation will emerge from the challenge with renewed vigor and vitality.
Since the start of COVID-19, President Xi Jinping and President Putin have had several phone
calls and kept the closest contact between two world leaders. Russia is the first country to
have sent medical experts to China, and China has provided the most anti-epidemic assistance to
Russia. Two-way trade has gone up despite COVID-19. Chinese imports from Russia have grown
faster than imports from China's other major trading partners. The two countries have supported
and defended each other against slanders and attacks coming from certain countries. Together,
China and Russia have forged an impregnable fortress against the "political virus" and
demonstrated the strength of China-Russia strategic coordination.
I have no doubt that the two countries' joint response to the virus will give a strong boost
to China-Russia relations after COVID-19. China is working with Russia to turn the crisis into
an opportunity. We will do so by maintaining stable cooperation in energy and other traditional
fields, holding a China-Russia year of scientific and technological innovation, and
accelerating collaboration in e-commerce, bio-medicine and the cloud economy to make them new
engines of growth in our post-COVID-19 economic recovery. China and Russia will also enhance
strategic coordination. By marking the 75th anniversary of the UN, we stand ready to firmly
protect our victory in WWII, uphold the UN Charter and basic norms of international relations,
and oppose any form of unilateralism and bullying. We will enhance cooperation and coordination
in the UN, SCO, BRICS and G20 to prepare ourselves for a new round of the once-in-a-century
change shaping today's world.
I believe that with China and Russia standing shoulder-to-shoulder and working back-to-back,
the world will be a safer and more stable place where justice and fairness are truly
upheld.
Cable News Network: We've seen an increasingly heated "war of words" between China and the
US. Is "wolf warrior" diplomacy the new norm of China's diplomacy?
Wang Yi: I respect your right to ask the question, but I'm afraid you're not framing the
question in the right way. One has to have a sense of right and wrong. Without it, a person
cannot be trusted, and a country cannot hold its own in the family of nations.
There may be all kinds of interpretations and commentary about Chinese diplomacy. As
China's Foreign Minister, let me state for the record that China always follows an
independent foreign policy of peace. No matter how the international situation may change, we
will always stand for peace, development and mutually beneficial cooperation, stay committed
to upholding world peace and promoting common development, and seek friendship and
cooperation with all countries. We see it as our mission to make new and greater
contributions to humanity.
China's foreign policy tradition is rooted in its 5,000-year civilization. Since ancient
times, China has been widely recognized as a nation of moderation. We Chinese value peace,
harmony, sincerity and integrity. We never pick a fight or bully others, but we have
principles and guts. We will push back against any deliberate insult to resolutely defend our
national honor and dignity. And we will refute all groundless slander with facts to
resolutely uphold fairness, justice and human conscience.
The future of China's diplomacy is premised on our commitment to working with all
countries to build a community with a shared future for mankind. Since we live in the same
global village, countries should get along peacefully and treat each other as equals.
Decisions on global affairs should be made through consultation, not because one or two
countries say so. That's why China advocates for a multi-polar world and greater democracy in
international relations. This position is fully aligned with the direction of human progress
and the shared aspiration of most countries. No matter what stage of development it reaches,
China will never seek hegemony. We will always stand with the common interests of all
countries. And we will always stand on the right side of history. Those who go out of their
way to label China as a hegemon are precisely the ones who refuse to let go of their
hegemonic status.
The world is undergoing changes of a kind unseen in a century and full of instability and
turbulence. Confronted by a growing set of global challenges, we hope all countries will
realize that humanity is a community with a shared future. We must render each other more
support and cooperation, and there should be less finger-pointing and confrontation. We call
on all nations to come together and build a better world for all.
This is all noise. Kristol is a MIC prostitute and as such he can't attack Trump who gave MIC
and Israel all what they want
Notable quotes:
"... "A 'Neocon' is neither new or conservative, but old as Babylon and evil as Hell." – Edward Abbey ..."
"... Being an unrepentant Neocon, such as William (Bill) Kristol, means never having to say you're sorry. To qualify, you need to be an ideologue, who also has paid no price for recklessly cheerleading 4,488 U.S. troops to their deaths in the illegal and immoral Iraq War, plus another 32,223 who were seriously wounded (2003-2011). ..."
"... For years, we've heard Kristol on the TV/Cable/Network shows making outrageous statements, like this one: "The war in Iraq could have terrifically good effects throughout the Middle East." (09/18/2001). ..."
"... There was also no mention by the reporter of the possible real reasons that Kristol was dumping on Trump. One could be that during the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump had trashed Kristol's and the Neocons' support of the Iraq War. ..."
"... And, also Trump has indicated he doesn't have any plans to reignite another of Kristol's favorites schemes – "a Cold War with Russia." These are just two of the reasons the "Neocons, like Kristol, can't stomach Trump," according to the commentator, JP Sottile, of Consortium News. ..."
"... During last year's Democratic presidential primary, Kristol took a swipe at the candidate, Sen. Bernie Sanders, and posted a tweet that said: "#Never Sanders." The popular antiwar candidate responded to Kristol: "Have you apologized to the nation for your foolish advocacy of the Iraq War? I make no apologies for opposing it." Sanders then added this zinger: "I will do everything in my power to prevent a war with Iran." ..."
"... The Neocon replied: "I will defend my views on Iraq as you defend yours." Sen. Sanders underscored how Kristol had called for regime change in Iraq as early at 1998; and that Kristol also predicted the conflict would last "only two months;" and that he had repeatedly argued for the Bush-Cheney Gang to send in more troops. As early at 2006, Kristol was urging the US to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities, asking, "Why wait?" ..."
"... In a way, Kristol reminded me, in a physical sense, of the late actor Peter Lorre. Whether Kristol has a "Little Man (Napoleon) Complex," or not, I will leave to the experts in the field. All I know for sure is that he's a relentlessly angry, pusher of costly and unnecessary wars. ..."
"... Here is another gem from Kristol: "The first two battles of this new era are now over. The battles of Afghanistan and Iraq have been won decisively and honorably." (April 28, 2003) And, then there is this whopper from the slippery Neocon: "The Iraqi elections of Jan. 30, 2005 could be a key moment perhaps the key moment so far in vindicating the 'Bush/Cheney Doctrine' as the right response to 9/11." (March 7, 2005) ..."
"A 'Neocon' is neither new or conservative, but old as Babylon
and evil as Hell." – Edward Abbey
Being an unrepentant Neocon, such as William (Bill) Kristol, means never having to say
you're sorry. To qualify, you need to be an ideologue, who also has paid no price for
recklessly cheerleading 4,488 U.S. troops to their deaths in the illegal and immoral Iraq War,
plus another 32,223 who were seriously wounded (2003-2011).
It also helps to have a significant media platform and not to give a good hoot about how
many innocent Iraqis died via the U.S.-led invasion and/or the occupation of that country. (Try
an estimated 655,000.)
By the way, false prophet, Kristol: Our troops found "No" Weapons of Mass Destruction in
Iraq.
Let me formally introduce – William Kristol, age 67, out of New York City, now
Northern Virginia, warmonger extraordinaire, ultra-conservative, and currently editor at large
of Bulwark magazine.
For years, we've heard Kristol on the TV/Cable/Network shows making outrageous
statements, like this one: "The war in Iraq could have terrifically good effects throughout the
Middle East." (09/18/2001).
The other day, May 20, 2020, Kristol was the subject of a puff piece profile in the
Washington Post , by reporter KK Ottesen. The article made no mention of Kristol's
disgusting role in promoting the Iraq War. Instead, he was given the opportunity to rip
President Donald Trump on how he has been mismanaging the coronavirus crisis. (Well, heck,
everybody knows that.)
There was also no mention by the reporter of the possible real reasons that Kristol was
dumping on Trump. One could be that during the 2016 presidential campaign, Trump had trashed
Kristol's and the Neocons' support of the Iraq War.
And, also Trump has indicated he doesn't have any plans to reignite another of Kristol's
favorites schemes – "a Cold War with Russia." These are just two of the reasons the
"Neocons, like Kristol, can't stomach Trump," according to the commentator, JP Sottile, of
Consortium
News.
The idea that Kristol is some kind of genuine dissenter and is opposing Trump because he's
concerned about the quality of his leadership is pure nonsense. The Washington Post
allowed Kristol to use the paper for this dubious exercise and it has no one to blame but
itself.
During last year's Democratic presidential primary, Kristol took a swipe at the
candidate, Sen. Bernie Sanders, and posted a tweet that said: "#Never Sanders." The popular
antiwar candidate responded to Kristol: "Have you apologized to the nation for your foolish
advocacy of the Iraq War? I make no apologies for opposing it." Sanders then added this zinger:
"I will do everything in my power to prevent a war with Iran."
The Neocon replied: "I will defend my views on Iraq as you defend yours." Sen. Sanders
underscored how Kristol had called for regime change in Iraq as early at 1998; and that Kristol
also predicted the conflict would last "only two months;" and that he had repeatedly argued for
the Bush-Cheney Gang to send in more troops. As early at 2006, Kristol was urging the US to
bomb Iran's nuclear facilities, asking, "Why wait?"
Flashback: The first time I laid eyes on the cunning Neocon, Kristol was at a pro-Iraq War
rally held on the National Mall, on April 12, 2003, in Washington, D.C., G. Gordon Liddy and
the late, ex-U.S. Sen. Fred Thompson (R-TN) were there, along with some other Right Wing
types.
What was really weird about the whole affair was the appearance of that so-called comedian,
Ben Stein. He showed up on a huge video screen endorsing the war. It should have had "a warning
label" on it!
I recall a lady in the modest crowd of about fifty at that event saying of Kristol: "Oh,
look how small he is!" She was right. Kristol is, indeed, on the very short side. I'd say that
he comes in at about 5 ft. 4 or 5 inches. It seems that, as a result of his tiny body frame,
his head appears more massive than it really is. The rally was boring. I didn't stay long.
In a way, Kristol reminded me, in a physical sense, of the late actor Peter Lorre.
Whether Kristol has a "Little Man (Napoleon) Complex," or not, I will leave to the experts in
the field. All I know for sure is that he's a relentlessly angry, pusher of costly and
unnecessary wars.
(During the Iraq War, there were countless protest actions mounted by ten of thousands of
splendid antiwar activists across the country. Many of them were held on the National Mall, and
other sites in our nation's capital.)
Here is another gem from Kristol: "The first two battles of this new era are now over.
The battles of Afghanistan and Iraq have been won decisively and honorably." (April 28, 2003)
And, then there is this whopper from the slippery Neocon: "The Iraqi elections of Jan. 30, 2005
could be a key moment perhaps the key moment so far in vindicating the 'Bush/Cheney Doctrine'
as the right response to 9/11." (March 7, 2005)
Of course, it wouldn't be fair to leave out this one from Kristol: "It is much more likely
that the situation in Iraq will stay more or less the same, or improve, in either case,
Republicans will benefit from being the party of victory." (Nov. 30, 2005)
As a result of an onslaught of Kristol's articles and media appearances in support of the
Iraq invasion, the Washington Post 's Richard Cohen dubbed the conflict: "Kristol's
War!" Right on, Mr. Cohen.
The estimated cost of the Iraq War to the U.S. taxpayers runs to a high of around $1.7
trillion!
If Kristol has any regrets with respect to his amoral advocacy for the Iraq War (which was
launched by the Bush-Cheney Gang based on a pack of rotten lies) and/or about the staggering US
casualties in Iraq, I have never heard him express them.
If Kristol has any empathy for the innocent Iraqi dead and wounded, the Iraqi women and
children who have suffered and are continuing to suffer from that conflict, along with the tens
of thousands of Iraqi homes that have been destroyed, and also for those 3.8 million Iraqis
made into refugees, then he's kept those kinds of feelings to himself.
(The other amazing thing about Kristol is how he's repeatedly able to get his distorted
views on our televisions and in our newspapers. It's like he has to only press a button and
there he is. It is all so – Orwellian!)
In any event, when the name of William Kristol, the Neocon, is mentioned, I think callous
indifference to human life and suffering.
The next time the Neocon Kristol visits the Arlington National Cemetery, over in Virginia,
to honor our Iraqi War dead, will be his FIRST! Despite all of the above, he continues to argue
for a U.S.-led attack on Iran. Kristol insists: "Invading Iran is not a bad idea!"
If warmongering isn't a Hate Crime and/or a Hate Speech, then maybe it should be. (Peace
Movement, please copy.) That would give the heartless Kristol something to think about when he
advocates for the launching of yet another monstrosity, like the Iraq War.
Bill Hughes is an attorney, author, actor and photographer. His latest book is
Byline
Baltimore . Contact the author. Reprinted from the
Baltimore Post-Examiner with the author's permission.
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.
Posted by: Kali | May 23 2020 18:16 utc | 2
To a degree, it is true. However, the problem with MIC as an economic stimulant is rather
pitiful multiplier effect. For starters, the costs are hopelessly bloated. Under rather
watchful Putin, Russia does its piece of arms race at a very small fraction of American
costs. By the same token, pro-economy effects of arms spending in USA are seriously diluted
-- the spending is surely there, but the extend of activity is debatable For example, in
aerospace, there is a big potential for civilian applications of technologies developed for
the military. Scant evidence in Boeing that should be a prime beneficiary. The fabled toilet
seat (that cost many thousands of dollars) similarly failed to find civilian applications.
Civilians inclined to overpriced toilets, like Mr. Trump himself, rely on low-tech methods
like gold-plating.
A wider problem is shared by entire GOP: aversion to any government programs, and least of
all industry promoting programs, that could benefit ordinary citizens. This is the exclusive
domain of the free market! Once you refuse to consider that, only MIC remains, plus some
boondogles like interstate highways. Heaven forfend to improve public transit or to repair
almost-proverbial crumbling dams and bridges.
We have to ask cui bono - who benefits from a new nuclear arms race? General Electric,
Boeing, Honeywell International, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman et al. No one else really.
Since these corporations also own the Congress and have zillions to fund Trump's re-election,
they will probably get the go-ahead to spend the rest of the world into oblivion.
Apart from the obvious fact that the MIC is the only viable engine of propulsion of the
American "real economy" (a.k.a. "manufacturing"), there's the more macabre fact that, if we
take Trump's administration first military papers into consideration, it seems there's a
growing coterie inside the Pentagon and the WH that firmly believes MAD can be broken
vis-a-vis China.
Hence the "Prompt Global Strike" doctrine (which is taking form with the commission of the
new B-21 "Raider" strategic bomber, won by Northrop Grumman), the rise of the concept of
"tactical nukes" (hence the extinction of the START, and the Incirlik Base imbroglio post
failed coup against Erdogan) and, most importantly, the new doctrine of "bringing manufacture
back".
The USA is suffering from a structural valorization problem. The only way out is finding
new vital space through which it can initiate a new cycle of valorization. The only
significant vital space to be carved out in the 21st Century is China, with its 600
million-sized middle class (the world's largest middle class, therefore the world's largest
potential consumer market). It won two decades with the opening of the ex-Soviet vital space,
but it was depleted in the 2000s, finally exploding in 2006-2008.
How many decades does the Americans think they can earn by a hypothetical unilateral
destruction of China?
Having a treaty that limits power (in this case nuclear) on the same level for the US and any
other country is simply totally against the ideology of US Superority/Exeptionalism.
That seems to be the driving (psychological and ideological) factor behind this charade.
And like this sick ideology always ends: It too will backfire.
@gepay: another problem is people that disagree with Bernhard on COVID, but then use this
disagreement to not read his artciles anymore.
So many people only want to read what they want to hear, and run away at the first real
different view.
The narcissism, that our neoliberal societies inducded in its people the last decade shows..
And seeing both sides and everything in between is not possible anymore for a majority it
seems.
And living in a bubble is so comforting and easy in todays world. On MSM and on Alt Media
alike.
"...that may well fit Trump's plans of pushing all arms control regimes into oblivion."
It's not just arms control regimes, as the WHO business showed. This is the Roy Cohn agenda
showing up again- the old GOP objection to the UN and all other international organisations.
It is pure ideology-the US has gained immensely from dominating the organisations of which it
is a part, leaving them makes no sense at all.
As to 'spending China to oblivion". This only works when every Pentagon dollar spent
forces China or Russia to spend a dollar themselves. In such a contest the richest country
wins. But that only works in the context of pre-nuclear warfare. With the nuclear deterrent
it becomes possible to opt out of all the money wasting nonsense represented by the Pentagon
budget, sit back and say, as the Chinese diplomat evidently did, "Just try it."
Which adds up to the conclusion that it is wholly irrational of the United States to denounce
treaties designed to reduce the likelihood of nuclear weapons being used: it is to the
advantage of Washington that other powers, potential rivals, are forced to build up
conventional forces because they are bound by treaty not to rely on nuclear weapons.
So, again: pure ideology designed for domestic consumption and advanced by the most
reactionary elements in American society- the Jesse Helms good ol' boys who make the neo-cons
look almost human.
He likes economic war (against everybody), they want actual war. Laguerre | May 23 2020 20:17
utc
Trump has a primitive mercantile mind. There is nothing inherently wrong about
mercantilism, but a primitive version of anything tends to be mediocre at best. Thus he loves
war that give profit, like Yemen where natives are bombed with expensive products made in USA
(and unfortunately, also UK, France etc., but the bulk goes to USA). Then he loves wars the
he thinks will give profit, like "keeping oil fields in Syria". Some people told him that oil
fields are profitable (although they can go bankrupt just like casinos).
Privately, I think that Trump wanted to make a war with Iran, but the generals explained
him what kind of disaster that would be.
One difference is that Democrats are aligned with uber Zionist of slightly less rabid
variety than Republicans. A bit like black bears vs grizzlies. Unfortunately, like in the
animal kingdom, when the push comes to shove, black bears defer to grizzlies, so on the side
of Palestinians etc. there is no difference.
Billingslea's "spending ... into oblivion" statement reflects the belief, still widespread
among US neocon political / military elites, that the Soviet Union was brought down and
destroyed by its attempts to keep up with US military spending throughout the 1980s. This
alone tells us how steeped in past fantasy the entire US political and military establishment
must be. Compared to Rip van Winkle, these people are comatose.
Spending the enemy into oblivion may be "tried and true" practice but only when the enemy
is much poorer than yourself in arms production and in one type of weapons manufacture. That
certainly does not apply to either Russia or China these days. Both nations think more
strategically and do not waste precious resources in parading and projecting military power
abroad, or rely almost exclusively on old, decaying technologies and a narrow mindset
obsessed with always being top dog in everything.
After the Soviet collapse thirty years ago, that order expanded its jurisdiction. Proponents sought to subsume the old Eastern
Bloc, including perhaps Russia itself, into the American sphere. And they wanted to do so firmly on Washington's terms. Even as the
country began to deindustrialize and growth slowed, American leadership developed a taste for fresh crusades in the Middle East;
exotic savagery, went the subtext, had to be brought finally to heel. China was a rising force, but its regime would inevitably crater
or democratize. Besides, Beijing was a peaceful trading partner of the United States.
2008, 2016 and 2020 -- the financial crisis, Trump's election and now the Coronavirus and its reaction -- have been successive
gut punches to this project, a hat trick which may seal its demise. Ask anyone attempting to board an international flight, or open
a new factory in China, or get anything done at the United Nations: the world is de-globalizing at a speed almost as astonishing
as it integrated. Post-Covid, U.S.-China confrontation is not a choice. It's a reality. The liberal international order is not lamentable.
It's already dead.
This was the argument made by Bannon. It had other backers, of course, within both the academy and an emerging foreign policy
counter-establishment loathe to repeat the mistakes of the past thirty years. But coming from the former top political advisor to
the sitting president of the United States, it was provocative stuff. Bannon articulated a perspective which seemed to be on the
tip of the foreign policy world's tongue. And it riled people up. The most fulsome rebuttal to the zeitgeist was perhaps The Jungle
Grows Back , tellingly written by Robert Kagan, an Iraq War architect. The peripheral world was dangerous brush; the United States
was the machete.
Trumpian nationalism has chugged along for nearly three years since -- stripped, some might say, of its Bannonite flair and intelligence.
The most hysterical prophecies of what the president might do -- that he might withdraw from the geriatric North Atlantic Treaty
Organization, for instance -- have not come to pass. Trump has howled and roared, true: but so far, his most disruptive foreign policy
maneuver has been escalation against Iran.
It's very good to hear the right getting a little humility in them now and talking less empire, more multilateralism. Trump has
been way too concerned with his MAGA personality cult to understand the value of humility.
The world's a big place. The reality is, America first will more and more mean working together with other nations for mutual
benefit, and often their gain will indirectly be to our own also.
Working more and more, yes. This is why US is undercutting Germany's competitiveness, by blocking a cheap source of energy via
NS2...
As Bush said, you are either with us or against us. Nothing has changed and nothing will change, but it will become uglier.
If it were to desire multi-polarity, the US would tolerate not only states, like KSA, where the Royals own everything, but also
states, like Iran, or Cuba, where the people (through the government/state) owns assets (land and productive facilities). But
the US does not tolerate such type of multi-polarity, not open to US "investment" and ownership (bought with fiat money).
Cold War II started in 2007, with Putin. Popcorn & beer lads!
It does seem like there's a creeping idea, not just on dissident internet sites now like before, that the Russian rivalry is a
luxury of the past. Even the liberals are going to have to reconcile with liberal hegemony not being workable and settle for something
less. Owing to distance and mutual interest (common rivals Britain and Germany) Russia and America had a long history of friendship
before the Cold war.
I sadly agree about the predatory nature of much of America does. I think it really is a reflection of partially, imperial
arrogance, but even moreso a matter of who runs the country. Oligarchy is poorly checked in modern America. Maybe we can hope
for a humbled oligarchy, at least.
Trump is indeed an empty suit and a demagogue, but he ran on a decent nationalist platform (probably thanks to Bannon, who is
almost certainly a closeted gay. No joke... a deep-in-the-closet, self-hating gay. The navy can change a man, and he's a fraud
in other ways: see Eric Striker's article "International Finance's Anti-China Crusade"). Trump does have an absurd ego, and he
probably figured becoming president would impress Ivanka too.
Also, the Uyghurs are not totally innocent victims... Some of them are US-financed revolutionaries and some of them have committed
terrorism: see Godfree Roberts at Unz Review: "China and the Uyghurs" (January 10, 2019) and Ajit Singh at The Grayzone: "Inside
the World Uyghur Congress: The US-backed right-wing regime change network seeking the 'fall of China'" (March 5, 2020). Some of
our pathetic propagandists make it seem like they're in concentration camps, but there is objective reporting that suggests it's
more like job training programs and anti-jihad classes. Absurd lies have certainly been told about North Korea and many other
countries, so be skeptical.
Yeah, let's get that hate on for China - why they're as bad as Russia, Iran and Venezuela put together and there are so many more
of them. Especially a lot are available right here in the US and have lots of restaurants that can be boycotted. Not that many
Venezuelan restaurants around. Seriously, can Americans get over this childishness? When the US closes down its 800+ overseas
bases and withdraws its fleet to its own shores instead of Iran's and China's, then maybe Americans will be entitled to complain
about someone else's imperialism.
Most of anti-China stuff Hawley, much like Trump, claims always feels empty populism for WWC voters.
1) It is reasonable to be against our Middle East endeavors and not be so anti-China.
2) I still don't understand how it is China fault for stealing manufacturing jobs when it is the US private sector that does it.
(And Vietnam exist, etc.) So without Charles Koch and Tim Cook behind this trade stuff, it feels like empty populism.
3) The most obvious point on China to me is how little they do use military measures for their 'imperialism.'
One problem with all this populism emptiness, is there is a lot issues with China to work on:
1) This virus could have impact economies in Africa and South America a lot where the nations have to renegotiate their loans
to China. I have no idea how this goes but there will be tensions here. Imperialism is tough in the long run.
2) There are nations banding together on China's reaction to the virus and it seems reasonable that US joining them would be more
effective than Trump's taunting.
3) To prove Trump administration incompetence, I have no idea how he is not turning this crisis into more medical equipment and
drugs manufacturing. (My guess is this both takes a lot of work and frankly a lot of manufacturing plants have risks of spreads
so noone wants to invest.)
Hawley is a "fake populist" according to Eric Striker's article "International Finance's Anti-China Crusade" and I just saw fake-patriot
airhead Pete Hegseth claim China wants to destroy our civilization, on fake populist Tucker Carlson's show. It's well-established
that Fox News and the GOP are still neocons and fake patriots... after all, the Trump administration is run by Jared Kushner,
a protégé of Rupert Murdoch and Bibi Netanyahu.
Hawley's speech on the Senate floor yesterday deserves much more criticism than it gets here. This article from Reason
does a good job breaking down the speech and pointing out what's right AND wrong about it:
What if there is reduced wars and civil wars n the world today than ever. (So say anytime before 1991?) I get all the Middle East
& African Wars but look at the rest of the world. When in history have the major West Europe powers not had a major war in 75
years. After issues of post Cold War East Europe is probably more peaceful than ever. Look at South America. In the 1970s the
Civil Wars raged in all those nations. Or the Pacific Rim? Japan, China, and other nations are fighting with Military right now.
This is certainly less than perfect but the number of people (per million) dieing in wars and civil wars are at historic lows.
The fall of Soviet Union and weakening of Russia allowed US and Western Europe to attack Serbia in 1990s. A stronger Russia wouldn't
have allowed that to happen (who's trying to get Crimea from Russia's control now?). But with US aggressiveness and bellicosity
(including nuclear posture) at Russia's borders do not bode well.
But it is true, less important people are dying now...
Chinese imperialism? Uh ... other than shaking trees and drumming up fear can I get like one example of that.
Taiwan, part of China since the 1500's and they are have not issued any new threats since 1949.
Hong Kong - stolen from China and now reluctantly given back with lots of conditions. If they deserve the right of independence
through referendum I'm all for it as long as we apply this standard uniformly including parts of Texas, San Diego, New Mexico,
Arizona, any place that has a large foreign population will do.
Yeah, "Chinese imperialism" is complete nonsense, just like the claim that they definitely originated the coronavirus, caused
Americans to be under house arrest, and caused a depression. In fact, the origin of the virus is far from clear, and it wasn't
China who hyped up and exaggerated the danger and wrecked the economy. It was our superficial corporate media and government that
did that (perhaps deliberately)... the same people who are desperately trying to deflect blame onto the CCP. The same people who
have been mismanaging and ruining America for decades in order to enrich themselves.
"Neoliberal democracy. Instead of citizens, it produces consumers. Instead of communities, it produces shopping malls. The
net result is an atomized society of disengaged individuals who feel demoralized and socially powerless."
Most people would be well served to read Chomsky a first time.
However, it should be noted, Chomsky's critiques of neoliberalism aren't grounded in nationalism, xenophobia, and racism. So a
lot of TAC readers (and especially writers) may be disappointed.
Hawley seems like the natural choice for the potential future of the GOP, that is a post-fusionist or post-liberal GOP. However
the one thing that worries me is his foreign policy. He talks the talk, but I'm having trouble to see if he walks the walk. As
Mills noted he didn't vote to end support for the genocidal war in Yemen, a war that serves purely the interests of Saudi Arabia
and not our own. He has criticized David Petraeus before, but its important not to be fooled by just rhetoric. While accepting
he'll be better than any Tom Cotton or (god forbid) Nikki Haley in 2024, his foreign policy needs to be examined more until then.
Our response to the epidemic was 100% 'made in China'. The entire 'Western World' decided to copy Beijing. If that doesn't establish
a new level of leadership for China, I don't know what would. I'm surprised this is not more widely recognized. You can run down
the many parallels, including the pathetic photo-op attempt by the West to build those emergency hospitals (Nightingale in the
UK, Javits Center, etc. all across the US), which were just to show 'hey we can build hospitals in a few weeks also' ... never
mind they could never, and were never used for anything at all.
At this point, Hawley is all talk. Further, much of his talking amounts to little more than expressing resentment. I agree that
the US needs to follow a more nationalist pathway, which involved making itself less dependent on its chief geopolitical rival.
But accomplishing this is going to require more than bashing China and asserting that cosmopolitan Americans are traitors. At
this point, Hawley has no positive program to offer. Giving paid speeches that vilify coastal elites and China is not a political
plan.
Further, I agree that we're probably moving away from the universalist order that's guided much of our thinking since the 1990s.
But isolationism is not the answer. We need to begin building a multilateral order that takes full account of China's rise as
a worthy rival. This means that we need to develop a series of smaller-scale agreements with strategic partners. The TPP is a
good example of such an agreement. But where is the call to revive it?
Lastly, I find the article's reference to China's treatment of gays and lesbians to be curious. I'd first note that using the
term "homosexual" in reference to people is generally viewed as an offensive slur. Further, China's treatment of gay people isn't
so bad, and tends to be better than what Hawley's evangelical supporters would afford. Moreover, China is a multi-ethnic country.
It's program in Xinjiang has more to do with maintaining political order than a desire to repress non-Han people.
The general chest puffing nature of the American right makes it hard for them to understand that America might need to work with
other countries at a deep level, and not as vassals either.
". We need to begin building a multilateral order that takes full account
of China's rise as a worthy rival. This means that we need to develop a
series of smaller-scale agreements with strategic partners. The TPP is a
good example of such an agreement. But where is the call to revive it?"
The thing is that the post-WWII liberal international order was good for things like that.
Trump and the GOP quite deliberately destroyed it. Before that, the US would have the trust of many other governments; now they
don't trust the US - even if Biden is elected, the next Trump is on the way.
"We benefit if countries that share our opposition to Chinese imperialism -- countries like India and Japan, Vietnam, Australia
and Taiwan -- are economically independent of China, and standing shoulder to shoulder with us,"
OK....then can someone explain why Hawley opposed the TPP, which was designed to accomplish just this. The TPP was supposed
to create trading relationships between these countries and the United States in the context of an agreement that excluded China.
In this instance people like Hawley were advancing China's position and interests (I suspect simply because it was a treaty negotiated
under Obama, which apparently was enough to make it bad).
Probably because Hawley seems more interested in demagoguery than accomplishing anything productive. Never mind that 95% of the
people who voted for him probably couldn't find Japan or Vietnam on a map.
TPP was not geared against China as a blanket thing, as an entire exclusion of China. The perfidy of TPP was that it was against
any economic interactions with State Owned Enterprises (didn't mention the origin, didn't have to). The ultimate goal wasn't to
isolate China but to force privatization of said SOEs, preferably run from Wall Street.
Private property good and = Democracy; State property bad = Authoritarianism, dictatorship, etc. It is a fallacy here somewhere,
cannot really put my finger on it...
Except this is all lies. On each chance to actually do something Hawley has sided with international corporations, as a good conservative
will always do. Fixing globalism will never come form the right, this is all smoke and mirrors for the religious right, aka the
rubes. And they are perpetual suckers and will keep buying into this crap as our nation is hollowed out and raided by the rich.
And that, is TRUE conservatism.
"Now we must recognize that the economic system designed by Western policy makers at the end of the Cold War does not serve
our purposes in this new era," proclaimed Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Missouri. "And it does not meet our needs for this new day." He
continued, perhaps too politely: "And we should admit that multiple of its founding premises were in error."
The "error" in the founding premises of the post-WWII economic system was that it assumed that the US would act in a responsible
manner. Instead we have run huge budget deficits and borrowed the difference from foreigners, randomly invading other countries,
undermined the institutions we set up, bullied smaller countries rather than working with them, and abused our control of the
financial system.
No, that old economic system served our interests very well, as long as we respected the institutions we set up and kept our
own house in order. We haven't been doing any of that for at least 20 years.
Let's bear in mind that the Republican leader of the Senate married into a wealthy Chinese family that makes its money from hauling
Chinese exports to our shores and the shores of other developed nations.
This is all just hollow bravado meant to appeal to the right's nativist base.
I am not into the thinking that everyone whose politics I don't support is acting in bad faith. We are talking about the actions
of literally millions of people. Accusing this or that person of acting in bad faith because of personal interest is just dirty
politics dressed up as perceptiveness. I am not accusing any specific person of acting in bad faith, although some of the people
who pushed opening up to China because more business in China would create a class of people who would eventually push for Democracy
there, were indeed acting in bad faith. They wanted access to cheap labor with no rights.
Yet, no doubt many of them actually believed the propaganda, because it supposedly happened in South Korea, Taiwan and other
places. And especially the ones who switched the line to "globalism" when it was clear that the supposed indigenous pressures
for Democracy did not materialize also acted in bad faith. I only assume that some of were because once I understood the rationale
of the CCCP it was clear to me that China was radically different, and there is no way that so many of those guys who are smarter
and more knowledgeable about political systems than me, did not figure it out. But I am not going to behave as if it the Republicans
alone who were pushing either of these two false messages.
Criticizing China for "imperialism" is the height of hypocrisy on multiple levels. First, the United States has engaged in economic
imperialism, sometimes enforced with military intervention, for a hundred years. Read Smedley Butler's "War is a Racket" if you
doubt that. Second, this is the same guy who voted against our proxy war in Yemen. Third, one could very reasonably argue that
China is simply applying the lessons it learned at the hands of Western imperialists since 1800s..
It's good that SOME Republicans are at least giving lip service to the idea of bringing back manufacturing in this country.
But you have to thank Trump for that, not the GOP establishment. The offshoring of American manufacturing as part of "free trade"
was strongly supported (if not led) by the GOP going back to the 1980s.
And check out John Perkins's books ("Confessions of an Economic Hit Man", etc.) for up-to-date information. It's obviously true
that criticizing China for "imperialism" is ridiculously hypocritical but people like Senator Hawley know they can get away with
it because they understand how propaganda works on the dumbed-down masses.
They understand doublethink, repetition, appeal to patriotism, appeal to racism, appeal to fear, etc. People like Rupert Murdoch
do this every day... poorly, but well enough to be effective on a lot of people.
Incidentally, the Republicans may talk about bringing manufacturing back to the US but they're actually planning on shifting
it to India (see Eric Striker's article "International Finance's Anti-China Crusade").
If Washington lured the Soviet Union into it's demise in Afghanistan, which left that minor
empire in shambles - socially, militarily, economically - it was the nuclear conflagration at
Chernobyl that put the corpse in the ground.....
(Watch the GREAT HBO five-part tragedy on it and you will see that the brutally heroic
response of the Soviets, that saved the Western World at least temporarily, but is the
portrait of self-sacrifice)
What was lost in the Soviets fumbling immediate post-explosion cover-up was the trust of
their Eastern European satellite countries. That doomed that empire. So much military might
was given up in Afghanistan, then on Chernobyl, it was not clear if the Soviets had the
wherewithal to put down the rebellions that spread from Czechoslovakia to East Germany and
beyond.
Covid-19 will do the same to the American Empire.
As its own infrastructure has been laid waste by the COLLASSAL MONEY PIT that is the
Pentagon, its flagrant use of the most valuable energy commodity, oil, to maintain some 4000
bases worldwide, this rickety over-extended upside down version of old Anglo-Dutch trading
empires, will finally collapse.
Loss of trust by the many craven satellites, in America's fractured response, to Covid-19
will put the final nail in its coffin.
A hot-shooting War may come next, but the empire cannot win it.
It would be nice if that were so, but it is very unlikely.
"So tired of reading propaganda."
Is that why you regurgitate it onto forums? Kinda like purging the system, eh?
If you are going to be judging China's economic health by their pollution levels then in
the future you will find yourself convinced that they have never recovered, even when it
becomes inescapably obvious that they have. The fact is that China's pollution levels are
never going back to 2019 levels, but that has nothing to do with their economic
health.
It really never ceases to amaze me how deeply rooted and pervasive the delusions and sense
of exceptionality is in America. It is woven into the thinking, from the lowest levels to the
very top of their thoughts, of even the very most intelligent Americans. It is apparently a
phenomenon that operates at an even deeper level than mass media brainwashing, as it seems it
was just as much a problem in every empire in history. That is, I am sure citizens of the
Roman Empire had the same blinding biases embedded deep below their consciousness. I guess
Marx was entirely correct to say that consciousness arises from material conditions, and
being citizen of an empire must be one of those material conditions that gives rise to this
all-pervasive and unconscious sense of exceptionality.
Go over to EOSDIS Worldview and take a look at satellite photos of China. Simple toggle in
lower left hand corner will take you to photos of same day, earlier years. Or any day in
satellite record.
The skies over China are clear. Chinese industry is not back at work. It may be that China
at 50% or even at 20% is a manufacturing powerhouse compared to a crumbling US. But until
China is back at work the thread so far is about the historical situation six months ago.
Xi used to do elaborately staged state appearances with well planned camera angles,
fabulous lighting, pomp and circumstance. He enjoyed the trappings of power and knew how to
use the trappings of power. Hasn't done that kind of state appearance since January.
China and the US are so different. The citizens of China cannot vote. The population's
movements are micromanaged by the government. This is not the case here (yet). And I hope it
is never the case. I agree with the premise that there are those in our government who are
living in a dream of the past and that is over, unless we want to destroy the world. But
China's government is so repressive. The rules must be obeyed. We seem to be compliant so far
of some of our government officials stepping over the bounds allowed by our Constitution, due
to the fear of C-19 engendered by the deep state (aka the bsmsm). But we will not do that
forever and our government cannot just start shooting big crowds of us as they can and have
done in China. Theirs is all top down rule, which is not the case here. Also, although it is
probably heretical to say this I am glad that the US has many cases of C-19. We will
eventually get herd immunity. IMO, China can lock down as many millions of citizens as they
wish; they cannot stop this virus and as time goes by they will have as many deaths and as
many cases as everybody else. Well, that is off the topic of the article. In the end I agree
that we are fighting weird battles we can never win and we citizens need to keep informing
our government employees that we just want to trade and make money, not threaten companies
and countries and lose money.
Regarding Madeleine Albright: "She also said that the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children
through U.S. imposed sanctions was " a very hard choice, but the price -- we think the price
is worth it." That is the basic credo of the liberal interventionists."
I think 'liberal interventionist' is a bit too weak for the 'lovely' Ms Albright and her
(in)famous quote.
Instead, let's try, "That is the basic credo of psychopathically sadistic zionist monsters
who exquisitely enjoy the thought of Arab children dying agonizingly slow deaths of
preventable diseases and starvation."
Ah, yes. That's a much more accurate assessment of the situation ..
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.
That is correct and that is because it works the majority of Americans are stupid.
Do you see a solution suggested here?
It is also an unfortunate indication that the neoconservatives, pronounced dead after
the election of Trump, are back and resuming their drive to obtain the positions of power
that will permit endless war, starting with Iran.
The neocons never went anywhere. Trump is a minion of the Deep State and staffs his
administration accordingly.
My point is simple and ineluctable, whatever our demerits, our great republic is
supposed to weed out psychopaths like Brennan long before they get as close as he has to
destroying the whole shebang.
Never happens all administrations are full of psychopaths.
Frankly nothing new. Every Empire sought to rule the world and committed a long list of
atrocities in the process. "The empire on which the sun never sets", in reference to the
British Empire (the one currently still ruling the world), comes from Xerxes' "We shall
extend the Persian territory as far as God's heaven reaches. The sun will then shine on no
land beyond our borders." as he invaded Greece.
That said, a word on the Rumsfeld-Cebrowski Doctrine and their Pentagon world map would be
on point here
A US judge
dismissed a defamation lawsuit by One America News Network against MSNBC over Rachel Maddow's
claims that OAN was "literally" Russian propaganda, ruling that her segment was merely "an
opinion" and "exaggeration." OAN sued the liberal talk show host and MSNBC for defamation,
demanding over $10 million in damages, back in September 2019. The lawsuit was based on the
July 22 episode of The Rachel Maddow Show, where Maddow launched a scathing broadside against
the conservative television network, labeling it "the most obsequiously pro-Trump right
wing news outlet in America" and "really literally paid Russian propaganda."
In the segment, Maddow cited a story by The Daily Beast's Kevin Poulsen about OAN's Kristian
Rouz, who has previously contributed to Sputnik as a freelance author. Toeing the general US
mainstream line on the Russian media, be it Sputnik or RT, Poulsen branded the Russian news
agency "the Kremlin's official propaganda outlet" and said Rouz was once on its
"payroll." Shortly after MSNBC's star talent peddled the claim, OAN rejected the
allegations as "utterly and completely false. " The outlet, which is owned by the
Herring Networks, a small California-based family company, said that it "has never been
paid or received a penny from Russia or the Russian government," with its only funding
coming from the Herring family.
In their bid to win the case, Maddow herself, MSNBC, Comcast Corporation and NBCUniversal
Media did not address the accusation itself - namely, that her claim about OAN was false - but
opted to invoke the First Amendment, insisting that the rant should be protected as free
speech.
Siding
with Maddow, the California district court defined Maddow's show as a mix of "news and
opinions," concluding that the manner in which the progressive host blurted out the
accusations "makes it more likely that a reasonable viewer would not conclude that the
contested statement implies an assertion of objective fact." h
The court said that while Maddow "truthfully" related the story by the Daily Beast,
the statement about OAN being funded by the Kremlin was her "opinion" and
"exaggeration" of the said article.
While the legal trick helped Maddow to get off the hook without ever trying to defend her
initial statement, conservative commentators on social media wasted no time in pointing out
that dodging a payout to OAN literally meant admitting that Maddow was not, in fact, news.
Maddow won a lawsuit brought against her because the Judge found her show was "opinion," that is, her show isn't one that
shares actual facts with viewers.https://t.co/T1bgdSfc0P — Essential Cernovich (@Cernovich) May 22, 2020Q
Just like Alex Jones’ defense in his divorce and custody proceedings: “I’m an entertainer”
Biden’s binder full of women (@Wallflowerface) May 22, 2020Q
So if she makes any statement(s) on air about being factual, then don’t we have an excellent appeal? — Mortimer Cinder
Block (@LeonardPGoldst1) May 22, 2020Q
A commentator in Taiwan said that the US consulate in Hong Kong has more than 2000 staff. If
true, this number is astounding, and probably has nothing comparable in other US foreign
missions. These officials can't all be processing visas, could they, haha. Regime-change
workers, spies and so-called diplomats.
That does not mean the end of the USA superiority. That is an action of china which can be
called "better late then never". What it means that the fight with China moves from trade war
into Cold war. And the USA is pretty tncous in enforcing COCOM like measures against China, with
corresponding for China consequences.
Notable quotes:
"... under the Trump administration the U.S. has introduced more and more measures to shackle China's development. The Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act passed last year by the U.S. Congress demands that the U.S. government reports on Hong Kong and punishes those who it deems to be human right violators. The sanctions against Chinese companies and especially Huawei, recently expanded to a total economic blockade of 5G chip deliveries to that company, demonstrate that the U.S. will do anything it can to hinder China's economic success. ..."
"... The 'Cold War 2.0' the U.S. launched against China will now see significant counter moves. ..."
"... Under the new law the U.S. will have to stop its financing of student organization, anti-government unions and media in Hong Kong. The opposition parties will no longer be allowed to have relations with U.S. influence operations. ..."
"... No U.S. action can prevent China's government from securing its realm. Hong Kong is a Chinese city where China's laws, not U.S. dollars, are supreme. ..."
"... The U.S. seems to believe it can win a cold war with China. ..."
"... When the U.S. prohibits companies which use U.S. software or machines to design chips and make they sell to China then those companies will seek to buy such software and machines elsewhere. When the U.S. tries to hinder China's access to computer chips, China will build its own chip industry. Ten years from now it will be the U.S. which will have lost access to the then most modern ones as all of those will come from China. ..."
"... In his 2003 book After the Empire Emmanuel Todd described why the U.S. was moving towards the loss of its superpower status ..."
"... The Covid-19 crisis has laid all this bare for everyone to see. Will the U.S., as Todd predicted, now have to give up its superpower status? Or will it start a big war against China to divert the attention elsewhere and to prove its presumed superiority? ..."
"... Of the existing 30 or so high-tech productive chains, China only enjoys superiority at 2 or 3 (see 6:48). It is still greatly dependent on the West to development and still is a developing country. ..."
Blaming China for the Covid-19 pandemic
is false . But the U.S. will continue to do so as a part of its larger anti-China
strategy.
As the U.S. is busy to counter the epidemic at home China has already defeated it within
its borders. It now uses the moment to remove an issue the U.S. has long used to harass it.
Hong Kong will finally be liberated from its U.S. supported
racists disguised as liberals .
In late 1984 Britain and China signed a formal agreement which approved the 1997 release
of Britain's colony Hong Kong to China. Britain had to agree to the pact because it had lost
the capability to defend the colony. The Sino British Joint Declaration stipulated that China
would create a formal law that would allow Hong Kong to largely govern itself.
The ' Basic Law of
the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ' is the de
facto constitution of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. But it is a national law
of China adopted by the Chinese National People's Congress in 1990 and introduced in Hong
Kong in 1997 after the British rule ran out. If necessary the law can be changed.
Chapter II of the Basic Law regulates the relationship between the Central Authorities and
the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. Article 23 of the Basic Law
stipulated that Hong Kong will have to implement certain measures for internal security:
The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region shall enact laws on its own to prohibit any act
of treason, secession, sedition, subversion against the Central People's Government , or
theft of state secrets, to prohibit foreign political organizations or bodies from
conducting political activities in the Region , and to prohibit political organizations or
bodies of the Region from establishing ties with foreign political organizations or bodies
.
Hong Kong has failed to create any of the laws demanded by Article 23. Each time its
government tried to even partially implement such laws, in 2003, 2014 and 2019, protests and
large scale riots in the streets of Hong Kong prevented it.
China was always concerned about the foreign directed unrest in Hong Kong but it did not
press the issue while it was still depending on Hong Kong for access to money and
markets.
In the year 2000 Hong Kong's GDP stood at $171 billion while China's was just 7 times
larger at $1.200 billion. Last year Hong Kong's GDP had nearly doubled to $365 billion. But
China's GDP had grown more than tenfold to $14,200 billion, nearly 40 times larger than Hong
Kong's. Expressed in purchase power parity the divergence is even bigger. As an economic
outlet for China Hong Kong has lost its importance.
Another factor that held China back from deeper meddling in Hong Kong was its concern
about negative consequences from the U.S. and Britain. But under the Trump administration
the U.S. has introduced more and more measures to shackle China's development. The Hong Kong Human
Rights and Democracy Act passed last year by the U.S. Congress demands that the U.S.
government reports on Hong Kong and punishes those who it deems to be human right violators.
The sanctions against Chinese companies and especially Huawei, recently expanded to
a total economic
blockade of 5G chip deliveries to that company, demonstrate that the U.S. will do
anything it can to hinder China's economic success.
The Obama administration's 'pivot to Asia' was already a somewhat disguised move against
China. The Trump administration's
National Defense Strategy openly declared China a "strategic competitor using predatory
economics to intimidate its neighbors while militarizing features in the South China
Sea".
Thus, small Marine forces would deploy around the islands of the first island chain and the
South China Sea, each element having the ability to contest the surrounding air and naval
space using anti-air and antiship missiles. Collectively, these forces would attrite
Chinese forces, inhibit them from moving outward, and ultimately, as part of a joint
campaign, squeeze them back to the Chinese homeland.
The 'Cold War 2.0' the U.S. launched against China will now see significant counter
moves.
Last year's violent riots in Hong Kong , cheered on by the borg in Washington DC, have
demonstrated that the development in Hong Kong is on a bad trajectory that may endanger
China. There is no longer a reason for China to hold back on countering the nonsense. Hong
Kong's economy is no longer relevant. U.S. sanctions are coming independent of what China
does or does not do in Hong Kong. The U.S. military designs are now an obvious threat.
The central government is to table a resolution on Friday to enable the apex of its top
legislative body, the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), to craft
and pass a new national security law tailor-made for Hong Kong, it announced late on
Thursday.
Sources earlier told the Post the new law would proscribe secessionist and subversive
activity as well as foreign interference and terrorism in the city -- all developments that
had been troubling Beijing for some time, but most pressingly over the past year of
increasingly violent anti-government protests.
...
According to a mainland source familiar with Hong Kong affairs, Beijing had come to the
conclusion that it was impossible for the city's Legislative Council to pass a national
security law to enact Article 23 of the city's Basic Law given the political climate. This
was why it was turning to the NPC to take on the responsibility.
On May 28 the NPC will vote on a resolution asking its Standing Committee to write the
relevant law for Hong Kong. It is likely to be enacted by promulgation at the end of June.
The law will become part of Annex III of the Basic Law which lists "National Laws to be
Applied in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region".
Under the new law the U.S. will have to stop its financing of student
organization, anti-government unions and media in Hong Kong. The opposition parties will no
longer be allowed to have relations with U.S. influence operations.
Hong Kong has flourished as a bastion of liberty. The United States strongly urges Beijing
to reconsider its disastrous proposal, abide by its international obligations, and respect
Hong Kong's high degree of autonomy, democratic institutions, and civil liberties, which
are key to preserving its special status under U.S. law. Any decision impinging on Hong
Kong's autonomy and freedoms as guaranteed under the Sino-British Joint Declaration and the
Basic Law would inevitably impact our assessment of One Country, Two Systems and the status
of the territory.
We stand with the people of Hong Kong.
It is not (yet?) The
Coming War On China (video) but some hapless huffing and puffing that is strong on
rhetoric but has little effect. No U.S. action can prevent China's government from
securing its realm. Hong Kong is a Chinese city where China's laws, not U.S. dollars, are
supreme.
The U.S. seems to believe it can win a cold war with China. But that
understanding is wrong.
Since the US-China tech war began in April 2018 with Washington's ban on chip exports to
China's ZTE Corporation, "de-Americanization of supply chains" has been the buzzword in the
semiconductor industry.
Taiwan, Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia purchased about 50% more Chinese products in
April 2020 than they did in the year-earlier month. Japan and Korea showed 20% gains.
Exports to the US rose year-on-year, but from a very low 2019 base.
China's imports from Asia also rose sharply.
When the U.S. prohibits companies which use U.S. software or machines to design chips
and make they sell to China then those companies will seek to buy such software and machines
elsewhere. When the U.S. tries to hinder China's access to computer chips, China will build its own chip
industry. Ten years from now it will be the U.S. which will have lost access to the then
most modern ones as all of those will come from China. Already today it is China that
dominates
global trade .
The chaotic way in which the U.S. handles its Covid crisis is widely observed abroad.
Those who see clearly recognized that it is now China, not the U.S., that is the responsible
superpower . The U.S. is overwhelmed and will continue to be so for a long time:
This is why I don't see the talk about a possible "Cold War 2.0" as meaningful or relevant.
If there were to be any sort of "cold war" between the United States and China, then U.S.
policymakers would still be able credibly to start planning how to manage this complex
relationship with China . But in reality, the options for "managing" the core of this
relationship are pitifully few, since the central task of whatever U.S. leadership emerges
from this Covid nightmare will be to manage the precipitous collapse of the globe-circling
empire the United States has sat atop of since 1945.
...
So here in Washington in Spring of 2020, I say, Let 'em huff and puff with their new
flatulations of childish Sinophobia. Let them threaten this or that version of a new "Cold
War". Let them compete in elections -- if these are to be held -- on versions of "Who can
be tougher on China." But the cold reality shows that, as Banquo said, "It is a tale, told
by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."
In his 2003 book After the Empire Emmanuel
Todd described why the U.S. was moving towards the loss of its superpower status :
Todd calmly and straightforwardly takes stock of many negative trends, including America's
weakened commitment to the socio-economic integration of African Americans, a bulimic
economy that increasingly relies on smoke and mirrors and the goodwill of foreign
investors, and a foreign policy that squanders the country's reserves of "soft power" while
its militaristic arsonist-fireman behavior is met with increasing resistance.
The Covid-19 crisis has laid all this bare for everyone to see. Will the U.S., as Todd
predicted, now have to give up its superpower status? Or will it start a big war against
China to divert the attention elsewhere and to prove its presumed superiority?
Posted by b on May 22, 2020 at 17:41 UTC |
Permalink
If Washington lured the Soviet Union into it's demise in Afghanistan, which
left that minor empire in shambles - socially, militarily, economically - it was the nuclear
conflagration at Chernobyl that put the corpse in the ground.....
(Watch the GREAT HBO five-part tragedy on it and you will see that the brutally heroic
response of the Soviets, that saved the Western World at least temporarily, but is the
portrait of self-sacrifice)
What was lost in the Soviets fumbling immediate post-explosion cover-up was the trust of
their Eastern European satellite countries. That doomed that empire. So much military might
was given up in Afghanistan, then on Chernobyl, it was not clear if the Soviets had the
wherewithal to put down the rebellions that spread from Czechoslovakia to East Germany and
beyond.
Covid-19 will do the same to the American Empire.
As its own infrastructure has been laid waste by the COLLASSAL MONEY PIT that is the
Pentagon, its flagrant use of the most valuable energy commodity, oil, to maintain some 4000
bases worldwide, this rickety over-extended upside down version of old Anglo-Dutch trading
empires, will finally collapse.
Loss of trust by the many craven satellites, in America's fractured response, to Covid-19
will put the final nail in its coffin.
The U.S. and its vassals will use every dirty trick in the book even while shooting
themselves in the foot, as they have demonstrated in the past (and presently). Short of
starting a nuclear war, the level of moral turpitude could not be any lower.
That the pro-USA bloc in HK has to complain of supposed violations of the non-binding
aspirational 1984 Joint Declaration shows their position is one of complaint not dialogue.
As early as last May, protesters interviewed by international media were pleading for the
US to enact the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act.
They got their wish last autumn, but now they get the blowback from that decision. The
pro-USA bloc is now openly discussing a new strategy of rising like a phoenix from the ashes
of the temper tantrum they will stage in response. The hysteria meter will rise to 10.
My god, the cringe-inducing arrogance of the Washington regime is something else! Imagine
after Hurricane Maria and the subsequently dismal aid effort that devastated Puerto Rico, the
Chinese issued a statement lambasting the US response and saying "we stand with the people of
Puerto Rico".
The new law only prohibits organized protest movements funded from abroad (Us of north A or
G-Britain, for instance), and not those protests paid for by tax and corruption refugees from
Mainland China-- nor those from Táiwan that adhere to the unity of the Chinese state.
Seems to me that Chinese dominion of HK has long been in the cards. Not sure that the
Chinese moves signal anything more than the obvious: USA/EMPIRE desire to stomp on Chinese
ambitions.
Kissinger laid out the plan in 2014 in his WSJ Op-Ed:
Henry Kissinger on the Assembly of a New World Order . Even though I repeatedly refer
back to Kissinger's Op-Ed, few really seem to 'get it'. USA Deep State are not the complete
idiots that some want to make them seem.
Start a war with China? Not likely any time soon.
USA/EMPIRE have got what it wanted from HK, didn't they? They used HK to antagonize China
and for anti-China propaganda. China's looming "crackdown" on UK will get lots of attention
in the West, as USA economic sanctions on multiple countries are largely ignored and Assange
rots in prison with nary a word from the press.
IMO The real test of USA/Empire is coming soon in the Caribbean. Will USA 'blink' and
allow Iran to deliver gas to Venezuela?
We are dealing with the same group, the descendants of the men who dropped the bombs on
Hiroshima and Nagasaki not to end WWII but to show the USSR and the world that the Western
Empire had the world at its feet.
The idea that this group will not use nuclear weapons again is foolish.
I don't know why people keep using the irrelevant term "cold war" when the US is engaged
in hybrid warfare throughout the globe and there is nothing cold about it.
As Ou Si @ 11 states, other nations have similar laws prohibiting foreign influence through
the use of non-government organisations posing as charities or religious institutions via
embassies and consulates. Moreover as in the case of Russia (I believe, but people can
correct me if I'm wrong), the law that prohibits such activity is based on the equivalent US
law that apply to foreign organisations on US soil.
In the not so distant future, we can expect to see truckloads of US and UK consulate staff
being kicked out of HK and religious and other various "humanitarian" and "cultural"
organisations in HK having to pack their bags and go.
Where they will all relocate though is another worry.
ot but related... vancouver is witnessing a greater number of attacks on asian people at
present... it seems the 'hate china' memo is working itself thru the msm system with these
kinds of results... when i have an article to go with this, i will share...
The US is already at war with China, and will escalate from hybrid/economic war to hot war
eventually because the US believes it has no alternative. Giving up global hegemony and
yielding to the rising power is not perceived as a viable option. Allowing China's rise will
lead to the destruction of the Empire, and America will not allow that without using the best
tools of imperialism it has left, which is its military.
The Chinese need to understand this, and I believe they do understand it, but they need to
accurately grasp how the US will respond to the shooting conflict when it starts. The US will
escalate the violence to stay at least one level more brutal than their adversary. If the
Chinese shoot at and damage an American ship, then the Americans will respond with ten times
the force and sink a Chinese ship. If the Chinese sink an American ship, then the Americans
will (try to) sink every Chinese ship.
The point here is that the Chinese cannot entertain the illusion that they can just give
America a light military slap and the Americans will reconsider their imperialist behavior.
There is precisely 0% chance of that working. When the Chinese do take action it has to be
big and decisive. If the Chinese want any chance of escaping the Thucydides Trap without
all-out war, then they must punch their way out with enough "Shock & Awe™"
to disrupt America's otherwise inevitable escalation.
Keep in mind that the United States will use atomic weapons to defend its hegemony
if allowed to escalate to that level. The only way to prevent that is to leapfrog past all of
the levels of escalation that America is prepared for at the given moment and in the process
stun America into inability to respond. China certainly has the means to accomplish this, but
they cannot be timid about it.
It is still greatly dependent on the West to development and still is a developing
country.
So, yes, the West still has a realistic chance of destroying China and inaugurating a new
cycle of capitalist prosperity.
What happens with the "decoupling"/"Pivot to Asia" is that, in the West, there's
a scatological theory [go to 10th paragraph] - of Keynesian origin - that socialism can
only play "catch up" with capitalism, but never surpass it when a "toyotist phase" of
technological innovation comes (this is obviously based on the USSR's case). This theory
states that, if there's innovation in socialism, it is residual and by accident, and that
only in capitalism is significant technological advancement possible. From this, they posit
that, if China is blocked out of Western IP, it will soon "go back to its place" - which is
probably to Brazil or India level.
If China will be able to get out of the "Toyotist Trap" that destroyed the USSR, only time
will tell. Regardless, decoupling is clearly not working, and China is not showing any signs
so far of slowing down. Hence Trump is now embracing a more direct approach.
As for the USA, I've put my big picture opinion about it some days ago, so I won't repeat
myself. Here, it suffices to say that, yes, I believe the USA can continue to survive as an
empire - even if, worst case scenario, in a "byzantine" form. To its favor, it has: 1) the
third largest world population 2) huge territory, with excellent proportion of high-quality
arable land (35%), that basically guarantees food security indefinitely (for comparison, the
USSR only had 10% of arable land, and of worse quality) 3) two coasts, to the two main Oceans
(Pacific and Atlantic), plus a direct exit to the Arctic (Alaska and, de facto, Greenland and
Canada) 4) excellent, very defensive territory, protected by both oceans (sea-to-sea),
bordered only by two very feeble neighbors (Mexico and Canada) that can be easily absorbed if
the situation asks to 4) still the financial superpower 5) still a robust "real" economy -
specially if compared to the micro-nations of Western Europe and East-Asia 6) a big fucking
Navy, which gives it thalassocratic power.
I don't see the USA losing its territorial integrity anytime soon. There are separatist
movements in places like Texas and, more recently, the Western Coast. Most of them exist only
for fiscal reasons and are not taken seriously by anyone else. The Star-and-Stripes is still
a very strong ideal to the average American, and nobody takes the idea of territory loss for
real. If that happens, though, it would change my equation on the survival of the American
Empire completely.
As for Hong Kong. I watched a video by the chief of the PLA last year (unfortunately, I
watched it on Twitter and don't have the link with me anymore). He was very clear: Hong Kong
does not present an existential threat to China. The greatest existential threat to China
are, by far, Xinjiang and Tibet, followed by Taiwan and the South China Sea. Hong Kong is a
distant fourth place.
Much appreciated article, thanks for that! I know nothing about China and Hong Kong, so I'm
much obliged for your analysis.
Seems really like the thing to do for the Chinese, not to meddle too much in the city's
internal affairs, but make sure that hostile powers can't meddle there either. When those
protests slash riots came up, I was racking my brain about why the Chinese would put up with
any festering US consulate in Hong Kong. Just throw those "diplomats" out on whatever thin
pretext. That's also what Venezuela should have done long ago, and Syria too, back in 2011
when that certified creep Robert Stephen Ford was hopping from couch to couch, inciting civil
war and probably looking to get laid by impressionable Arab guys as well. They could have
saved themselves a lot of trouble by just 'neutralising' Jeff-Man Feltman over in Lebanon,
too, before said Feltman managed to neutralise his host Rafic Hariri.
One problem with your scenario is that the US navy may be over-extended in parts of the
world where all the enemy has to do is to cut off supply lines to battleship groups and then
those ships would be completey helpless. US warships in the Persian Gulf with the Strait of
Hormuz sealed off by Iran come to mind.
Incidents involving US naval ship collisions with slow-moving oil tankers in SE Asian
waters and some other parts of of the the world, resulting in the loss of sailors, hardly
instill the notion that the US is a mighty thalassocratic force.
It's my understanding also that Russia, China and maybe some other countries have invested
hugely in long-range missiles capable of hitting US coastal cities and areas where the bulk
of the US population lives.
And if long-range missiles don't put paid to the notion that projecting power through
sending naval warships all over the planet works, maybe the fact that many of these ships are
sitting ducks for COVID-19 infection clusters might, where the US public is concerned.
I agree the new anti-ship missile technology may have changed the rules of naval
warfare.
However, it's important to highlight that, contrary to the US Army, the USN has a stellar
record. It fought wonderfully against the Japanese Empire in 1941-1945, and successfully
converted both the Pacific and the Atlantic into "American lakes" for the next 75 years. All
the Americans have nowadays it owes its Navy.
But you may be right. Maybe the USN is also susceptible to degeneration.
The US Navy has had some pretty serious lapses in the past decade, the multiple collisions
with cargo ships and the failed Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) design. Putting aside the unproven
allegations that the Chinese or the Russians somehow "spooled" the GPS of the ships to cause
the collisions the fact the US ships didn't have lookouts posted means they either got lazy
or they are so understaffed they cut vital roles they felted were better off being automated.
Also, I seem to recall that the US navy reduced their offshore training program for their
officers a few years ago (meaning their newest officers are learning on the fly at sea). So
i'm not sure if they've avoided the problems of a bloated military
Of the existing 30 or so high-tech productive chains, China only enjoys superiority
at 2 or 3 (see 6:48). It is still greatly dependent on the West to development and still is
a developing country.
Based on what I've read, China is on a fast track to develop technology on their own. In
addition, technology development is world-wide these days. What China can not develop itself
- quickly enough, time is the only real problem - it can buy with its economic power.
"if China is blocked out of Western IP, it will soon "go back to its place" -
which is probably to Brazil or India level."
Ah, but that's where hackers come in. China can *not* be blocked out of Western IP. First,
as I said, China can *buy* it. Unless there is a general prohibition across the entire
Western world, and by extension sanctions against any other nation from selling to China -
which is an unenforceable policy, as Iran has shown - China can buy what it doesn't have and
then reverse-engineer it. Russia will sell it if no one else will.
Second, China can continue to simply acquire technology through industrial espionage.
Every country and every industry engages in this sort of thing. Ever watch the movie
"Duplicity"? That shit actually happens. I read about industrial espionage years ago and it's
only gotten fancier since the old days of paper files. I would be happy to breach any US or
EU industrial sector and sell what I find to the Chinese, the Malaysians or anyone else
interested. It's called "leveling the playing field" and that is advantageous for everyone.
If the US industrial sector employees can't keep up, that's their problem. No one is
guaranteed a job for life - and shouldn't be.
"1) the third largest world population"
Which is mostly engaged in unproductive activities like finance, law, etc. I've read that
if you visit the main US universities teaching science and technology, who are the students?
Chinese. Indians. Not Americans. Americans only want to "make money" in law and finance, not
"make things."
"2) huge territory, with excellent proportion of high-quality arable land (35%), that
basically guarantees food security indefinitely"
In military terms, given current military technology, territory doesn't matter. China has
enough nuclear missiles to destroy the 50 Major Metropolitan Areas in this country. Losing
100-200 millions citizens kinda puts a damper on US productivity. Losing the same number in
China merely means more for the rest.
"3) two coasts, to the two main Oceans (Pacific and Atlantic)"
Which submarines can make irrelevant. Good for economic matters - *if* your economy can
continue competing. China has one coast - but its Belt and Road Initiative gives it economic
clout on the back-end and the front-end. I don't see the US successfully countering that
Initiative.
"4) excellent, very defensive territory, protected by both oceans (sea-to-sea)"
Which only means the US can't be "invaded". That's WWI and WWII thinking the US is mired
in. Today, you destroy an opponent's military and, if necessary, his civilian population, or
at least its ability to "project" force against you. You don't "invade" unless it's some weak
Third World country. And if the US can't "project" its power via its navy or air force,
having a lot of territory doesn't mean much. This is where Russia is right now. Very
defensible but limited in force projection (but getting better fast.) The problem for the US
is China and Russia are developing military technology that can prevent US force projection
around *their* borders.
"bordered only by two very feeble neighbors (Mexico and Canada) that can be easily
absorbed if the situation asks"
LOL I can just see the US "absorbing" Mexico. Canada, maybe - they're allies anyway.
Mexico, not so much. You want a "quagmire", send the US troops to take on the Mexican drug
gangs. They aren't Pancho Villa.
"4) still the financial superpower"
Uhm, what part of "Depression" did you miss? And even if that doesn't happen now,
continued financial success is unlikely. Like pandemics, shit happens in economics and
monetary policy.
"a big fucking Navy, which gives it thalassocratic power."
That can be sunk in a heartbeat and is virtually a colossal money pit with limited
strategic value given current military technology which both China and Russia are as advanced
as the US is, if not more so. Plus China is developing its own navy quickly. I read somewhere
a description of one Chinese naval shipyard. There were several advanced destroyers being
developed. Then the article noted that China has several more large shipyards. That Chinese
long coast comes in handy for that sort of thing.
China Now Has More Warships Than the U.S.
But sometimes quantity doesn't trump quality. [My note: But sometimes it does.] https://tinyurl.com/y7numhef
That's just the first article I found, from a crappy source. There are better analyses, of
course.
"I don't see the USA losing its territorial integrity anytime soon. There are separatist
movements in places like Texas and, more recently, the Western Coast. Most of them exist only
for fiscal reasons and are not taken seriously by anyone else."
I'd agree with that. I hear this "California secession" crap periodically and never
believe it. However, for state politicians, the notion of being "President" of your own
country versus a "Governor" probably is tempting to these morons. State populations are
frequently idiots as well, as the current lockdown response is demonstrating. All in all,
though, if there are perceived external military threats, that is likely to make the states
prefer to remain under US central control.
I've long since concluded, there is no president who can withdraw the US from the Forever
Wars. Obama couldn't. Trump can't. Biden/Harris/Oprah/Gabbard/Pence won't.
There are a half-dozen permanent US policies that Americans don't get to vote on, and the
Permawar is one of them.
My God, Buchanan, I am staggered by the arrogance of this column. Where in the name of all
that's holy did you ever get the idea that America has the right to impose on anyone, from
Afghans through to Venezuelans, your (perceived) systems of thought, values and democracy?
How many American soldiers in Iraq or Afghanistan can even speak the local language?
Understand the local customs? None!!! They swan around in their sunglasses and battle gear
thinking that they are they return of the Terminator and wander why the locals absolutely
hate their collective guts! It's time that you collectively learned that America is NOT the
world's sheriff and that, as Benjamin Franklin said "A man convinced against his will, is of
the same opinion still".
Pat is not entirely wrong -- he hints at the explanation for failure:
"As imperialists, we Americans are conspicuous failures.
Moreover, with us, the national interest inevitably asserts itself."
As Imperialists there has never been anything but the (Elite) "national interest".
In short, these so called "losing" wars have been wars of aggression -- ie "bad" wars.
All Pat's talk of conversion, democracy etc is just so much nonsense.
"While we can defeat our enemies in the air and on the seas and in cyberspace, we cannot
persuade them to embrace secular democracy and its values any more than we can convert them
to Christianity" although they might be better persuaded to convert to Christianity –
traditional Christianity – than to embrace secular democracy and its "values".
Why would anyone want to embrace homosexuality, transgenderism, rad-feminism, opioids,
prozac, inequality, broken homes, mass shootings, mountainous debt, corrupt media, puppet
politicians & the rest of the filth & perversion that passes for "values" in secular
democracies like America or Western Europe?
Indeed, why would anyone in these decadent countries even want to defend these venal
"values", let alone try to spread them around the world like the Chinese plague?
No, "they are not trying to change us" but maybe they should.
As the British and French ultimately found out it costs more to run an empire than to loot
it. So the long retreat ensues. One would have thought that the Americans might have learned
this from history, but no! After all they were "the exceptional people, they stood taller
than the others and saw further." Errrm, no they didn't. Like their forbears they got bogged
down as well getting into debt which was only bailed out by their insistence that they would
not convert the dollar into gold.
Human nature and stupidity has got a long track-record and it isn't going to end anytime
soon.
The writer, and most commenters' are still under the erroneous belief that AMerica goes to
war in places then AMerica wins or loses or wastes lives or kill children. This is the
saddest part of the Yankee war machine: Americans joining the Army because they think theya
re joining the fight to defend the American Dream.
You-all are corporate gunmonkeys, fighting and killing and burning and bombing, not in the
name of freedom or apple pie, but in the name of Gulf Oil, Goldman Sachs, Citicorp, JPMorgan,
Monsanto, PHBBillington, whatever Devil Rumsfeld calls his sack of shit these days .
America has not won any war anywhere, even their civil war was mostly just clearing the
land for the banks. That is because it is not America at war, she just supplies the cannon
fodder. And cannons. And radiactive scrapmetal to make bullets to mow down women and children
in the name of Investor Confidence.
But then, that is what your Zionist bible tells you to do, isn't it?
I just don't think the US has the immoral fortitude to engage in genocide, so it's
hopeless trying to "win."
If by the US you mean most of the people you may be right. But the people in the US
have no say in the actions of the US government which is controlled by psychopaths.
Afghanistan is hardly even a country as the average American might define one. There's really
nothing to "win"; we only occupy. The infrastructure is primitive so it's not cost effective
to try to take whatever natural resources they may have, if any, so there's nothing they have
that we want. The Taliban were not "ousted". In the face of massive firepower they split up
and scattered; they're still there. After all, the US has been negotiating with them for a
peace deal of some sort hasn't it? "Democracy crusades" is just a propaganda fig leaf to
bamboozle stupid Americans. It's amazing that there's people who actually believe stuff like
that but PT Barnum had it right. "Eventually, we give up and go home". That's because they
live there and we don't. "They apparently have an inexhaustible supply of volunteers" willing
to fight and die. They don't want foreign robo-soldiers pointing guns at them in their own
country. We have our own version, it's called "Remember the Alamo", men who stood their
ground against the odds.
If a country is not willing to do that, and I would hope the United States is not
willing to do that, then they (we) should go home and leave the Afghans to murder each
other without our assistance. If they return to supporting terrorism or go whole hog in
producing opium, perhaps the US should decapitate their entire government and let the next
batch of losers give governing a try. I just don't think the US has the immoral fortitude
to engage in genocide, so it's hopeless trying to "win."
The growth in opium cultivation correlates with CIA activities in the area and the $3
billion from American taxpayers which financed Mujahideen 'terrorism' against the Russians
and their local proxies just to avenge the fall of Saigon.
In 1980 Afghanistan accounted for about only 5% of total world heroin production. This was
mainly for the local market and neighbor Iran.
They refuse to surrender and submit because it is their beliefs, their values, their
faith, their traditions, their tribe, their God, their culture, their civilization, their
honor that they believe they are fighting for in what is, after all, their land, not
ours.
If I may..
another way of looking at this, and I feel a profound respect for the Afghans, and only
wish we were made of the same mettle. If only ((they)) could say of us..
They refuse to surrender and submit because it is their beliefs, their values, their
faith, their traditions, their tribe, their God, their culture, their civilization, their
honor that they believe they are fighting for in what is, after all, their land, not
(((ours)))).
They are not trying to change ((((us. We))) are trying to change them. And they wish to
remain who they are.
IOW, we white Westerners, have proved willing to surrender and submit to all of it.
Without nary a peep of protest. Even as ((they)) send us around the globe to kill people like
these Afghans, for being slightly inconvenient to their agenda. [And so the CIA can
reconstitute its global heroin trafficking operation$.]
If only history would look back on this epic moment, at the last Death throes of the West,
and say of whitey, that he refused to surrender his values and faith and traditions and tribe
and God, and culture and civilization and honor.. to ((those)) who would pervert his values,
and mock his faith, and trash his traditions, and exterminate his tribe, while mocking his
God, and poisoning his culture, and destroying his civilization and all because at the end of
the day, he had no honor.
These men may be backwater, illiterate villagers,
but at least they have enough mettle and honor, to tell the Beast that they would rather
die killing as many of the Beast's stupid goons as they're able, than ever sacrifice their
sacred honor- or lands or sovereignty, or the destinies of their children – over to the
fiend, which is more than I can say for Western "man".
They are not trying to change us. We are trying to change them. And they wish to remain
who they are.
Would that the Swedish people had a Nano-shred of the blood-honor of an Afghan, Barbara
Spectre would be pounding sand.
Historically, the Afghans are fundamentalist, tribal and impervious to foreign
intervention.
Obviously, there is a great deal we need to learn from them.
What will the Taliban do when we leave?
They will not give up their dream of again ruling the Afghan nation and people. And they
will fight until they have achieved that goal and their idea of victory: dominance.
Um.. Pat. Whose land is it anyways? Is it such a horror that Afghans should be
dominant in Afghanistan ?
The Taliban was welcomed into most of the regions it governed, because they drove out
local war lords who often treated the villager's children as their sex toys, and the foreign
(CIA) opioid growers and traffickers. And it was the Taliban that put an end to all of that.
They're harsh, but they're effective, and that is their land, not ours.
Also, the Taliban offered to turn over Osama Bin Laden, if the West could provide a shred
of proof that he had anything whatsoever to do with 9/11. (he didn't ; ) But the West had
zero proof, (as the FBI admits to this day), that they have zero proof that ties Bin Laden to
9/11.
And n0w that we all know 9/11 was an Israeli false flag, intended to use the American
military as their bitch, to burn down 'seven nations in five years' .. that the Jewish
supremacists wanted destroyed, our whole pretext for being over there has been a sham from
day one. Duh.
.
.
.
.
I remember long ago when I had a subscription to National Geographic and this photo came out,
I cut the picture out, and stuck it somewhere to look at- it was so visceral and
haunting.
Leave them alone. I don't care how many Jews at the WSJ demand whitey has to stay and die
for Israel. (Afghanistan is on Iran's border, and that's why we have to stay, to menace all
those anti-Semites over there, trying to gas all the Jews and make soap).
@paranoid
goy I very much doubt if many are joining the military to "defend the American Dream."
Most are more practical and are joining to escape poverty, even if it might cost them their
lives. Recruiters will now be inundated with volunteers since there are no jobs in the covid
depression.
If the neo-con clown car Trump has permitted to run foreign policy since his election gets us
into a war with Iran and/or Venezuela before November, will Pat still be stumping for him, or
will we see the return of non-election-year Pat?
Excellent question Pat! Unfortunately there is no answer, we've been at "forever war"
seemingly forever, and the whole point as Eisenhower so preciently warned us is THE
objective.
The thing is that the Afghan government wasn't supporting terrorism. Rather, it had no
on-going control anywhere except the cities, which made the tribal areas useful hideouts /
bases for a raft of groups.
I well remember the prelude to the invasion where the US was demanding that its government
(which merely happened to be Taliban that year) hand over OBL in 72hrs. The truth was that
the US knew Afghanistan didn't have the capability to do that and it merely wanted to use OBL
as an excuse to invade and continue the encirclement of the old soviet states.
What has always been fascinating to me is the irony of the mindset HK protestors. They
have legit grievances about economic injustices but due to their media (which is just an
extension of British tabloid conspiracy sites like the Mirror and Sun or neocon Bri rags like
the Economist), they wrongly attribute blame to Beijing when they ought to their former
British masters.
When they left, they forced China to guarantee that the oligarchs in HK would continue to
have full control over land and banking interests. These corrupt servants of the British have
continued to jack up housing prices and made it nearly impossible for many to live a
comfortable life.
HK has more land than Singapore but the later made it illegal to price gauge rent and made
other protections against predatory oligarchs.
Now Singaporeans have very high home ownership and affordable housing while HKers must
live like rats.
Due to their colonial brainwashing, the HKers have come to see anti-China conspiracy
theories everywhere when their own oligarchs continue to steal from them. Had it not been for
the British who forced Beijing into these pro-oligarch deals to ensure handover, Beijing
would have done the same for HK what the Singaporean gov did for their population.
How can supporting the independence of Taiwan, or being anti-Communist be racist?
Anyone with first hand knowledge of Hong Kong understands that many Hong Kong Chinese
despise "mainlanders" as a people. Their antipathy is to the culture, manners, values and
economic power of mainland Chinese. It is not a principled objection to communist ideology or
concern for their neighbours in Taiwan.
This should not be taken as a criticism of Hong Kongers. It is just a factual observation.
Chinese people in general appear unconcerned by the concept of racism. In my experience, Hong
Kongers in particular have no qualms about criticising other races and cultures, and
certainly don't see it as immoral. Personally, I don't particularly mind this.
Here's a little story from my teen years in the '90s that taught me everything I needed to
know about the mentality of Hong Kongers. When my father's provincial university opened a
satellite campus in a wealthy area of my country's largest city, I found myself at a high
school with many recent East Asian migrants. Not many Mainlanders yet, mostly Sth Koreans and
HK/Taiwan/Singapore Chinese. The HKers tended to be more arrogant than their fellow East
Asians, seeing themselves as superior and more 'Western'.
One HK guy decided to differentiate himself by referring to the other East Asians as
'Gooks'. One day in class my quiet Korean friend gave the teacher a note and said in halting
English "I need to go see ... orthodontist". On hearing this, our HKer immediately yelled "Is
'dentist' ... not 'dontist' you stupid GOOK!", provoking roars of laughter. Once he realised
we were laughing at him, not with him, that was the beginning of the end for his 'Gook'
experiment.
"... Democrats, early in Trump's presidency, saw clearly that the CIA had become one of Trump's most devoted enemies, and thus began viewing them as a valuable ally. Leading out-of-power Democratic foreign policy elites from the Obama administration and Clinton campaign joined forces not only with Bush/Cheney neocons but also former CIA officials to create new foreign policy advocacy groups designed to malign and undermine Trump and promote hawkish confrontation with nuclear-armed Russia. Meanwhile, other ex-CIA and Homeland Security officials, such as John Brennan and James Clapper, became beloved liberal celebrities by being hired by MSNBC and CNN to deliver liberal-pleasing anti-Trump messaging that, on a virtually daily basis, masqueraded as news . ..."
In his extraordinary election-advocating op-ed, Hayden, Bush/Cheney's CIA chief, candidly
explained the reasons for the CIA's antipathy for Trump: namely, the GOP candidate's stated
opposition to allowing CIA regime change efforts in Syria to expand as well as his opposition
to arming Ukrainians with lethal weapons to fight Russia (supposedly "pro-Putin" positions
which, we are now all
supposed to forget,
Obama largely
shared ). As has been true since President Harry Truman's creation of the CIA after World
War II, interfering in other countries and dictating or changing their governments -- through
campaigns of mass murder, military coups, arming guerrilla groups, the abolition of democracy,
systemic disinformation, and the imposition of savage despots -- is regarded as a divine right,
inherent to American exceptionalism. Anyone who questions that or, worse, opposes it and seeks
to impede it (as the CIA perceived Trump was) is of suspect loyalties at best.
The CIA's antipathy toward Trump continued after his election victory. The agency became the
primary vector for anonymous illegal leaks designed to depict Trump as a Kremlin agent
and/or blackmail victim. It worked to ensure the leak of the Steele dossier that clouded at
least the first two years of Trump's presidency. It drove the scam Russiagate conspiracy
theories. And before Trump was even inaugurated, open warfare erupted between the
president-elect and the agency to the point where Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck
Schumer explicitly warned Trump on the Rachel Maddow Show that he was risking full-on
subversion of his presidency by the agency:
This turned out to be one of the most prescient and important (and creepy) statements of
the Trump presidency: from Chuck Schumer to Rachel Maddow - in early January, 2017, before
Trump was even inaugurated: pic.twitter.com/TUaYkksILG
Democrats, early in Trump's presidency, saw clearly that the CIA had become one of
Trump's most devoted enemies, and thus began viewing them as a valuable ally. Leading
out-of-power Democratic foreign policy elites from the Obama administration and Clinton
campaign joined forces not only with Bush/Cheney neocons but also former CIA officials to
create new
foreign policy advocacy groups designed to malign and undermine Trump and promote hawkish
confrontation with nuclear-armed Russia. Meanwhile, other ex-CIA and Homeland Security
officials, such as John Brennan and James Clapper, became beloved liberal celebrities by being
hired by MSNBC and CNN to deliver liberal-pleasing anti-Trump messaging that, on a
virtually daily basis, masqueraded as news .
The all-consuming Russiagate narrative that dominated the first three years of Trump's
presidency further served to elevate the CIA as a noble and admirable institution while
whitewashing its grotesque history. Liberal conventional wisdom held that Russian Facebook ads,
Twitter bots and the hacking and release of authentic, incriminating
DNC emails was some sort of unprecedented, off-the-charts, out-of-the-ordinary
crime-of-the-century attack, with several leading Democrats (including Hillary Clinton)
actually
comparing it to 9/11 and Pearl Harbor . The level of historical ignorance and/or jingostic
American exceptionalism necessary to believe this is impossible to describe. Compared to what
the CIA has done to dozens of other countries since the end of World War II, and what it
continues to do , watching Americans cast Russian interference in the 2016 election through
online bots and email hacking (even if one believes every claim made about it) as some sort of
unique and unprecedented crime against democracy is staggering. Set against what the CIA has
done and continues to do to "interfere" in the domestic affairs of other countries --
including Russia -- the 2016
election was, at most, par for the course for international affairs and, more accurately, a
trivial and ordinary act in the context of CIA interference. This propaganda was sustainable
because the recent history and the current function of the CIA has largely been
suppressed. Thankfully, a just-released book by journalist Vincent Bevins -- who
spent years as a foreign correspondent covering two countries still marred by brutal
CIA interference: Brazil for the Los Angeles Times and Indonesia for the Washington Post --
provides one of the best, most informative and most illuminating histories yet of this agency
and the way it has shaped the actual, rather than the propagandistic, U.S. role in the
world.
Entitled "The Jakarta Method: Washington's Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program
that Shaped Our World," the book primarily documents the indescribably horrific campaigns of
mass murder and genocide the CIA sponsored in Indonesia as an instrument for destroying a
nonaligned movement of nations who would be loyal to neither Washington nor Moscow. Critically,
Bevins documents how the chilling success of that morally grotesque campaign led to its being
barely discussed in U.S. discourse, but then also serving as the foundation and model for
clandestine CIA interference campaigns in multiple other countries from Guatemala, Chile, and
Brazil to the Philippines, Vietnam, and Central America: the Jakarta Method.
Our newest episode of SYSTEM UPDATE, which debuts today at 2:00 p.m. on The Intercept's YouTube channel , is
devoted to a discussion of why this history is so vital: not just for understanding the current
international political order but also for distinguishing between fact and fiction in our
contemporary political discourse. In addition to my own observations on this topic, I speak to
Bevins about his book, about what the CIA really is and how it has shaped the world we still
inhabit, and why a genuine understanding of both international and domestic politics is
impossible without a clear grasp on this story.
"... A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm ..."
"... "the right to plunder anything one can get their hands on" ..."
"... "the UK and France in March 2011 which led the international community to support an intervention in Libya to protect civilians from forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi" ..."
n 1996 a task force, led by Richard Perle, produced a policy document titled A Clean
Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm for Benjamin Netanyahu, who was then in his
first term as Prime Minister of Israel, as a how-to manual on approaching regime change in the
Middle East and for the destruction of the Oslo Accords.
The "Clean Break" policy document outlined these goals:
Ending Yasser Arafat's and the
Palestinian Authority's political influence, by blaming them for acts of Palestinian terrorism
Inducing the United States to overthrow Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq. Launching war against
Syria after Saddam's regime is disposed of. Followed by military action against Iran, Saudi
Arabia, and Egypt.
"Clean Break" was also in direct opposition to the Oslo Accords, to which Netanyahu was very
much itching to obliterate. The Oslo II Accord was signed just the year before, on September
28th 1995, in Taba, Egypt.
During the Oslo Accord peace process, Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu accused Rabin's
government of being "removed from Jewish tradition and Jewish values." Rallies organised by the
Likud and other right-wing fundamentalist groups featured depictions of Rabin in a Nazi SS
uniform or in the crosshairs of a gun.
In July 1995, Netanyahu went so far as to lead a mock funeral procession for Rabin,
featuring a coffin and hangman's noose.
The Oslo Accords was the initiation of a process which was to lead to a peace treaty based
on the United Nations Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338, and at fulfilling the "right of
the Palestinian people to self-determination." If such a peace treaty were to occur, with the
United States backing, it would have prevented much of the mayhem that has occurred since.
However, the central person to ensuring this process, Yitzak Rabin, was assassinated just a
month and a half after the signing of the Oslo II Accord, on November 4th, 1995. Netanyahu
became prime minister of Israel seven months later. "Clean Break" was produced the following
year.
On November 6th, 2000 in the Israeli daily Ha'aretz, Israeli Justice Minister Yossi Beilin,
who was the chief negotiator of the Oslo peace accords, warned those Israelis who argued that
it was impossible to make peace with the Palestinians:
Zionism was founded in order to save Jews from persecution and anti-Semitism, and not in
order to offer them a Jewish Sparta or – God forbid – a new Massada."
On Oct. 5, 2003, for the first time in 30 years, Israel launched bombing raids against
Syria, targeting a purported "Palestinian terrorist camp" inside Syrian territory. Washington
stood by and did nothing to prevent further escalation.
"Clean Break" was officially launched in March 2003 with the war against Iraq, under the
pretence of "The War on Terror". The real agenda was a western-backed list of regime changes in
the Middle East to fit the plans of the United Kingdom, the U.S. and Israel.
However, the affair is much more complicated than that with each player holding their own
"idea" of what the "plan" is. Before we can fully appreciate such a scope, we must first
understand what was Sykes-Picot and how did it shape today's world mayhem.
Arabian
Nights
WWI was to officially start July 28th 1914, almost immediately following the Balkan wars
(1912-1913) which had greatly weakened the Ottoman Empire.
Never one to miss an opportunity when smelling fresh blood, the British were very keen on
acquiring what they saw as strategic territories for the taking under the justification of
being in war-time, which in the language of geopolitics translates to "the right to plunder
anything one can get their hands on" .
The brilliance of Britain's plan to garner these new territories was not to fight the
Ottoman Empire directly but rather, to invoke an internal rebellion from within. These Arab
territories would be encouraged by Britain to rebel for their independence from the Ottoman
Empire and that Britain would support them in this cause.
These Arab territories were thus led to believe that they were fighting for their own
freedom when, in fact, they were fighting for British and secondarily French colonial
interests.
In order for all Arab leaders to sign on to the idea of rebelling against the Ottoman
Sultan, there needed to be a viable leader that was Arab, for they certainly would not agree to
rebel at the behest of Britain.
Lord Kitchener, the butcher of Sudan, was to be at the helm of this operation as Britain's
Minister of War. Kitchener's choice for Arab leadership was the scion of the Hashemite dynasty,
Hussein ibn Ali, known as the Sherif of Mecca who ruled the region of Hejaz under the Ottoman
Sultan.
Hardinge of the British India Office disagreed with this choice and wanted Wahhabite
Abdul-Aziz ibn Saud instead, however, Lord Kitchener overruled this stating that their
intelligence revealed that more Arabs would follow Hussein.
Since the Young Turk Revolution which seized power of the Ottoman government in 1908,
Hussein was very aware that his dynasty was in no way guaranteed and thus he was open to
Britain's invitation to crown him King of the Arab kingdom.
Kitchener wrote to one of Hussein's sons, Abdallah, as reassurance of Britain's support:
If the Arab nation assist England in this war that has been forced upon us by Turkey,
England will guarantee that no internal intervention take place in Arabia, and will give
Arabs every assistance against foreign aggression."
Sir Henry McMahon who was the British High Commissioner to Egypt, would have several
correspondences with Sherif Hussein between July 1915 to March 1916 to convince Hussein to
lead the rebellion for the "independence" of the Arab states.
However, in a private letter to India's Viceroy Charles Hardinge sent on December 4th, 1915,
McMahon expressed a rather different view of what the future of Arabia would be, contrary to
what he had led Sherif Hussein to believe:
[I do not take] the idea of a future strong united independent Arab State too seriously
the conditions of Arabia do not and will not for a very long time to come, lend themselves to
such a thing."
Such a view meant that Arabia would be subject to Britain's heavy-handed "advising" in all
its affairs, whether it sought it or not.
In the meantime, Sherif Hussein was receiving dispatches issued by the British Cairo office
to the effect that the Arabs of Palestine, Syria, and Mesopotamia (Iraq) would be given
independence guaranteed by Britain, if they rose up against the Ottoman Empire.
The French were understandably suspicious of Britain's plans for these Arab territories. The
French viewed Palestine, Lebanon and Syria as intrinsically belonging to France, based on
French conquests during the Crusades and their "protection" of the Catholic populations in the
region.
Hussein was adamant that Beirut and Aleppo were to be given independence and completely
rejected French presence in Arabia. Britain was also not content to give the French all the
concessions they demanded as their "intrinsic" colonial rights.
Enter Sykes and Picot.
... ... ...
Throughout the 1920s and 1930s violent confrontations between Jews and Arabs took place in
Palestine costing hundreds of lives. In 1936 a major Arab revolt occurred over 7 months, until
diplomatic efforts involving other Arab countries led to a ceasefire.
In 1937, a British Royal Commission of Inquiry headed by William Peel concluded that
Palestine had two distinct societies with irreconcilable political demands, thus making it
necessary to partition the land.
The Arab Higher Committee refused Peel's "prescription" and the revolt broke out again. This
time, Britain responded with a devastatingly heavy hand. Roughly 5,000 Arabs were killed by the
British armed forces and police. Following the riots, the British mandate government dissolved
the Arab Higher Committee and declared it an illegal body.
In response to the revolt, the British government issued the White Paper of 1939, which
stated that Palestine should be a bi-national state, inhabited by both Arabs and Jews.
Due to the international unpopularity of the mandate including within Britain itself, it was
organised such that the United Nations would take responsibility for the British initiative and
adopted the resolution to partition Palestine on November 29th, 1947.
Britain would announce its termination of its Mandate for Palestine on May 15th, 1948 after
the State of Israel declared its independence on May 14th, 1948.
A New Strategy for
Securing Whose Realm?
Despite what its title would have you believe, "Clean Break" is neither a "new strategy" nor
meant for "securing" anything. It is also not the brainchild of fanatical neo-conservatives:
Dick Cheney and Richard Perle, nor even that of crazed end-of-days fundamentalist Benjamin
Netanyahu, but rather has the very distinct and lingering odour of the British Empire.
"Clean Break" is a continuation of Britain's geopolitical game, and just as it used France
during the Sykes-Picot days it is using the United States and Israel.
The role Israel has found itself playing in the Middle East could not exist if it were not
for over 30 years of direct British occupation in Palestine and its direct responsibility for
the construction of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which set a course for destruction and
endless war in this region long before Israel ever existed.
It was also Britain who officially launched operation "Clean Break" by directly and
fraudulently instigating an illegal war against Iraq to which the
Chilcot Inquiry, aka Iraq Inquiry , released 7 years later, attests to.
This was done by the dubious
reporting by British Intelligence setting the pretext for the U.S.' ultimate invasion into
Iraq based off of fraudulent and forged evidence provided by GCHQ, unleashing the "War on
Terror", aka "Clean Break" outline for regime change in the Middle East.
In addition, the Libyan invasion in 2011 was also found to be unlawfully instigated by
Britain.
In a report
published by the British Foreign Affairs Committee in September 2016, it was concluded that
it was "the UK and France in March 2011 which led the international community to support an
intervention in Libya to protect civilians from forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi" .
The report concluded that the Libyan intervention was based on false pretence provided by
British Intelligence and recklessly promoted by the British government.
If this were not enough, British Intelligence has also been caught behind the orchestrations
of
Russia-Gate and the Skripal affair .
Therefore, though the U.S. and Israeli military have done a good job at stealing the show,
and though they certainly believe themselves to be the head of the show, the reality is that
this age of empire is distinctly British and anyone who plays into this game will ultimately be
playing for said interests, whether they are aware of it or not.
Zionism was founded in order to save Jews from persecution and anti-Semitism
Ever heard of Dumbo? He's a flying elephant.
The crusade in the ME will continue, with Israel the top dog until America's military
support is no longer there. Even without the Israeli eastern european invaders, the area is
primed for perpetual tribal warfare because the masses are driven by tribalist doctrines and
warped metaphysics dictated by insane and inhumane parasites (priests). It is the epicenter
of a spiritual plague that has infected most of the planet.
paul ,
There is complete continuity between the activities of Zionist controlled western countries
and those of the present day.
In the 1930s, there were about 300,000 adult Palestinian males. Over 10% were killed,
imprisoned and tortured or driven into exile. 100,000 British troops were sent to Palestine
to destroy completely Palestinian political and military organisations. Wingate set up the
Jew terror gangs who were given free rein to murder, rape and burn, in preparation for the
complete ethnic cleansing of the country.
We see the same ruthless, genocidal brutality on an even greater scale in the present day,
serving exactly the same interests. Nothing has ever come of trying to negotiate with the
Zionists and their western stooges – just further disasters. It is only resolute and
uncompromising resistance that has ever achieved anything. Hezbollah kicking their Zionist
arses out of Lebanon in 2000 and keeping them out in 2006. Had they not done so, Lebanon
would still be under Zionist occupation and covered with their filthy illegal
settlements.
They have never stopped and they never will. The objective is to create a vast Zionist
empire comprising the whole of Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, and parts of Egypt,
Turkey, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia. This plan has never changed and it never will. The Zionist
thieves will shortly steal what little is left of Palestine. But the thieving will not end
there. It will just move on to neighbouring countries.
The prime reason they have been able to get away with this is not their control of British
and US golems. It is by playing the old, dirty colonial games of divide and rule, with the
Quisling stooge dictators serving their interests. They have always been able to set Sunni
against Shia, and different factions against others. The dumb Arabs fall for it every time.
Their latest intrigues are directed at the destruction of Iran, the next victim on their
target list after Iraq, Libya and Syria. And the Quisling dictators of Saudi Arabia are
openly agitating for this and offering to pay for all of it. Syria sent troops to join the US
invasion of Iraq in 1991, though Iraqi troops fought and died in Syria in 1973 against
Israel. Egypt allows Israel to use its airspace to carry out the genocidal terror bombing of
Gaza.
All this is contemptible enough and fits into racist stereotypes of Arabs as stupid,
irrational, corrupt, easily bought, violent and treacherous. This of course does not apply to
the populations of those countries, but it is a legitimate assessment of their Quisling
dictators, with a (very) few honourable exceptions.
Seamus Padraig ,
Of course, Arab rulers who don't tow the Zionist line generally get overthrown,
don't they? And that usually requires the efforts/intervention of FUKUS, doesn't it? So you
can't really pretend that 'Arab stupidity' is the main factor.
Richard Le Sarc ,
The fact that, as the Yesha Council of Rabbis and Torah Sages declared in 2006, as Israel was
bombing Lebanon 'back to the Stone Age', under Talmudic Judaism, killing civilians is not
just permissible, but a mitzvah, or good deed, explains Zionist behaviour. Other doctrines
allow an entire 'city' eg Gaza, to be devastated for the 'crimes' of a few, and children,
even babies, to be killed if they would grow up to 'oppose the Jews'. Dare mention these
FACTS, seen everyday in Israeli barbarity, and the 'antisemitism' slurs flow, as ever.
Julia ,
" is that this age of empire is distinctly British"
.it takes some balls to make such an absurd statement and still expect to be taken
seriously. The US of course with its 800 military bases around the world and gifts of 40
billion a year to Israel has no opinion on the future of the Middle East. You would have us
believe that they are just humble onlookers, as a small bankrupt country tells them what to
do. We are being told that the CIA, the most formidable spy agency and manipulator of
countries in history, sits quietly by as the British and Israel tells the US what to do.
Absurd isn't it., Clearly the truth is that Israel is just another military base for the US
in the Middle East, easily the most important geopolitical region in the world. They fund it,
arm it, and protect it from all attacks, Israel does as it is told by the US for the most
part despite the pantomime on the surface.
Many on the far right like to hide US interests behind a wall of antisemitism that likes to
paint 'the jews' as an all powerful enemy but this is just cover for Israel's real
geopolitical roll as a US puppet.
Time and time again all we are seeing is attempt to write the US, the largest empire in the
history out of the news and out of the history books, like it is some invisible benign force
that has not interests, no control and does noting to forward it's interests and it's
empire.
''To find out who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to
criticise."
I don't know about you, but I'm not 10 years old and I know I am looking at Empire and
it's power being flexed every day in every part do the world, especial in the parts of the
world that it funds with trillions of dollars.
Julia ,
" is that this age of empire is distinctly British"
.it takes some balls to make such an absurd statement and still expect to be taken
seriously. The US of course with its 800 military bases around the world and gifts of 40
billion a year to Israel has no opinion on the future of the Middle East. You would have us
believe that they are just humble onlookers, as a small bankrupt country tells them what to
do. We are being told that the CIA, the most formidable spy agency and manipulator of
countries in history, sits quietly by as the British and Israel tells the US what to do.
Absurd isn't it., Clearly the truth is that Israel is just another military base for the US
in the Middle East, easily the most important geopolitical region in the world. They fund it,
arm it, and protect it from all attacks, Israel does as it is told by the US for the most
part despite the pantomime on the surface.
Many on the far right like to hide US interests behind a wall of antisemitism that likes to
paint 'the jews' as an all powerful enemy but this is just cover for Israel's real
geopolitical roll as a US puppet.
Time and time again all we are seeing is attempt to write the US, the largest empire in the
history out of the news and out of the history books, like it is some invisible benign force
that has not interests, no control and does noting to forward it's interests and it's
empire.
''To find out who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to
criticise."
I don't know about you, but I'm not 10 years old and I know I am looking at Empire and
it's power being flexed every day in every part do the world, especial in the parts of the
world that it funds with trillions of dollars.
Richard Le Sarc ,
The antithesis of the truth. It is US politicians who flock to AIPAC's meeting every year to
pledge UNDYING fealty to Israel, not Israeli politicians pledging loyalty to the USA. It is
Israeli and dual loyalty Jewish oligarchs funding BOTH US parties, it is US politicians
throwing themselves to the ground in adulation when Bibi the war criminal addresses the
Congress with undisguised contempt, not Israeli politicians groveling to the USA. The
master-servant relationship is undisguised.
Pyewacket ,
In Daniel Yergin's The Prize, a history of the Oil industry, he provides another interesting
angle to explain British interest in the region. He states that at that time, Churchill
realised that a fighting Navy powered by Coal, was not nearly as good or efficient as one
using Oil as a fuel, and that securing supplies of the stuff was the best way forward to
protect the Empire.
BigB ,
Yergin would be right. The precursor of the First World War was a technological arms race and
accelerated 'scientific' perfection of arsenals – particularly naval – in the
service of imperialism. British and German imperialism. The full story involves the Berlin to
Cairo railway and the resource grab that went with it. I'm a bit sketchy on the details now:
but Churchill had a prominent role, rising to First Lord of the Admiralty.
Docherty and Macgregor have exposed the hidden history. F W Engdahl has written about WW1
being the first oil war.
In 1996 a task force, led by Richard Perle, produced a policy document titled A Clean
Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm for Benjamin Netanyahu
No source link for this!
By the way 1996 was during the Clinton administration. Warren Christopher was secretary of
state and John Deutch was the Director of Central Intelligence . George Tenet was appointed
the Deputy Director of Central Intelligence in July 1995. After John Deutch's abrupt
resignation in December 1996, Tenet served as acting director.
Antsie, what are you going to deny next? The USS Liberty? Deir Yassin? The Lavon Affair?
Sabra, Shatilla? Qana (twice)? The Five Celebrating Israelis on 9/11?Does not impress.
"History," they say, "is written by the winners." But if you want to get at the fundamental
flaw, remove the last three words and you have it: "History is written."
Events cannot be
written, they can only be lived.
Just as a sun in a picture cannot give heat or light. The
problem is that those who live history seldom speak of it, it's much too traumatic for them.
And those who speak voluminously of it most likely did not live it.
kenny gordon ,
Nice comment, Howard.
When my Father [Royal Artillery] was told to stop fighting against my
Father-in-Law [Waffen SS], he was sent off to fight against MOSSAD in Palestine he witnessed
the brutal treatment handed out to the "indigenous people" and was very reluctant to talk
about his experience.. "By way of deception thou shalt do war"..!
Yet another bombshell development emerged Thursday in the case of former National Security
Adviser Gen. Michael Flynn: the release of additional exculpatory evidence FBI officials had
withheld from the courts and the defense for three years.
Crucially, this includes evidence that the Bureau's official "302 report" filed by the lead
agent who interviewed Flynn was edited multiple times, including by an official who never
participated in the interview.
Thursday's revelations come on top of yesterday's disclosures indicating an apparent attempt
by FBI officials to trap Flynn into committing a criminal offense during an interview.
The new revelation could prove even more significant: In addition to the apparently
calculated effort to get Flynn to commit perjury or obstruction, top FBI figures, including FBI
Deputy Assistant Director Peter Strzok and FBI lawyer Lisa Page, repeatedly altered the "302
report" that was filed after the Flynn interview.
That interview was conducted under highly unusual circumstances. Ordinarily, an FBI
interview of a top West Wing official would be requested through the White House Counsel's
office, and would be conducted in the presence of legal counsel representing the official being
interviewed.
That did not occur in the case of the FBI's interview with Flynn, and Comey later stated
that under "a more organized administration" he "probably wouldn't have gotten away with
it."
Initially, when the lead FBI agent handling the case was asked whether Flynn lied during the
interview, he stated that he did not believe so.
But over the coming days Strzok and Page would edit and revise the agent's 302 report
repeatedly, according to a document providing text messages between FBI officials that the
defense counsel finally received this week.
Prosecutors and investigators are required to turn over information that might tend to
indicate a suspect's innocence to the defense counsel prior to trial and sentencing. Most legal
analysts would consider the information withheld from Flynn's legal team potentially
exculpatory.
An inside source familiar with efforts to defend Gen. Flynn tells Newsmax an unadulterated,
original 302 document exists that was created by the lead agent from his notes of the interview
with Flynn.
Jonathan Turley, the George Washington University law professor who testified before the
House during President Trump's impeachment, wrote Thursday the decision to keep the case open
occurred when "Special counsel Robert Mueller decided to bring the dubious charge."
In a column posted on TheHill.com on Thursday, Turley said the case against Flynn should be
dismissed. "Justice demands a dismissal of his prosecution," he wrote.
At the time Flynn was being prosecuted, Mueller was seeking evidence the Trump campaign
colluded with Russia in the 2016 campaign.
Critics say he was prosecuting Flynn to get him to turn state's witness against Trump, but
the general never implicated him.
Mueller eventually determined there was no evidence of a Russian-collusion conspiracy. But
by then Flynn, under intense financial pressure from the prosecution and buckling under the
threat that his son could be drawn into a legal quagmire, had pled guilty to one count of lying
to the FBI.
He has since requested to withdraw that plea, and he is awaiting sentencing.
President Trump weighed in on the controversial case Thursday morning tweeting, "What
happened to General Michael Flynn, a war hero, should never be allowed to happen to a citizen
of the United States again!"
Later the president told reporters he believes Flynn is "in the process of being
exonerated."
Former New York City Police Commissioner Bernie Kerik reacted strongly on Thursday to the
news FBI officials to altered a 302 report and reopened the case when the initial analysis
indicated no crime had been committed.
Kerik told Newsmax Thursday that if evidence or records had been unduly altered under his
watch as police commissioner, he would have referred the matter to the district attorney for
possible prosecution.
"They intentionally went back and doctored the original 302," he said. "That's because they
were not looking for the truth.
"They were looking for a mechanism to trap Gen. Flynn, to prosecute him, to get him fired in
order to go after the president. That was their motive, that was their agenda. It's absolutely
clear at this point they were not looking for the truth."
Kerik added, "This was done at the highest levels of the FBI. At the most senior level of
the FBI, they falsified records, they suppressed evidence.
"This is irresponsible, it's outrageous They used and abused their authority to deprive Gen.
Flynn of his constitutional right to freedom," he said.
According to the source, as supported by text messages also obtained by Newsmax, Stzrok, who
also participated in the Flynn interview, rewrote the 302 extensively -- although a text
message from him stated he tried not to "completely re-write it so as to save [redacted]
voice," presumably a reference to the lead agent who originally wrote it.
Stzrok then shared the document with a "pissed off" Page, who had not participated in the
interview, and who revised it significantly again, according to the Newsmax source.
The objective of the interview was to probe whether Flynn had violated the Logan Act, an
18th-century statute that has never been used in any criminal conviction. The Act makes it a
crime for a U.S. citizens to interfere with the conduct of U.S. foreign policy. Many legal
scholars find the law to be unconstitutional.
The documents received by Newsmax indicate the case had virtually been closed –
suggesting the lead agent was satisfied no crime had been committed -- prior to it being
reopened by the direct intervention of Strzok and Page.
The documents, for example, show the probe of Flynn was about to be put to bed when the lead
agent received a text from Strzok stating, "Hey, if you haven't closed [the case], don't do so
yet."
Apparently, Page was pleasantly surprised to find the matter had not yet been closed.
On Feb. 10, 2017, Page texted Strzok, "This document pisses me off. You didn't even attempt
to make this cogent and readable? This is lazy work on your part."
Strzok replied, "Lisa you didn't see it before my edits that went into what I sent you. I
was 1) trying to completely re-write the thing so as to save [the lead agent's] voice and 2)
get it out to you for general review and comment in anticipation of needing it soon."
Wednesday's revelation included notes of a meeting conducted a short time after the 2016
election between FBI Director James Comey and Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. The notes stated,
"What is our goal? Truth and admission or to get him to lie, so we can prosecute him or get him
fired?"
The notes were written by then-FBI head of counterintelligence Bill Priestap.
It is not. Forces behind Russiagate are intact and still have the same agenda. CrowdStrike
was just a tool. As long as Full Spectrum Dominance dourine is alive, Russiagate will flourish in
one form or another
Notable quotes:
"... The need for a scapegoat to blame for Hillary Clinton's snatching defeat out of the jaws victory also played a role; as did the need for the Military-Industrial-Congressional-Intelligence-Media-Academia-Think-Tank complex (MICIMATT) to keep front and center in the minds of Americans the alleged multifaceted threat coming from an "aggressive" Russia. (Recall that John McCain called the, now disproven , "Russian hacking" of the DNC emails an "act of war.") ..."
"... Though the corporate media is trying to bury it, the Russiagate narrative has in the past few weeks finally collapsed with the revelation that CrowdStrike had no evidence Russia took anything from the DNC servers and that the FBI set a perjury trap for Gen. Michael Flynn. There was already the previous government finding that there was no collusion between Trump and Russia and the indictment of a Russian troll farm that supposedly was destroying American democracy with $100,000 in Facebook ads was dropped after the St. Petersburg defendants sought discovery. ..."
"... Given the diffident attitude the Security State plotters adopted regarding hiding their tracks, Durham's challenge, with subpoena power, is not as formidable as were he, for example, investigating a Mafia family. ..."
"... Meanwhile, the corporate media have all been singing from the same sheet since Trump had the audacity a week ago to coin yet another "-gate" -- this time "Obamagate." Leading the apoplectic reaction in corporate media, Saturday's Washington Post offered a pot-calling-the-kettle-black pronouncement by its editorial board entitled "The absurd cynicism of 'Obamagate"? ..."
"... So if we dug in and found large payments from George Soros or Mrs Clinton to these 'journalists', what crime could they be accused of? No crimes, I don't think. ..."
"... There never was anything to Russiagate. It was always just politics. I knew that from the beginning. There was, however, a lot of something to the torture scandal. Obama said "We are not going to look back." And now Gina Haspel, one of the chief torturers, partly responsible for destroying the torture tapes, despite a court order to preserve them, is now head of the CIA. ..."
"... Drain the Swamp my ***. He's started by firing all the IG's? Trump "looking back," not forward. He could start by investigating Gina Haspel. ..."
"... For example, Foglesong argued that "a vital factor in the revival of the crusade in the 1970s was the need to expunge doubts about American virtue instilled by the Vietnam War, revelations about CIA covert actions, and the Watergate scandal." ..."
"... By tracing American representations of Russia over the last 130 years, Foglesong illuminated three of the strongest notions that have informed American attitudes toward Russia: (1) a messianic faith that America could inspire sweeping overnight transformation from autocracy to democracy; (2) a notion that despite historic differences, Russia and America are very much akin, so that Russia, more than any other country, is America's "dark double;" (3) an extreme antipathy to "evil" leaders who Americans blame for thwarting what they believe to be the natural triumph of the American mission. These expectations and emotions continue to effect how American journalists and politicians write and talk about Russia. "My hope," Foglesong concluded, "is that by seeing how these attitudes have distorted American views of Russia for more than a century, we may begin to be able to escape their grip." ..."
Seldom mentioned among the motives behind the persistent drumming on alleged Russian
interference was an over-arching need to help the Security State hide their tracks.
The need for a scapegoat to blame for Hillary Clinton's snatching defeat out of the jaws
victory also played a role; as did the need for the
Military-Industrial-Congressional-Intelligence-Media-Academia-Think-Tank complex (MICIMATT) to
keep front and center in the minds of Americans the alleged multifaceted threat coming from an
"aggressive" Russia. (Recall that John McCain called the, now
disproven , "Russian hacking" of the DNC emails an "act of war.")
But that was then. This is now.
Though the corporate media is trying to bury it, the Russiagate narrative has in the past
few weeks finally
collapsed with the revelation that CrowdStrike had no
evidence Russia took anything from the DNC servers and that the FBI set
a perjury trap for Gen. Michael Flynn. There was already the previous government finding that
there was no collusion between Trump and Russia and the indictment of a Russian troll farm that
supposedly was destroying American democracy with $100,000 in Facebook ads was dropped after
the St. Petersburg defendants sought discovery.
All that's left is to discover how this all happened.
Attorney General William Barr, and U.S. Attorney John Durham, whom Barr commissioned to
investigate this whole sordid mess seem intent on getting to the bottom of it. The possibility
that Trump will not chicken out this time, and rather will challenge the Security State looms
large since he felt personally under attack.
Writing on the Wall
Given the diffident attitude the Security State plotters adopted regarding hiding their
tracks, Durham's challenge, with subpoena power, is not as formidable as were he, for example,
investigating a Mafia family.
Plus, former NSA Director Adm. Michael S. Rogers reportedly is cooperating. The
handwriting is on the wall. It remains to be seen what kind of role in the scandal Barack
Obama may have played.
But former directors James Comey, James Clapper, and John Brennan, captains of Obama's
Security State, can take little solace from Barr's remarks Monday to a reporter who asked about
Trump's recent claims that top officials of the Obama administration, including the former
president had committed crimes. Barr replied:
"As to President Obama and Vice President Biden, whatever their level of involvement,
based on the information I have today, I don't expect Mr. Durham's work will lead to a
criminal investigation of either man. Our concerns over potential criminality is focused on
others."
In a more ominous vein, Barr gratuitously added that law enforcement and intelligence
officials were involved in "a false and utterly baseless Russian collusion narrative against
the president. It was a grave injustice, and it was unprecedented in American history."
Meanwhile, the corporate media have all been singing from the same sheet since Trump had the
audacity a week ago to coin yet another "-gate" -- this time "Obamagate." Leading the
apoplectic reaction in corporate media, Saturday's Washington Post
offered a pot-calling-the-kettle-black pronouncement by its editorial board entitled "The
absurd cynicism of 'Obamagate"?
The outrage voiced by the Post called to mind disgraced FBI agent Peter Strzok's indignant
response to criticism of the FBI by candidate Trump, in a Oct. 20, 2016 text exchange with FBI
attorney Lisa Page:
Strzok: I am riled up. Trump is a f***ing idiot, is unable to provide a coherent
answer.
Strzok -- I CAN'T PULL AWAY, WHAT THE F**K HAPPENED TO OUR COUNTRY
Page -- I don't know. But we'll get it back. We're America. We rock.
Strzok -- Donald just said "bad hombres"
Strzok -- Trump just said what the FBI did is disgraceful.
Less vitriolic, but incisive commentary came from widely respected author and lawyer Glenn
Greenwald on May 14, four days after Trump coined "Obamagate": ( See "System Update with Glenn
Greenwald -- The Sham Prosecution of Michael Flynn").
For a shorter, equally instructive video of Greenwald on the broader issue of Russia-gate,
see this clip from a March 2019 Democracy Now! -sponsored debate he had with David Cay Johnston
titled, "As Mueller Finds No Collusion, Did Press Overhype Russiagate? Glenn Greenwald vs.
David Cay Johnston":
(The entire
debate is worth listening to). I found one of the comments below the Democracy Now! video
as big as a bummer as the commentator did:
"I think this is one of the most depressing parts about the whole situation. In their
dogmatic pushing for this false narrative, the Russiagaters might have guaranteed Trump a
second term. They have done more damage to our democracy than Russia ever has done and will
do ." (From "Clamity2007")
In any case, Johnston, undaunted by his embarrassment at the hands of Greenwald, is still at
it, and so is the avuncular Frank Rich -- both of them some 20 years older than Greenwald and
set in their evidence-impoverished, media-indoctrinated ways.
... ... ...
Uncle Frank, 40 seconds ago
So if we dug in and found large payments from George Soros or Mrs Clinton to these
'journalists', what crime could they be accused of? No crimes, I don't think.
But when journalists are revealed to be issuing paid-for propaganda/lies mixed with their
own internal opinions, and their publisher allows it to be presented as if it were reporting
rather than opinion, said writers, editors, and publishers are relegated to obscurity and
derision.
Their work will never be taken seriously again by anyone who wasn't already
brain-washed.
They don't get that, I guess.
QABubba, 47 minutes ago (Edited)
There never was anything to Russiagate. It was always just politics. I knew that from the
beginning. There was, however, a lot of something to the torture scandal. Obama said "We are not
going to look back." And now Gina Haspel, one of the chief torturers, partly responsible for
destroying the torture tapes, despite a court order to preserve them, is now head of the
CIA.
General Flynn was so involved with Turkey he should have been registered as a foreign
agent.
And as I have said before, the real crime was laundering Russian Mafia/Heroin money
through Deutsche Bank into New York real estate. It is curious that Turkey is also a huge
transport spot for heroin into the
EU. And France and other EU nations have a migrant population that lives off the drug
trade.
Drain the Swamp my ***. He's started by firing all the IG's? Trump "looking back," not forward. He could start by investigating Gina Haspel.
The MSM disinformation campaign with consistent common talking points is not difficult to
see with a little discernment. The bigger question is has this happened organically or is there a larger agency
manipulating the public discourse?
"By 1905," Foglesong stated, "this fundamental reorientation of American views of Russia
had set up a historical pattern in which missionary zeal and messianic euphoria would be
followed by disenchantment and embittered denunciation of Russia's evil and oppressive
rulers." The first cycle, according to Foglesong, culminated in 1905, when the October
Manifesto, perceived initially by Americans as a transformation to democracy, gave way to a
violent socialist revolt. Foglesong observed similar cycles of euphoria to despair during the
collapse of the tsarist government in 1917, during the partial religious revival of World War
II, and during the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s
Crucial to Foglesong's analysis was how these cycles coincided with a contemporaneous need
to deflect attention away from America's own blemishes and enhance America's claim to its
global mission.
For example, Foglesong argued that "a vital factor in the revival of the crusade in the
1970s was the need to expunge doubts about American virtue instilled by the Vietnam War,
revelations about CIA covert actions, and the Watergate scandal."
By tracing American representations of Russia over the last 130 years, Foglesong
illuminated three of the strongest notions that have informed American attitudes toward
Russia: (1) a messianic faith that America could inspire sweeping overnight transformation
from autocracy to democracy; (2) a notion that despite historic differences, Russia and
America are very much akin, so that Russia, more than any other country, is America's "dark
double;" (3) an extreme antipathy to "evil" leaders who Americans blame for thwarting what
they believe to be the natural triumph of the American mission. These expectations and
emotions continue to effect how American journalists and politicians write and talk about
Russia. "My hope," Foglesong concluded, "is that by seeing how these attitudes have distorted
American views of Russia for more than a century, we may begin to be able to escape their
grip."
Moribundus, 3 hours ago
America's imperialism rules: Never to admit a fault or wrong; never to accept blame;
concentrate on one enemy at a time; blame that enemy for everything that goes wrong; take
advantage of every opportunity to raise a political whirlwind.
Kidbuck, 5 hours ago
Trump hasn't engaged in a fight in his life. He's a sissy at heart wants to negotiate. He
can't even do that right. He's caved on nearly every campaign promise he made. The only thing
his administration fights for is their salary and their retirement. Hillary still waddles
free and farts in his general direction.
ChaoKrungThep, 4 hours ago
Trump the Mafia punk, like his dad, and draft dodger like his German grand dad. Barr, old
CIA asset from the Clinton-Mena coke smuggling op. This crappy crew is running their masters'
game in front of the redneck rabble who are dumber than their mutts.
Save_America1st, 9 hours ago
Geez...how far behind can most of these assholes be after all these years????
For one...there was no "Russia-gate". It was all a hoax from the beginning, and anyone
with a few functioning brain cells knew that from the start.
And as of about 3 years ago we have all known this as "Obamagate" for the most part...we
all knew the corruption of the hoax totally led up to O-Scumbag.
And now as of the recent disclosures it is a total fact.
Haven't most of you been watching Dan Bongino for over 2 years now and haven't you read
his books? Haven't you been reading Sarah Carter and John Soloman among others for nearly 3
years now???
Surely, you haven't been just sitting around sucking leftist media **** for over 3 years,
right???????? I'm sure you haven't.
So why is this article even necessary on ZeroHedge?????
We already knew and have known the truth since before even the 2016 election. Drop it.
Posa, 9 hours ago
So funny. The 85 Year old "American century' is palpably disintegrating before our very
eyes. In particular the Deep State permanent bureaucracy is completely untethered and facing
what seems to be a Great Reckoning in the form of Barr- Durham. Cognitve Derangement prevails
in the press and spills overto the body politic. The country teeters a slo-mo Civil War.
Meanwhile, The dollar is disintegrating and we seem to face an economic abyss, the Terminal
Depression. Real "last Days of Rome" stuff.
BaNNeD oN THe RuN, 5 hours ago (Edited)
The Israeli dual citizens like Adelson and Mercer bought the Presidency.
Mossad was the organization handling the mole Seth Rich.
Blaming Russia also worked for those 2 groups because it deflected attention away from
(((them))).
Ray McGovern, being ex-intel, must know this to be true.
LetThemEatRand, 11 hours ago
Russiagate. The supposed target of said coup d'etat just Presided over the largest bailout
of banks ever by a factor of five or more. Trump supporters are asleep for the bailout, Trump
haters are asleep for the bailout. Let's fight about transgender bathrooms and Russiagate,
shall we?
For years former President Obama remained more or less off the grid. It could be argued that
it is not uncommon for an ex-president to stay out of the limelight. Several Presidents have
done this even claiming it was for the good of the country and in an effort not to interfere
with the country moving forward. Obama has recently reemerged and injected himself into the
public spotlight, at times taking aim at President Trump and the way his administration is
handling various situations. It is not surprising that President Trump is not pleased.
While our memory has a way of removing rough edges from events we should not try to
whitewash the past and rewrite history to present a different picture of what really happened.
Because of the stark contrast in the demeanor and style of Trump and Obama, the media has
"photo shopped" reality. Obama has been painted as, a thoughtful, intelligent, capable man full
of hope and able to bring us together. He did, after all, bring America's economy back from the
brink of disaster following the Great Recession. Trump, on the other hand, is often portrayed
as a divisive, dishonest, braggart, and a buffoon. The fact is during Obama's time as President
the country suffered scandal upon scandal upon scandal, it might be fair to say we had
"scandals galore."
Mosul, Reduced To Rubble On Obama's Watch
And then, there was Mosul. The destruction of Mosul and the many lives lost there stand as a
monument of Obama's failings. We should
not forget that during Obama's watch the once-proud Iraqi city of Mosul was reduced to
rubble. This was done as a coalition of anti-ISIS forces try to retake the city. The very
roots of ISIS were fed by America and its botched policies. The saying, "never throw stones if
you live in a glass house" would lead people to think Obama should have remained in the
shadows.
Looking back, there were so many, big and small scandals such as the fast and furious, the
operation that sent guns into the hands of drug gangs in Mexico, they became difficult to
track. In Las Vegas, the GSA went on a spending spree. A large number of sexual assaults
occurring in the military. Solyndra which should be placed in the dictionary and defined as
"what happens when politicians and bureaucrats play businessman with taxpayer money" failed.
The CIA had a "prostitutes fiasco" in South America. Fisker Automotive failed, this deal reeked
of government cronyism and waste. Add to this what looked like a "Benghazi coverup" (including
the way it was handled in the second presidential debate) add the DOJ doing an over the top and
wiretapping the Associated Press.
Trump Will Leave None Of This Unaddressed
We should not forget some of the following if truth be told. The resurfacing of Mr. Obama
and images of him opining with his chin tilted slightly upward motivated me to look back at
some posts written during his time as President. Remember, because of his persona, a degree of
optimism was in the air as he took office, across the world many people saw him as the answer
to taking the whole world forward. Below are a few of those with links to the original as well
as a few other comments on what history has revealed as major policy blunders flowing from his
time in office.
Other major faux-pas, blunders or missteps of the Obama administration include;
Generated the destabilizing "Arab Spring"
Failed in helping Iraq stabilize
Horribly mishandling the situation in Syria and in doing so fund the creation of
ISIS
Underestimating ISIS
Aiding in turning Libya into a failed state
Obama care failed to reduce health care cost but transferred them to other payers
Failed to lessen racial strife, note Ferguson, Missouri, and other events
Destabilizing Ukraine in a pissing war with Putin
IRS, when it targeted conservative groups
Fast and Furious - where the US illegally sold guns in Mexico
To say we were awash in scandals during the Obama era is an understatement, fortunately for
Obama, most Americans have the attention span of a gnat .
To be clear, not everyone will agree with what I have listed as "faux-pas, blunders or
missteps" but some will. Time tends to reveal whether the decisions we make are great, good,
so-so, or were horribly wrong. If you feel this post was overly biased, unto you I say, sorry,
sorry, sorry.
In an effort to be transparent I confess I'm not a fan of either of these men and to be fair
this post is not a critique of Trump's time in office. While some people may try or continue to
paint Obama as Mr. Clean, a closer look at history rapidly dispels that image.
Russiaphobia as a pathological reaction on the deep crisis of neoliberalism
Notable quotes:
"... The described lack of confidence was reflected in the exaggerated fear that Russia was capable of destroying the West's values. However, Russia and Putin were neither omnipresent nor threatening to destroy the United States' political system. ..."
"... Russia's basic motives remain defensive even when the Kremlin relies on assertive tactics. Russia's assertiveness, even in cyberspace, is of a reactive nature and is a response to US policies. ..."
"... Rather than fighting a full-scale information war with the West, Russia seeks to increase its status and strengthen its bargaining position in relations with the United States. 68 The Kremlin has been proposing to negotiate rules of cooperation in the cyber area since early in the twenty-first century. Motivated by an insistence on "cyber-sovereignty," Russia regularly proposes resolutions at the United Nations to prohibit "information aggression," In a 2011 letter to the United Nations General Assembly, Russia proposed an "International Code of Conduct for Information Security," stipulating that states subscribing to the code would pledge to "not use information and communications technologies and other information and communications networks to interfere with the internal affairs of other states or with the aim of undermining their political, economic and social stability." 69 ..."
"... Overall, what the Kremlin challenges is the United States' post–Cold War behavior that undermines Russia's status as a great power. Although Russia is not in a position to directly challenge the United States and the US-centered international order, the Kremlin hopes to gain external recognition as a great power by relying on low-cost methods and revealing the vulnerability of Western nations. Russia's capabilities and presence in global cyber and media space are limited, and the Kremlin is motivated by asymmetric deployment of its media, information, and cyber power. ..."
The chapter extends the argument about media and value conflict between Russia and the
United States to the age of Donald Trump. The new value conflict is assessed as especially
acute and exacerbated by the US partisan divide. The Russia issue became central because it
reflected both political partisanship and the growing value division between Trump voters and
the liberal establishment. In addition to explaining the new wave of American Russophobia, the
chapter analyzes Russia's own role and motives. The media are likely to continue the
ideological and largely negative coverage of Russia, especially if Washington and Moscow fail
to develop a pragmatic form of cooperation.
Keywords: Russia, Trump, US elections, narrative of collusion, partisan divide
This chapter addresses the new development in the US media perception of the Russian threat
following the election of Donald Trump as the United States' president. The election revealed
that US national values could no longer be viewed as predominantly liberal and favoring the
global promotion of democracy, as supported by Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and
Barack Obama. During and after the election, the liberal media sought to present Moscow as not
only favoring Trump but being responsible for his election and even ruling on behalf of the
Kremlin. Those committed to a liberal worldview led the way in criticizing Russia and Putin for
assaulting liberal democratic values globally and inside the United States. This chapter argues
that the Russia issue became so central in the new internal divide because it reflects both
political partisanship and the growing division between the values of Trump voters and those of
the liberal establishment. The domestic political struggle has exacerbated the divide. Russia's
otherness, again, has highlighted values of "freedom," seeking to preserve the confidence of
the liberal self. (p.82)
The Narrative of Trump's "Collusion" with Russia
During the US presidential election campaign, American media developed yet another
perception of Russia as reflected in the narrative of Trump's collusion with the Kremlin.
1 Having originated in liberal media and building on the previous perceptions of
neo-Soviet autocracy and foreign threat, the new perception of Russia was that of the enemy
that won the war against the United States. By electing the Kremlin's favored candidate,
America was defeated by Russia. As a CNN columnist wrote, "The Russians really are here,
infiltrating every corner of the country, with the single goal of disrupting the American way
of life." 2 The two assumptions behind the new media narrative were that Putin was an
enemy and that Trump was compromised by Putin. The inevitable conclusion was that Trump could
not be a patriot and potentially was a traitor prepared to act against US interests.
The new narrative was assisted by the fact that Trump presented a radically different
perspective on Russia than Clinton and the US establishment. The American political class had
been in agreement that Russia displayed an aggressive foreign policy seeking to destroy the
US-centered international order. Influential politicians, both Republicans and Democrats,
commonly referred to Russian president Putin as an extremely dangerous KGB spy with no soul.
Instead, Trump saw Russia's international interests as not fundamentally different from
America's. He advocated that the United States to find a way to align its policies and
priorities in defeating terrorism in the Middle East -- a goal that Russia shared -- with the
Kremlin's. Trump promised to form new alliances to "unite the civilized world against Radical
Islamic Terrorism" and to eradicate it "completely from the face of the Earth." 3 He hinted that he was prepared to revisit the thorny issues of Western
sanctions against (p.83) the Russian economy and the recognition of Crimea as a part of Russia.
Trump never commented on Russia's political system but expressed his admiration for Putin's
leadership and high level of domestic support. 4
Capitalizing on the difference between Trump's views and those of the Democratic Party
nominee, Hillary Clinton, the liberal media referred to Trump as the Kremlin-compromised
candidate. Commentators and columnists with the New York Times , such as Paul Krugman,
referred to Trump as the "Siberian" candidate. 5 Commentators and pundits, including those with academic and political
credentials, developed the theory that the United States was under attack. The former
ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, wrote in the Washington Post that Russia had
attacked "our sovereignty" and continued to "watch us do nothing" because of the partisan
divide. He compared the Kremlin's actions with Pearl Harbor or 9/11 and warned that Russia was
likely to perform repeat assaults in 2018 and 2020. 6 The historian Timothy Snyder went further, comparing the election of Trump to
a loss of war, which Snyder said was the basic aim of the enemy. Writing in the New York
Daily News , he asserted, "We no longer need to wonder what it would be like to lose a war
on our own territory. We just lost one to Russia, and the consequence was the election of
Donald Trump." 7
The election of Trump prompted the liberal media to discuss Russia-related fears. The
leading theory was that Trump would now compromise America's interests and rule the country on
behalf of Putin. Thomas Friedman of the New York Times called for actions against Russia
and praised "patriotic" Republican senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham for being tough on
Trump. 8 MSNBC host Rachel Maddow asked whether Trump was actually under Putin's
control. Citing Trump's views and his associates' travel to Moscow, she told viewers, "We are
also starting to see (p.84) what may be signs of continuing [Russian] influence in our country,
not just during the campaign but during the administration -- basically, signs of what could be
a continuing operation." 9 Another New York Times columnist, Nicholas Kristof, published a column
titled "There's a Smell of Treason in the Air," arguing that the FBI's investigation of the
Trump presidential campaign's collusion "with a foreign power so as to win an election" was an
investigation of whether such collusion "would amount to treason." 10 Responding to Trump's statement that his phone was tapped during the election
campaign, the Washington Post columnist Anne Applebaum tweeted that "Trump's insane
'GCHQ tapped my phone' theory came from . . . Moscow." McFaul and many others then endorsed and
retweeted the message. 11
To many within the US media, Trump's lack of interest in promoting global institutions and
his publicly expressed doubts that the Kremlin was behind cyberattacks on the Democratic
National Committee (DNC) served to exacerbate the problem. Several intelligence leaks to the
press and investigations by Congress and the FBI contributed to the image of a president who
was not motivated by US interests. The US intelligence report on Russia's alleged hacking of
the US electoral system released on January 8, 2017, served to consolidate the image of Russia
as an enemy. Leaks to the press have continued throughout Trump's presidency. Someone in the
administration informed the press that Trump called Putin to congratulate him on his victory in
elections on March 18, 2018, despite Trump's advisers' warning against making such a call.
12
In the meantime, investigations of Trump's alleged "collusion" with Russia were failing to
produce substantive evidence. Facts that some associates of Trump sought to meet or met with
members of Russia's government did not lead to evidence of sustained contacts or collaboration.
It was not proven that the Kremlin's "black dossier" on Trump compiled by British intelligence
officer (p.85) Christopher Steele and leaked to CNN was truthful. Russian activity on American
social networks such as Facebook and Twitter was not found to be conclusive in determining
outcomes of the elections. 13 In February 2018, a year after launching investigation, Special Counsel
Robert Mueller indicted thirteen Russian nationals for allegedly interfering in the US 2016
presidential elections, yet their connection to Putin or Trump was not established. On March
12, 2018, Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Richard Burr stated that he had not yet seen
any evidence of collusion. 14 Representative Mike Conaway, the Republican leading the Russia investigation,
announced the end of the committee's probe of Russian meddling in the election. 15
Trump was also not acting toward Russia in the way the US media expected. His views largely
reflected those of the military and national security establishment and disappointed some of
his supporters. 16 The US National Security Strategy and new Defense Strategy presented Russia
as a leading security threat, alongside China, Iran, and North Korea. The president made it
clear that he wanted to engage in tough bargaining with Russia by insisting on American terms.
17 Instead of improving ties with Russia, let alone acting on behalf of the
Kremlin, Trump contributed to new crises in bilateral relations that had to do with the two
sides' principally different perceptions. While the Kremlin expected Washington to normalize
relations, the United States assumed Russia's weakness and expected it to comply with
Washington's priorities regarding the Middle East, Ukraine, and Afghanistan and nuclear and
cyber issues. 18 Trump also authorized the largest expulsion of Russian diplomats in US
history and ordered several missile strikes against Assad's Russia-supported positions in
Syria, each time provoking a crisis in relations with Moscow. Even Secretary of State Rex
Tillerson, whom Rachel Maddow suspected of being appointed on Putin's advice to "weaken" the
State Department and "bleed out" (p.86) the FBI, 19 was replaced by John Bolton. The latter's foreign policy reputation was that
of a hawk, including on Russia. 20
Responding to these developments, the media focused on fears of being attacked by the
Kremlin and on Trump not doing enough to protect the country. These fears went beyond the
alleged cyber interference in the US presidential elections and included infiltration of
American media and social networks and attacks on congressional elections and the country's
most sensitive infrastructure, such as electric grids, water-processing plants, banking
networks, and transportation facilities. In order to prevent such developments, media
commentators and editorial writers recommended additional pressures on the Kremlin and
counteroffensive operations. 21 One commentator recommended, as the best defense from Russia's plans to
interfere with another election in the United States, launching a cyberattack on Russia's own
presidential elections in March 2018, to "disrupt the stability of Vladimir Putin's regime."
22 A New York Times editorial summarized the mood by challenging
President Trump to confront Russia further: "If Mr. Trump isn't Mr. Putin's lackey, it's past
time for him to prove it." 23 The burden of proof was now on Trump's shoulders.
Opposition to the
"Collusion" Narrative
In contrast to highly critical views of Russia in the dominant media, conservative,
libertarian, and progressive sources offered different assessments. Initially, opposition to
the collusion narrative came from the alternative media, yet gradually -- in response to scant
evidence of Trump's collusion -- it incorporated voices within the mainstream.
The conservative media did not support the view that Russia "stole" elections and presented
Trump as a patriot who wanted to make America great rather than develop "cozy" relationships
with (p.87) the Kremlin. Writing in the American Interest , Walter Russell Mead argued
that Trump aimed to demonstrate the United States' superiority by capitalizing on its military
and technological advantages. He did not sound like a Russian mole. Challenging the liberal
media, the author called for "an intellectually solvent and emotionally stable press" and wrote
that "if President Trump really is a Putin pawn, his foreign policy will start looking much
more like Barack Obama's." 24 Instead of viewing Trump as compromised by the Kremlin, sources such
Breitbart and Fox News attributed the blame to the deep state, "the complex of
bureaucrats, technocrats, and plutocrats," including the intelligence agencies, that seeks to
"derail, or at least to de-legitimize, the Trump presidency" by engaging in accusations and
smear campaigns. 25
Echoing Trump's own views, some conservatives expressed their admiration for Putin as a
dynamic leader superior to Obama. In particular, they praised Putin for his ability to defend
Russia's "traditional values" and great-power status. 26 Neoconservative and paleoconservative publications like the National
Review , the Weekly Standard, Human Events Online , and others critiqued Obama's
"feckless foreign policy," characterized by "fruitless accommodationism," contrasting it with
Putin's skilled and calculative geopolitical "game of chess." 27 A Washington Post / ABC News poll revealed that among Republicans, 75%
approved of Trump's approach on Russia relative; 40% of all respondents approved. 28 This did not mean that conservatives and Republicans were "infiltrated" by
the Kremlin. Mutual Russian and American conservative influences were limited and
nonstructured. 29 The approval of Putin as a leader by American conservatives meant that they
shared a certain commonality of ideas and were equally critical of liberal media and
globalization. 30
Progressive and libertarian media also did not support the narrative of collusion. Gary
Leupp at CounterPunch found the (p.88) narrative to be serving the purpose of reviving
and even intensifying "Cold War-era Russophobia," with Russia being an "adversary" "only in
that it opposes the expansion of NATO, especially to include Ukraine and Georgia." 31 Justin Raimondo at Antiwar.com questioned the narrative by pointing to
Russia's bellicose rhetoric in response to Trump's actions. 32 Glenn Greenwald and Zaid Jilani at Intercept reminded readers that,
overall, Trump proved to be far more confrontational toward Russia than Obama, thereby
endangering America. 33 In particular Trump severed diplomatic ties with Russia, armed Ukraine,
appointed anti-Russia hawks, such as ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, National
Security Advisor John Bolton, and Secretary of State Michal Pompeo to key foreign policy
positions, antagonized Russia's Iranian allies, and imposed tough sanctions against Russian
business with ties to the Kremlin. 34
The dominant liberal media ignored opposing perspectives or presented them as compromised by
Russia. For instance, in amplifying the view that Putin "stole" the elections, the
Washington Post sought to discredit alternative sources of news and commentaries as
infiltrated by the Kremlin's propaganda. On November 24, 2016, the newspaper published an
interview with the executive director of a new website, PropOrNot, who preferred to remain
anonymous, and claimed that the Russian government circulated pro-Trump articles before the
election. Without providing evidence on explaining its methodology, the group identified more
than two hundred websites that published or echoed Russian propaganda, including WikiLeaks and
the Drudge Report , left-wing websites such as CounterPunch, Truthout, Black Agenda
Report, Truthdig , and Naked Capitalism , as well as libertarian venues such as
Antiwar.com and the Ron Paul Institute. 35 Another mainstream liberal outlet, CNN, warned the American people to be
vigilant against the Kremlin's alleged efforts to spread propaganda: "Enormous numbers of
(p.89) Americans are not only failing to fight back, they are also unwitting collaborators --
reading, retweeting, sharing and reacting to Russian propaganda and provocations every day."
36
However, voices of dissent were now heard even in the mainstream media. Masha Gessen of the
New Yorker said that Trump's tweet about Robert Mueller's indictments and Moscow's
"laughing its ass off" was "unusually (perhaps accidentally) accurate." 37 She pointed out that Russians of all ideological convictions "are remarkably
united in finding the American obsession with Russian meddling to be ridiculous." 38 The editor of the influential Politico , Blake Hounshell, confessed
that he was a Russiagate skeptic because even though "Trump was all too happy to collude with
Putin," Mueller's team never found a "smoking gun." 39 In reviewing the book on Russia's role in the 2016 election Russian
Roulette , veteran New York Times reporter Steven Lee Myers noted that the Kremlin's
meddling "simply exploited the vulgarity already plaguing American political campaigns" and
that the veracity of many accusations remained unclear. 40
Explaining Russophobia
The high-intensity Russophobia within the American media, overblown even by the standards of
previous threat narratives, could no longer be explained by differences in national values or
by bilateral tensions. The new fear of Russia also reflected domestic political polarization
and growing national unease over America's identity and future direction.
The narrative of collusion in the media was symptomatic of America's declining confidence in
its own values. Until the intervention in Iraq in 2004, optimism and a sense of confidence
prevailed in American social attitudes, having survived even the terrorist attack on the United
States on September 11, 2001. The (p.90) country's economy was growing and its position in the
world was not challenged. However, the disastrous war in Iraq, the global financial crisis of
2008, and Russia's intervention in Georgia in August 2008 changed that. US leadership could no
longer inspire the same respect, and a growing number of countries viewed it as a threat to
world peace. 41 Internally, the United States was increasingly divided. Following
presidential elections in November 2016, 77% of Americans perceived their country as "greatly
divided on the most important values." 42 The value divide had been expressed in partisanship and political
polarization long before the 2016 presidential elections. 43 The Russia issue deepened this divide. According to a poll taken in October
2017, 63% of Democrats, but just 38% of Republicans, viewed "Russia's power and influence" as a
major threat to the well-being of the United States. 44
During the US 2016 presidential elections, Russia emerged as a convenient way to accentuate
differences between Democratic and Republican candidates, which in previous elections were
never as pronounced or defining. The new elections deepened the partisan divide because of
extreme differences between the two main candidates, particularly on Russia. Donald Trump
positioned himself as a radical populist promising to transform US foreign policy and "drain
the swamp" in Washington. His position on Russia seemed unusual because, by election time, the
Kremlin had challenged the United States' position in the world by annexing Crimea, supporting
Ukrainian separatism, and possibly hacking the DNC site.
The Russian issue assisted Clinton in stressing her differences from Trump. Soon after it
became known that DNC servers were hacked, she embraced the view that Russia was behind the
cyberattacks. She accused Russia of "trying to wreak havoc" in the United States and threatened
retaliation. 45 In his turn, Trump used Russia to challenge Clinton's commitment to national
security (p.91) and ability to serve as commander in chief. In particular, he drew public
attention to the FBI investigation into Clinton's use of a private server for professional
correspondence, and even noted sarcastically that the Russians should find thirty thousand
missing emails belonging to her. The latter was interpreted by many in liberal media and
political circles as a sign of Trump's being unpatriotic. 46 Clinton capitalized on this interpretation. She referred to the issue of
hacking as the most important one throughout the campaign and challenged Trump to agree with
assessments of intelligence agencies that cyberattacks were ordered by the Kremlin. She
questioned Trump's commitments to US national security and accused him of being a "puppet" for
President Putin. 47 Following Trump's victory, Clinton told donors that her loss should be partly
attributed to Putin and the election hacks directed by him. 48
Clinton's arguments fitted with the overall narrative embraced by the mainstream media since
roughly 2005 characterizing Russia as abusive and aggressive. Clinton viewed Russia as an
oppressive autocratic power that was aggressive abroad to compensate for domestic weaknesses.
Previously, in her book Hard Choices , then-secretary of state Clinton described Putin
as "thin-skinned and autocratic, resenting criticism and eventually cracking down on dissent
and debate." 49 This view was shared by President Obama, who publicly referred to Russia as a
"regional power that is threatening some of its immediate neighbors not out of strength but out
of weakness." 50 During the election's campaign, Clinton argued that the United States should
challenge Russia by imposing a no-fly zone in Syria with the objective of removing Assad from
power, strengthening sanctions against the Russian economy, and providing lethal weapons to
Ukraine in order to contain the potential threat of Russia's military invasion.
Following the elections, the partisan divide deepened, with liberal establishment attacking
the "unpatriotic" Trump. Having (p.92) lost the election, Clinton partly attributed Trump's
victory to the role of Russia and advocated an investigation into Trump's ties to Russia. In
February 2017 the Clinton-influenced Center for American Progress brought on a former State
Department official to run a new Moscow Project. 51 As acknowledged by the New Yorker , members of the Clinton inner
circle believed that the Obama administration deliberately downplayed DNC hacking by the
Kremlin. "We understand the bind they were in," one of Clinton's senior advisers said. "But
what if Barack Obama had gone to the Oval Office, or the East Room of the White House, and
said, 'I'm speaking to you tonight to inform you that the United States is under attack . . .'
A large majority of Americans would have sat up and taken notice . . . it is bewildering -- it
is baffling -- it is hard to make sense of why this was not a five-alarm fire in the White
House." 52
In addition to Clinton, many other members of the Washington establishment, including some
Republicans, spread the narrative of Russia "attacking" America. Republican politicians who
viewed Clinton's defeat and the hacking attacks in military terms included those of chairman of
the Senate Armed Services Committee John McCain, who stated, "When you attack a country, it's
an act of war," 53 and former vice president Dick Cheney, who called Russia's alleged
interference in the US election "a very serious effort made by Mr. Putin" that "in some
quarters that would be considered an act of war." 54 A number of Democrats also engaged in the rhetoric of war, likening the
Russian "attack," as Senator Ben Cardin did, to a "political Pearl Harbor." 55
Rumors and leaks, possibly by members of US intelligence agencies, 56 and activities of liberal groups that sought to discredit Trump contributed
to the Russophobia. In addition to the DNC hacking accusations, many fears of Russia in the
media were based on the assumption that contacts, let alone cooperation with the (p.93)
Kremlin, was unpatriotic and implied potentially "compromising" behavior: praise of Putin as a
leader, possible business dealings with Russian "oligarchs," and meetings with Russian
officials such Ambassador Sergei Kislyak. 57
There were therefore two sides to the Russia story in the US liberal media -- rational and
emotional. The rational side had to do with calculations by Clinton-affiliated circles and
anti-Russian groups pooling their resources to undermine Trump and his plans to improve
relations with Russia. Among others, these resources included dominance within the liberal
media and leaks by the intelligence community. The emotional side was revealed by the liberal
elites' values and ability to promote fears of Russia within the US political class and the
general public. Popular emotions of fear and frustration with Russia already existed in the
public space due to the old Cold War memories, as well as disturbing post–Cold War
developments that included wars in Chechnya, Georgia, and Ukraine. In part because of these
memories, factions such as those associated with Clinton were successful in evoking in the
public liberal mind what historian Richard Hofstadter called the "paranoid style" or "the sense
of heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy." 58 Mobilized by liberal media to pressure Trump, these emotions became an
independent factor in the political struggle inside Washington. The public display of fear and
frustration with Russia and Trump could only be sustained by a constant supply of new
"suspicious" developments and intense discussion by the media.
Russia's Role and
Motives
Russia's "attacking" America and Trump's "colluding" with the Kremlin remained poorly
substantiated. Taken together, the DNC hacking, Trump's and Putin's mutual praise, and Trump
associates' (p.94) contacts with Russian officials implied Kremlin infiltration of the United
States' internal politics. Yet viewed separately, each was questionable and unproven. Some of
these points could have also been made about Hillary Clinton, who had ties to Russian -- not to
mention Saudi Arabian -- business circles and Ukrainian politicians. 59 Political views cannot be counted as evidence. Contacts with Russian
officials could have been legitimate exchanges of views about two countries' interests and
potential cooperation. Even the CIA- and the FBI-endorsed conclusion that Russia attacked the
DNC servers was questioned by some observers on the grounds that forensic evidence was lacking
and that it relied too much on findings by one cybersecurity company. 60 In general, discussion of Russia in the US media lacked nuances and a sense
of proportion. As Jesse Walker, an editor at Reason magazine and author of The United
States of Paranoia , pointed out,
There's a difference between thinking that Moscow may have hacked the Democratic National
Committee and thinking that Moscow actually hacked the election, between thinking the
president may have Russian conflicts of interest and thinking he's a Russian puppet . . .
when someone like the New York Times columnist Paul Krugman declares that Putin "installed"
Donald Trump as president, he's moving out of the realm of plausible plots and into the world
of fantasy. Similarly, Clinton's warning that Trump could be Putin's "puppet" leaped from an
imaginable idea, that Putin wanted to help her rival, to the much more dubious notion that
Putin thought he could control the impulsive Trump. (Trump barely seems capable of
controlling himself.) 61
The loose and politically tendentious nature of discussions, circulation of questionable
leaks and dossiers complied by unidentified (p.95) individuals, and lack of serious evidence
led a number of observers to conclude that the Russia story was more about stopping Trump than
about Russia. The Russian scandal was symptomatic of the poisonous state of bilateral relations
that Democrats exploited for the purpose of derailing Trump. US-Russia relations became a
hostage of partisan domestic politics. As one liberal and tough critic of Putin wrote,
Democratic lawmakers' rhetoric of war in connection with the 2016 elections "places Republicans
-- who often characterize themselves as more hawkish on Russia and defense -- in a bind as they
try to defend to the new administration's strategy towards Moscow." 62 Another observer noted that Russiagate performed "a critical function for
Trump's political foes," allowing "them to oppose Trump while obscuring key areas where they
either share his priorities or have no viable alternative." 63
The described lack of confidence was reflected in the exaggerated fear that Russia was
capable of destroying the West's values. However, Russia and Putin were neither omnipresent nor
threatening to destroy the United States' political system. A number of analysts, such as Mark Schrad, identified fears of Russia as "increasingly hysterical fantasies" and argued that
Russia was not a global menace. 64 If the Kremlin was indeed behind the cyberattacks, it was not for the reasons
commonly broached. Rather than trying to subvert the US system, it sought to defend its own
system against what it perceived as a US policy of changing regimes and meddling in Russia's
internal affairs. The United States has a long history of covert activities in foreign
countries. 65 Washington's establishment has never followed the advice given by prominent
American statesmen such as George Kennan to let Russians "be Russians" and "work out their
internal problems in their own manner." 66 Instead, the United States assumes that America defines the rules and
boundaries of proper behavior in international politics, while others must simply follow the
rules.
(p.96) Russia's basic motives remain defensive even when the Kremlin relies on assertive
tactics. Russia's assertiveness, even in cyberspace, is of a reactive nature and is a response
to US policies. Experts observe that Russia's conception of cyber and other informational power
serves the overall purpose of protecting national sovereignty from encroachments by the United
States. 67Rather than fighting a full-scale information war with the West, Russia seeks
to increase its status and strengthen its bargaining position in relations with the United
States. 68 The Kremlin has been proposing to negotiate rules of cooperation in the cyber
area since early in the twenty-first century. Motivated by an insistence on
"cyber-sovereignty," Russia regularly proposes resolutions at the United Nations to prohibit
"information aggression," In a 2011 letter to the United Nations General Assembly, Russia
proposed an "International Code of Conduct for Information Security," stipulating that states
subscribing to the code would pledge to "not use information and communications technologies
and other information and communications networks to interfere with the internal affairs of
other states or with the aim of undermining their political, economic and social stability."
69
Overall, what the Kremlin challenges is the United States' post–Cold War behavior that
undermines Russia's status as a great power. Although Russia is not in a position to directly
challenge the United States and the US-centered international order, the Kremlin hopes to gain
external recognition as a great power by relying on low-cost methods and revealing the
vulnerability of Western nations. Russia's capabilities and presence in global cyber and media
space are limited, and the Kremlin is motivated by asymmetric deployment of its media,
information, and cyber power.
This is about intelligence agencies becaming a powerful by shadow political force, much like
STASI. This not about corruption per se, but about perusing of political goals by dirty means. So
it is closer to sedition then to corruption.
Notable quotes:
"... there was no valid reason for the FBI to have interrogated Flynn about his conversations with Kislyak in the first place. There is nothing remotely untoward or unusual -- let alone criminal -- about an incoming senior national security official, three weeks away from taking over, reaching out to a counterpart in a foreign government to try to tamp down tensions. As the Washington Post put it , "it would not be uncommon for incoming administrations to interface with foreign governments with whom they will soon have to work." ..."
"... there was also massive corruption on the part of the investigators themselves, exploiting and abusing their vast and invasive investigative and prosecutorial powers for ideological goals, political subterfuge, election manipulation, and personal vendettas ..."
"... To begin with, cable and other news outlets that employed former Obama-era intelligence operatives, generals, and prosecutors to disseminate every Russiagate conspiracy theory they could find -- virtually always without any dissent or even questioning -- have barely acknowledged these explosive new documents. ..."
"... But the most critical reason to delve deeply into this case is that it reveals one the most dangerous abuses of power a democracy can suffer: The powers of the CIA, FBI, and NSA were blatantly and repeatedly abused to manipulate election outcomes and achieve political advantage. ..."
"... Flynn is a right-wing, hawkish general whose views on the so-called war on terror are ones utterly anathema to my own beliefs. That does not make his prosecution justified. One's views of Flynn personally or his politics (or those of the Trump administration generally) should have absolutely no bearing on one's assessment of the justifiability of what the U.S. government did to him here -- any more than one has to like the political views of the detainees at Guantanamo to find their treatment abusive and illegal , or any more than one has to agree with the views of people who are being censured in order to defend their right of free expression . ..."
"... As the journalist Aaron Maté demonstrated when he brilliantly challenged The Guardian's Luke Harding about his bestselling book claiming to prove collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia -- one of the few times a Russiagate conspiracy advocate was forced to confront a knowledgeable critic -- those claims often cannot survive even minimal critical scrutiny. That's why media outlets have insulated these conspiracy theory advocates, as well as their audiences, from any dissent or even critical questioning. ..."
Gen. Michael Flynn, President Obama's former director of the Defense
Intelligence Agency and President Donald Trump's former national security adviser,
pleaded guilty on December 1, 2017, to a single count of lying to the FBI about two
conversations he had with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak while Flynn served as a Trump
transition team official (Flynn was never
charged for any matters relating to his relationship with the Turkish government). As part
of the plea deal, special counsel Robert Mueller
recommended no jail time for Flynn , and the plea agreement also seemingly put an end to
threats from the Mueller team to prosecute Flynn's son.
Last Thursday, the Justice Department
filed a motion seeking to dismiss the prosecution of Flynn based, in part, on newly
discovered documents revealing that the conduct of the FBI, under the leadership of
Director James Comey and his now-disgraced Deputy Andrew McCabe (who himself was forced to
leave the Bureau after
being caught lying to agents ), was improper and motivated by corrupt objectives. That
motion prompted histrionic howls of outrage from
the same political officials and their media allies who have spent the last three years pushing
maximalist Russiagate conspiracy theories.
But the prosecution of Flynn -- for allegedly lying to the FBI when he denied in a January
24 interrogation that he had discussed with Kislyak on December 29 the new
sanctions and expulsions imposed on Russia by the Obama administration -- was always odd
for a number of reasons. To begin with, the FBI agents who questioned Flynn said afterward that
they did not believe he was lying (as
CNN reported in February 2017: "the FBI interviewers believed Flynn was cooperative and
provided truthful answers. Although Flynn didn't remember all of what he talked about, they
don't believe he was intentionally misleading them, the officials say"). For that reason, CNN
said, "the FBI is not expected to pursue any charges against" him.
More importantly, there was no valid reason for the FBI to have interrogated Flynn about
his conversations with Kislyak in the first place. There is nothing remotely untoward or
unusual -- let alone criminal -- about an incoming senior national security official, three
weeks away from taking over, reaching out to a counterpart in a foreign government to try to
tamp down tensions. As the Washington Post
put it , "it would not be uncommon for incoming administrations to interface with foreign
governments with whom they will soon have to work." What newly released documents over the
last month reveal is what has been generally evident for the last three years: The powers of
the security state agencies -- particularly the FBI, the CIA, the NSA, and the DOJ -- were
systematically abused as part of the 2016 election and then afterward for political rather than
legal ends.
While there was obviously deceit and corruption on the part of some Trump
officials in lying to Russiagate investigators and otherwise engaging in depressingly
common D.C. lobbyist corruption , there was also massive corruption on the part of the
investigators themselves, exploiting and abusing their vast and invasive investigative and
prosecutorial powers for ideological goals, political subterfuge, election manipulation, and
personal vendettas . The former category (corruption by Trump officials) has received a
tidal wave of endless media attention, while the latter (corruption and abuse of power by those
investigating them) has received almost none.
For numerous reasons, it is vital to fully examine with as much clarity as possible the
abuse of power that drove the prosecution of Flynn. To begin with, cable and other news
outlets that employed
former Obama-era intelligence operatives, generals, and prosecutors to disseminate every
Russiagate conspiracy theory they could find -- virtually always without any dissent or even
questioning -- have barely acknowledged these explosive new documents.
More disturbingly, liberals and Democrats -- as part of their movement toward venerating
these security state agencies -- have completely jettisoned long-standing, core principles
about the criminal justice system, including questioning whether
lying to the FBI should be a crime at all and recognizing that innocent people
are often forced to plead guilty -- in order to justify both the Flynn prosecution
and the broader Mueller probe.
But the most critical reason to delve deeply into this case is that it reveals one the
most dangerous abuses of power a democracy can suffer: The powers of the CIA, FBI, and NSA were
blatantly and repeatedly abused to manipulate election outcomes and achieve political
advantage. In other words, we know now that these agencies did exactly what Democratic
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer warned they would do to Trump when he appeared on Rachel
Maddow's MSNBC program shortly before Trump's inauguration:
This turned out to be one of the most prescient and important (and creepy) statements of
the Trump presidency: from Chuck Schumer to Rachel Maddow - in early January, 2017, before
Trump was even inaugurated: pic.twitter.com/TUaYkksILG
Because U.S. politics is now discussed far more as tests of tribal loyalty ("Whose
side are you on?") than actual ideological or even political beliefs ("Which policies do you
favor or oppose?"), it is very difficult to persuade people to separate their personal or
political views of Flynn ("Do you like him or not?") from the question of whether the U.S.
government abused its power in gravely dangerous ways to prosecute him.
Flynn is a right-wing, hawkish general whose views on the so-called war on terror are
ones utterly anathema to my own beliefs. That does not make his prosecution justified. One's
views of Flynn personally or his politics (or those of the Trump administration generally)
should have absolutely no bearing on one's assessment of the justifiability of what the U.S.
government did to him here -- any more than one has to like the political views of the
detainees at Guantanamo to find their
treatment abusive and illegal , or any more than one has to agree with the views of people
who are being censured in
order to defend their right of
free expression .
The ability to distinguish between ideological questions from evidentiary
questions is vital for rational discourse to be possible, yet has been all but eliminated at
the altar of tribal fealty. That is why evidentiary questions completely devoid of ideological
belief -- such as whether one found the Russiagate conspiracy theories supported by convincing
evidence -- have been treated not as evidentiary matters but as tribal ones: to be affiliated
with the left (an ideological characterization), one must affirm belief in those conspiracy
theories even if one does not find the evidence in support of them actually compelling. The
conflation of ideological and evidentiary questions, and the substitution of substantive
political debates with tests of tribal loyalty, are indescribably corrosive to our public
discourse.
As a result, whether one is now deemed on the right or left has almost nothing to do with
actual political beliefs about policy questions and everything to do with one's willingness to
serve the interests of one team or another. With the warped formula in place, U.S. politics has
been depoliticized , stripped of any meaningful ideological debates in lieu of mindless
team loyalty oaths on non-ideological questions.
Our newest SYSTEM UPDATE episode, debuting today, is devoted to enabling as clear and
objective an examination as possible of the abuses that drove the Flynn prosecution --
including these critical, newly declassified documents -- as well the broader Russiagate
investigations of which it was a part. These abuses have received far too little attention from
the vast majority of the U.S. media that simply excludes any questioning or dissent of their
prevailing narratives about all of these matters.
Notably, we invited several of the cable stars and security state agents who have been
pushing these conspiracy theories for years to appear on the program for a civil discussion,
but none were willing to do so -- because they are so accustomed to being able to spout these
theories on MSNBC, CNN, and in newspapers without ever being meaningfully challenged.
Regardless of one's views on these scandals, it is unhealthy in the extreme for any media to
insulate themselves from a diversity of views.
As the journalist Aaron Maté demonstrated when he brilliantly challenged The Guardian's Luke
Harding about his bestselling book claiming to prove collusion between the Trump campaign and
Russia -- one of the few times a Russiagate conspiracy advocate was forced to confront a
knowledgeable critic -- those claims often cannot survive even minimal critical scrutiny.
That's why media outlets have insulated these conspiracy theory advocates, as well as their
audiences, from any dissent or even critical questioning.
Today's SYSTEM UPDATE episode, which we believe provides the most comprehensive examination
to date of these new documents relating to the Flynn prosecution and how this case relates to
the broader Russiagate investigative abuses, can be viewed above or on The Intercept's YouTube channel .
This is about control of MSM by intelligence agencies, not so much about corruption of
individual journalists. Journalist became like in the USSR "Soldiers of the Party" -- well paid
propagandist of particular, supplied to them talking points.
What is particularly valuable about Smith's article is its perfect description of a media
sickness borne of the Trump era that is rapidly corroding journalistic integrity and
justifiably destroying trust in news outlets. Smith aptly dubs this pathology "resistance
journalism," by which he means that journalists are now not only free, but encouraged and
incentivized , to say or publish anything they want, no matter how reckless and fact-free,
provided their target is someone sufficiently disliked in mainstream liberal media venues
and/or on social media:
[Farrow's] work, though, reveals the weakness of a kind of resistance journalism that has
thrived in the age of Donald Trump: That if reporters swim ably along with the tides of
social media and produce damaging reporting about public figures most disliked by the loudest
voices, the old rules of fairness and open-mindedness can seem more like impediments than
essential journalistic imperatives.
That can be a dangerous approach, particularly in a moment when the idea of truth and a
shared set of facts is under assault.
In assailing Farrow for peddling unproven conspiracy theories, Smith argues that such
journalistic practices are particularly dangerous in an era where conspiracy theories are
increasingly commonplace. Yet unlike most journalists with a mainstream platform, Smith
emphasizes that conspiracy theories are commonly used not only by Trump and his movement
(conspiracy theories which are quickly debunked by most of the mainstream media), but are also
commonly deployed by Trump's enemies, whose reliance on conspiracy theories is virtually never
denounced by journalists because mainstream news outlets themselves play a key role in peddling
them:
We are living in an era of conspiracies and dangerous untruths -- many pushed by President
Trump, but others hyped by his enemies -- that have lured ordinary Americans into
passionately believing wild and unfounded theories and fiercely rejecting evidence to the
contrary. The best reporting tries to capture the most attainable version of the truth, with
clarity and humility about what we don't know. Instead, Mr. Farrow told us what we wanted to
believe about the way power works, and now, it seems, he and his publicity team are not even
pretending to know if it's true.
Ever since Donald Trump was elected , and one could argue even in the months leading up to
his election, journalistic standards have been consciously jettisoned when it comes to
reporting on public figures who, in Smith's words, are "most disliked by the loudest voices,"
particularly when such reporting "swim[s] ably along with the tides of social media." Put
another way: As long the targets of one's conspiracy theories and attacks are regarded as
villains by the guardians of mainstream liberal social media circles, journalists reap endless
career rewards for publishing unvetted and unproven -- even false -- attacks on such people,
while never suffering any negative consequences when their stories are exposed as shabby
frauds.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/OOhRRr6c1wA?autoplay=0&rel=0&enablejsapi=1&origin=https%3A%2F%2Ftheintercept.com&widgetid=1
infiltrated and taken over the U.S. government through sexual and financial blackmail
leverage over Trump and used it to dictate U.S. policy; Trump officials conspired with the
Kremlin to interfere in the 2016 election; Russia was attacking the U.S. by
hacking its electricity grid , recruiting
journalists to serve as clandestine Kremlin messengers , and plotting to cut off heat to
Americans in winter. Mainstream media debacles -- all in service of promoting the same set of
conspiracy theories against Trump -- are literally too numerous to count, requiring one to
select the worst offenses as illustrative .
In March of last year, Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi -- writing under the
headline "It's official: Russiagate is this generation's WMD" -- compared the prevailing
media climate since 2016 to that which prevailed in 2002 and 2003 regarding the invasion of
Iraq and the so-called war on terror: little to no dissent permitted, skeptics of
media-endorsed orthodoxies shunned and excluded, and worst of all, the very journalists who
were most wrong in peddling false conspiracy theories were exactly those who ended up most
rewarded on the ground that even though they spread falsehoods, they did so for the
right cause.
Under that warped rubric -- in which spreading falsehoods is commendable as long as
it was done to harm the evildoers -- the New Yorker's Jeffrey Goldberg, one of the most
damaging endorsers of
false
conspiracy theories about Iraq , rose to become editor-in-chief of The Atlantic,
while two of the most deceitful Bush-era neocons, Bush/Cheney speechwriter David Frum and
supreme propagandist Bill Kristol, have reprised their role as leading propagandists and
conspiracy theorists -- only this time aimed against the GOP president instead of on his behalf
-- and thus have become beloved liberal media icons. The communications director for both the
Bush/Cheney campaign and its White House, Nicole Wallace, is one of the most popular liberal
cable hosts from her MSNBC perch.
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Exactly the same journalism-destroying dynamic is driving the post-Russiagate media landscape.
There is literally no accountability for the journalists and news outlets that spread
falsehoods in their pages, on their airwaves, and through their viral social media postings.
The Washington Post's media columnist Erik Wemple has been one of the very few journalists
devoted to holding these myth-peddlers accountable -- recounting how one of the most reckless
Russigate conspiracy maximialists, Natasha Bertrand,
became an overnight social media and journalism star by peddling discredited conspiratorial
trash (she was notably hired by Jeffrey Goldberg to cover Russigate for The Atlantic); MSNBC's
Rachel Maddow
spent three years hyping conspiratorial junk with no need even to retract any of it; and
Mother Jones' David Corn played a
crucial, decisively un-journalistic role in mainstreaming the lies of the Steele dossier
all with zero effect on his journalistic status, other than to enrich him through a predictably
bestselling book that peddled those unhinged conspiracies further.
Wemple's post-Russiagate
series has established him as a commendable, often-lone voice trying -- with futility -- to
bring some accountability to U.S. journalism for the systemic media failures of the past three
years. The reason that's futile is exactly what Smith described in his column on Farrow: In
"resistance journalism," facts and truth are completely dispensable -- indeed, dispensing with
them is rewarded -- provided "reporters swim ably along with the tides of social media
and produce damaging reporting about public figures most disliked by the loudest voices."
That describes perfectly the journalists who were defined, and enriched, by years of
Russiagate deceit masquerading as reporting. By far the easiest path to career success over the
last three years -- booming ratings, lucrative book sales, exploding social media followings,
career rehabilitation even for the most discredited D.C. operatives -- was to feed
establishment liberals an endless diet of fearmongering and inflammatory conspiracies about
Drumpf and his White House. Whether it was true or supported by basic journalistic standards
was completely irrelevant. Responsible reporting was simply was not a metric used to assess its
worth.
It was one thing for activists, charlatans, and con artists to exploit fears of Trump for
material gain: that, by definition, is what such people do. But it was another thing entirely
for journalists to succumb to all the low-hanging career rewards available to them by
throwing all journalistic standards into the trash bin in exchange for a star turn as a
#Resistance icon. That , as Smith aptly describes, is what "Resistance Journalism" is,
and it's hard to identify anything more toxic to our public discourse.
Perhaps the single most shameful and journalism-destroying episode in all of this -- an
obviously difficult title to bestow -- was when a national security blogger, Marcy Wheeler,
violated long-standing norms and ethical standards of journalism by announcing in 2018 that she
had voluntarily turned in her own source to the FBI,
claiming she did so because her still-unnamed source "had played a significant role in the
Russian election attack on the US" and because her life was endangered by her brave decision to
stop being a blogger and become an armchair cop by pleading with the FBI and the Mueller team
to let her work with them. In her blog post announcing what she did, she claimed she was going
public with her treachery because her life was in danger, and this way everyone would know the
real reason if "someone releases stolen information about me or knocks me off tomorrow."
To say that Wheeler's actions are a grotesque violation of journalistic ethics is to
radically understate the case. Journalists are expected to protect their sources' identities
from the FBI even if they receive a subpoena and a court order compelling its disclosure; we're
expected to go to prison before we comply with FBI attempts to uncover our source's
identity. But here, the FBI did not try to compel Wheeler to tell them anything; they displayed
no interest in her as she desperately tried to chase them down.
By all appearances, Wheeler had to beg the FBI to pay attention to her because they treated
her like the sort of unstable, unhinged, unwell, delusional obsessive who, believing they have
uncovered some intricate conspiracy, relentlessly harass and bombard journalists with their
bizarre theories until they finally prattle to themselves for all of eternity in the spam
filter of our email inboxes. The claim that she was in possession of some sort of explosive and
damning information that would blow the Mueller investigation wide open was laughable. In her
post, she claimed she "always planned to disclose this when this person's role was publicly
revealed," but to date -- almost two years later -- she has never revealed "this person's"
identity because, from all appearances, the Mueller report never relied on Wheeler's intrepid
reporting or her supposedly red-hot secrets.
Like so many other Russiagate obsessives who turned into social media and MSNBC/CNN
#Resistance stars, Wheeler was living a wild, self-serving fantasy, a Cold War Tom Clancy
suspense film that she invented in her head and then cast herself as the heroine: a crusading
investigative dot-connecter uncovering dangerous, hidden conspiracies perpetrated by dangerous,
hidden Cold War-style villains (Putin) to the point where her own life was endangered by her
bravery. It was a sad joke, a depressing spectacle of psycho-drama, but one that could have had
grave consequences for the person she voluntarily ratted out to the FBI. Whatever else is true,
this episode inflicted grave damage on American journalism by having mainstream,
Russia-obsessed journalists not denounce her for her egregious violation of journalistic ethics
but celebrate her for turning journalism on its head.
Why? Because, as Smith said in his Farrow article, she was "swim[ing] ably along with the
tides of social media and produc[ing] damaging reporting about public figures most disliked by
the loudest voices" and thus "the old rules of fairness and open-mindedness [were] more like
impediments than essential journalistic imperatives." Margaret Sullivan, the former New York
Times public editor and now the Washington Post's otherwise reliably commendable media
reporter,
celebrated Wheeler's bizarre behavior under the headline: "A journalist's conscience leads
her to reveal her source to the FBI."
Despite acknowledging that "in their reporting, journalists talk to criminals all the time
and don't turn them in" and that "it's pretty much an inviolable rule of journalism: Protect
your sources," Sullivan heralded Wheeler's ethically repugnant and journalism-eroding
violation of those principles. "It's not hard to see that her decision was a careful and
principled one," Sullivan proclaimed.
She even endorsed Wheeler's cringe-inducing, self-glorifying claims about her life being
endangered by invoking long-standard Cold War clichés about the treachery of the
Russkies ("Overly dramatic? Not really. The Russians do have a penchant for disposing of people
they find threatening."). The English language is insufficient to convey the madness required
to believe that the Kremlin wanted to kill Marcy Wheeler because her blogging was getting Too
Close to The Truth, but in the fevered swamps of resistance journalism, literally no claim was
too unhinged to be embraced provided that it fed the social media #Resistance masses.
Sullivan's article quoted no critics of Wheeler's incredibly controversial behavior
-- no need to: She was on the right side of social media reaction. And Sullivan never bothered
to return to wonder why her prediction -- "Wheeler hasn't named the source publicly, though his
name may soon be known to all who are following the Mueller investigation" -- never
materialized. Both CNN
and, incredibly, the
Columbia Journalism Review published similarly sympathetic accounts of Wheeler's desperate
attempts to turn over her source to the FBI and then cosplay as though she were some sort of
insider in the Mueller investigation. The most menacing attribute of what Smith calls
"Resistance Journalism" is that it permits and tolerates no dissent and questioning: perhaps
the single most destructive path journalism can take. It has been well-documented that MSNBC
and CNN spent three years peddling all sorts of ultimately discredited Russiagate conspiracy
theories by excluding from their airwaves anyone who dissented from or even questioned those
conspiracies. Instead, they relied upon an
increasingly homogenized army of former security state agents from the CIA, FBI, and NSA to
propound, in unison, all sorts of claims about Trump and Russia that turned out to be false,
and peppered their panels of "analysts" with journalists whose career skyrocketed exclusively
by pushing maximalist Russiagate claims, often by relying on the same intelligence officials
these cable outlets sat them next to.
That NBC & MSNBC hired as a "news analyst" John Brennan - who ran the CIA when the
Trump/Russia investigation began & was a key player in the news he was shaping as a paid
colleague of their reporters - is a huge ethical breach. And it produced this: pic.twitter.com/nPlaq5YVxf
This trend -- whereby diversity of opinion and dissent from orthodoxies are
excluded from media discourse -- is worsening rapidly due to two major factors. The first is
that cable news programs are constructed to feed their audiences only self-affirming narratives
that vindicate partisan loyalties. One liberal cable host told me that they receive ratings not
for each show but for each segment , and they can see the ratings drop off -- the
remotes clicking away -- if they put on the air anyone who criticizes the party to which that
outlet is devoted (Democrats in the case of MSNBC and CNN, the GOP in the case of Fox).
But there's another more recent and probably more dissent-quashing development: the
disappearance of media jobs. Mass layoffs were already common in online journalism and local
newspapers
prior to the coronavirus pandemic , and have now turned into
an industrywide massacre . With young journalists watching jobs disappearing en masse, the
last thing they are going to want to do is question or challenge prevailing orthodoxies within
their news outlet or, using Smith's "Resistance Journalism" formulation, to "swim against the
tides of social media" or question the evidence amassed against those "most disliked by the
loudest voices."
Affirming those orthodoxies can be career-promoting, while questioning them can be
job-destroying. Consider the powerful incentives journalists face in an industry where jobs are
disappearing so rapidly one can barely keep count. During Russiagate, I often heard from young
journalists at large media outlets who expressed varying degrees of support for and agreement
with the skepticism which I and a handful of other journalists were expressing, but they felt
constrained to do so themselves, for good reason. They watched the reprisals and shunning doled
out even to journalists with a long record of journalistic accomplishments and job security for
the crime of Russiagate skepticism, such as Taibbi (similar to the way MSNBC fired Phil
Donahue in 2002 for opposing the invasion of Iraq), and they know journalists with less
stature and security than Taibbi could not risk incurring that collective wrath.
All professions and institutions suffer when a herd, groupthink mentality and the banning of
dissent prevail. But few activities are corroded from such a pathology more than journalism is,
which has as its core function skepticism and questioning of pieties. Journalism quickly
transforms into a sickly, limp version of itself when it itself wages war on the virtues of
dissent and airing a wide range of perspectives.
I do not know how valid are Smith's critiques of Farrow's journalism. But what I know for
certain is that Smith's broader diagnosis of "Resistance Journalism" is dead-on, and the harms
it is causing are deep and enduring. When journalists know they will thrive by affirming
pleasing falsehoods, and suffer when they insist on unpopular truths, journalism not only loses
its societal value but becomes just another instrument for societal manipulation, deceit, and
coercion.
Those are far from failures, those were successful disinformation/propaganda operations conducted with a certain goal --
remove Trump -- which demonstrate the level of intelligence agencies control of the MSM. In other words those are
parts of a bigger intelligence operation -- the color revolution against Trump led most probably by Obama and Brennan.
Now we know that Obama played an important role in Russiagate media hysteria and, most porbably, in planning and executing the
operation to entrap Flynn.
Notable quotes:
"... They are listed in reverse order, as measured by the magnitude of the embarrassment, the hysteria they generated on social media and cable news, the level of journalistic recklessness that produced them, and the amount of damage and danger they caused ..."
"... Note that all of these "errors" go only in one direction: namely, exaggerating the grave threat posed by Moscow and the Trump circle's connection to it. It's inevitable that media outlets will make mistakes on complex stories. If that's being done in good faith, one would expect the errors would be roughly 50/50 in terms of the agenda served by the false stories. That is most definitely not the case here. Just as was true in 2002 and 2003, when the media clearly wanted to exaggerate the threat posed by Saddam Hussein and thus all of its "errors" went in that direction, virtually all of its major "errors" in this story are devoted to the same agenda and script: ..."
"... Crowdstrike, the firm hired by the DNC, claimed they had evidence that Russia hacked Ukrainian artillery apps; they then retracted it . ..."
"... The U.S. media and Democrats spent six months claiming that all "17 intelligence agencies" agreed Russia was behind the hacks; the NYT finally retracted that in June, 2017: "The assessment was made by four intelligence agencies -- the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National Security Agency. The assessment was not approved by all 17 organizations in the American intelligence community." ..."
"... Widespread government and media claims that accused Russian agent Maria Butina offered "sex for favors" were totally false (and scurrilous). ..."
BuzzFeed was once notorious for
traffic-generating "listicles," but has since become an impressive outlet for deep
investigative journalism under editor-in-chief Ben Smith. That outlet was prominently in the
news this week thanks to its "bombshell" story about President Trump and Michael Cohen: a story
that, like so many others of its kind,
blew up in its face , this time when the typically mute Robert Mueller's office took the
extremely rare step to
label its key claims "inaccurate."
But in homage to BuzzFeed's past viral glory, following are the top ten worst media failures
in two-plus-years of Trump/Russia reporting. They are listed in reverse order, as measured by
the magnitude of the embarrassment, the hysteria they generated on social media and cable news,
the level of journalistic recklessness that produced them, and the amount of damage and danger
they caused. This list was extremely difficult to compile in part because news outlets
(particularly CNN and MSNBC) often delete from the internet the video segments of their most
embarrassing moments. Even more challenging was the fact that the number of worthy nominees is
so large that highly meritorious entrees had to be excluded, but are acknowledged at the end
with (dis)honorable mention status.
Note that all of these "errors" go only in one direction: namely, exaggerating the grave
threat posed by Moscow and the Trump circle's connection to it. It's inevitable that media
outlets will make mistakes on complex stories. If that's being done in good faith, one would
expect the errors would be roughly 50/50 in terms of the agenda served by the false stories.
That is most definitely not the case here. Just as was true in 2002 and 2003, when the media
clearly wanted to exaggerate the threat posed by Saddam Hussein and thus all of its "errors"
went in that direction, virtually all of its major "errors" in this story are devoted to the
same agenda and script:
10. RT Hacked Into and Took Over C-SPAN (Fortune)
On June 12, 2017, Fortune claimed that RT had hacked into and taken over C-SPAN and that
C-SPAN "confirmed" it had been hacked. The whole story was false:
Holy shit. Russia state propaganda (RT) "hacked" into C-SPAN feed and took over for a good
40 seconds today? In middle of live broadcast. https://t.co/pwWYFoDGDU
9. Russian Hackers Invaded the U.S. Electricity Grid to Deny Vermonters Heat
During the Winter (WashPost)
On December 30, 2016, the Washington Post reported that "Russian hackers penetrated the U.S.
electricity grid through a utility in Vermont," causing predictable outrage and panic, along
with threats from U.S. political leaders. But then they kept diluting the story with editor's
notes – to admit that the malware was found on a laptop not connected to the U.S.
electric grid at all – until finally acknowledging, days later, that the whole story was
false, since the malware had nothing to do with Russia or with the U.S. electric grid:
Breaking: Russian hackers penetrated U.S. electricity grid through a utility in Vermont
https://t.co/LED11lL7ej
8. A New, Deranged, Anonymous Group Declares Mainstream Political Sites on the
Left and Right to be Russian Propaganda Outlets and WashPost Touts its Report to Claim Massive
Kremlin Infiltration of the Internet (WashPost)
On November 24, 2016, the Washington Post
published one of the most inflammatory, sensationalistic stories to date about Russian
infiltration into U.S. politics using social media, accusing "more than 200 websites" of being
"routine peddlers of Russian propaganda during the election season, with combined audiences of
at least 15 million Americans." It added: "stories planted or promoted by the disinformation
campaign [on Facebook] were viewed more than 213 million times."
Unfortunately for the paper, those statistics were provided by a new, anonymous group that
reached these conclusions by classifying long-time, well-known sites – from the Drudge
Report to Clinton-critical left-wing websites such as Truthout, Black Agenda Report, Truthdig,
and Naked Capitalism, as well as libertarian venues such as Antiwar.com and the Ron Paul
Institute. – as "Russian propaganda outlets," producing one of the longest Editor's Note
in memory appended to the top of the article (but
not until two weeks later , long after the story was mindlessly spread all throughout the
media ecosystem):
Russian propaganda effort helped spread fake news during election, say independent
researchers https://t.co/3ETVXWw16Q
Just want to note I hadn't heard of Propornot before the WP piece and never gave
permission to them to call Bellingcat "allies" https://t.co/jQKnWzjrBR
7. Trump Aide Anthony Scaramucci is Involved in a Russian Hedge Fund Under
Senate Investigation (CNN)
On June 22, 2017, CNN reported that Trump aide Anthony Scaramucci was involved with the
Russian Direct Investment Fund, under Senate investigation. He was not. CNN retracted the story
and forced the three reporters who published it to leave the network. 6. Russia Attacked
U.S. "Diplomats" (i.e. Spies) at the Cuban Embassy Using a Super-Sophisticated Sonic Microwave
Weapon (NBC/MSNBC/CIA)
On September 11, 2017, NBC News and MSNBC
spread all over its airwaves a claim from its notorious CIA puppet Ken Dilanian that Russia
was behind a series of dastardly attacks on U.S. personnel at the Embassy in Cuba using a sonic
or microwave weapon so sophisticated and cunning that Pentagon and CIA scientists had no idea
what to make of it.
But then teams of neurologists began calling into doubt that these personnel had suffered
any brain injuries at all – that instead they appear to have experienced collective
psychosomatic symptoms – and then biologists published findings that the "strange sounds"
the U.S. "diplomats" reported hearing were identical to those emitted by a common Caribbean
male cricket during mating season.
An @NBCNews
exclusive: After more than a year of mystery, Russia is the main suspect in the sonic attacks
that sickened 26 U.S. diplomats and intelligence officials in Cuba. @MitchellReports has the
latest. pic.twitter.com/NEI9PJ9CpD
4. Paul Manafort Visited Julian Assange Three Times in the Ecuadorian Embassy
and Nobody Noticed (Guardian/Luke Harding)
On November 27, 2018, the Guardian
published a major "bombshell" that Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort had somehow managed
to sneak inside one of the world's most surveilled buildings, the Ecuadorian Embassy in London,
and visit Julian Assange on three different occasions. Cable and online commentators
exploded.
Seven weeks later,
no other media outlet has confirmed this ; no video or photographic evidence has emerged;
the Guardian refuses to answer any questions; its leading editors have virtually gone into
hiding; other media outlets have expressed serious doubts about its veracity; and an Ecuadorian
official who worked at the embassy has called the story a complete fake:
Paul Manafort held secret talks with Julian Assange inside the Ecuadorian embassy in
London, and visited around the time he joined Trump's campaign, the Guardian has been told.
https://t.co/Fc2BVmXipk
The Guardian reports that Paul Manafort visited Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks,
the same month that Manafort joined Donald Trump's presidential campaign in 2016, a meeting
that could carry vast implications for the Russia investigation https://t.co/pYawnv4MHH
3. CNN Explicitly Lied About Lanny Davis Being Its Source – For a Story
Whose Substance Was Also False: Cohen Would Testify that Trump Knew in Advance About the Trump
Tower Meeting (CNN)
On July 27, 2018, CNN
published a blockbuster story : that Michael Cohen was prepared to tell Robert Mueller that
President Trump knew in advanced about the Trump Tower meeting. There were, however, two
problems with this story: first, CNN got caught blatantly lying when its reporters claimed that
"contacted by CNN, one of Cohen's attorneys, Lanny Davis, declined to comment" (in fact, Davis
was one of CNN's key sources, if not its only source, for this story), and second, numerous
other outlets retracted the story after the source, Davis, admitted it was a lie. CNN, however,
to this date has refused to do either: 2. Robert Mueller Possesses Internal Emails and Witness Interviews Proving Trump
Directed Cohen to Lie to Congress (BuzzFeed)
BREAKING: President Trump personally directed his longtime attorney Michael Cohen to lie
to Congress about negotiations to build a Trump Tower in Moscow in order to obscure his
involvement. https://t.co/BEoMKiDypn
The allegation that the President of the United States may have suborned perjury before
our committee in an effort to curtail the investigation and cover up his business dealings
with Russia is among the most serious to date. We will do what's necessary to find out if
it's true. https://t.co/GljBAFqOjh
Listen, if Mueller does have multiple sources confirming Trump directed Cohen to lie to
Congress, then we need to know this ASAP. Mueller shouldn't end his inquiry, but it's about
time for him to show Congress his cards before it's too late for us to act. https://t.co/ekG5VSBS8G
To those trying to parse the Mueller statement: it's a straight-up denial. Maybe Buzzfeed
can prove they are right, maybe Mueller can prove them wrong. But it's an emphatic denial
https://t.co/EI1J7XLCJe
. @Isikoff :
"There were red flags about the BuzzFeed story from the get-go." Notes it was inconsistent
with Cohen's guilty plea when he said he made false statements about Trump Tower to Congress
to be "consistent" with Trump, not at his direction. pic.twitter.com/tgDg6SNPpG
We at The Post also had riffs on the story our reporters hadn't confirmed. One noted Fox
downplayed it; another said it "if true, looks to be the most damning to date for Trump." The
industry needs to think deeply on how to cover others' reporting we can't confirm
independently. https://t.co/afzG5B8LAP
Washington Post says Mueller's denial of BuzzFeed News article is aimed at the full story:
"Mueller's denial, according to people familiar with the matter, aims to make clear that none
of those statements in the story are accurate." https://t.co/ene0yqe1mK
If you're one of the people tempted to believe the self-evidently laughable claim that
there's something "vague" or unclear about Mueller's statement, or that it just seeks to
quibble with a few semantic trivialities, read this @WashPost story about this https://t.co/0io99LyATS
pic.twitter.com/ca1TwPR3Og
You can spend hours parsing the Carr statement, but given how unusual it is for any DOJ
office to issue this sort of on the record denial, let alone this office, suspect it means
the story's core contention that they have evidence Trump told Cohen to lie is fundamentally
wrong.
New York Times throws a bit of cold water on BuzzFeed's explosive -- and now seriously
challenged -- report that Trump instructed Michael Cohen to lie to Congress: https://t.co/9N7MiHs7et
pic.twitter.com/7FJFT9D8fW
I can't speak to Buzzfeed's sourcing, but, for what it's worth, I declined to run with
parts of the narrative they conveyed based on a source central to the story repeatedly
disputing the idea that Trump directly issued orders of that kind.
1. Donald Trump Jr. Was Offered Advanced Access to the WikiLeaks Email Archive
(CNN/MSNBC)
The morning of December 9, 2017, launched
one of the most humiliating spectacles in the history of the U.S. media. With a tone so
grave and bombastic that it is impossible to overstate, CNN went on the air and announced a
major exclusive: Donald Trump, Jr. was offered by email advanced access to the trove of DNC and
Podesta emails published by WikiLeaks – meaning before those emails were made public.
Within an hour, MSNBC's Ken Dilanian, using a tone somehow even more unhinged, purported to
have "independently confirmed" this mammoth, blockbuster scoop, which, they said, would have
been the smoking gun showing collusion between the Trump campaign and WikiLeaks over the hacked
emails (while the YouTube clips have been removed, you can still watch one of the amazing MSNBC
videos
here ).
There was, alas, just one small problem with this massive, blockbuster story: it was totally
and completely false. The email which Trump, Jr. received that directed him to the WikiLeaks
archive was sent after WikiLeaks published it online for the whole world to see, not before.
Rather than some super secretive operative giving Trump, Jr. advanced access, as both CNN and
MSNBC told the public for hours they had confirmed, it was instead just some totally pedestrian
message from a random member of the public suggesting Trump, Jr. review documents the whole
world was already talking about. All of the anonymous sources CNN and MSNBC cited somehow all
got the date of the email wrong.
To date, when asked how they both could have gotten such a massive story so completely wrong
in the same way, both CNN and MSNBC have adopted the posture of the CIA by maintaining complete
silence and refusing to explain how it could possibly be that all of their "multiple,
independent sources" got the date wrong on the email in the same way, to be as incriminating
– and false – as possible. Nor, needless to say, will they identify their sources
who, in concert, fed them such inflammatory and utterly false information.
Sadly, CNN and MSNBC have deleted most traces of the most humiliating videos from the
internet, including demanding that YouTube remove copies. But enough survives to document just
what a monumental, horrifying, and utterly inexcusable debacle this was. Particularly amazing
is the clip of the CNN reporter (see below) having to admit the error for the first time, as he
awkwardly struggles to pretend that it's not the massive, horrific debacle that it so obviously
is:
Knowingly soliciting or receiving anything of value from a foreign national for campaign
purposes violates the Federal Election Campaign Act. If it's worth over $2,000 then penalties
include fines & IMPRISONMENT. @DonaldJTrumpJr may be in bigly
trouble. #FridayFeeling
https://t.co/dRz6Ph17Er
CNN is leading the way in bashing BuzzFeed but it's worth remembering CNN had a
humiliation at least as big & bad: when they yelled that Trump Jr. had advanced access to
the WL archive (!): all based on a wrong date. They removed all the segments from YouTube,
but this remains: pic.twitter.com/0jiA50aIku
ABC News' Brian Ross is fired for
reporting Trump told Flynn to make contact with Russians when he was still a candidate;
in fact, Trump did that after he won.
The New York Times claimed Manafort provided
polling data to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, a person "close to the Kremlin"; in fact, he
provided them to Ukrainians, not Russians.
Crowdstrike, the firm hired by the DNC, claimed they had evidence that Russia hacked
Ukrainian artillery apps;
they then retracted it .
Bloomberg and the WSJ reported Mueller subpoenaed Deustche Bank for Trump's financial
records; the NYT said
that never happened .
Rachel Maddow devoted 20 minutes at the start of her show to very melodramatically
claiming a highly sophisticated party tried to trick her by sending her a fake Top Secret
document modeled after the one published by the Intercept, and said it could only have come
from the U.S. Government (or the Intercept) since the person obtained the document before it
was published by us and thus must have had special access to it; in fact,
Maddow and NBC completely misread the metadata on the document ; the fake sent to Maddow
was created after we published the document, and was sent to her by a random member of the
public who took the document from the Intercept's site and doctored it to see if she'd fall
for an obvious scam. Maddow's entire timeline, on which her whole melodramatic conspiracy
theory rested, was fictitious.
The U.S. media and Democrats spent six months claiming that all "17 intelligence
agencies" agreed Russia was behind the hacks; the NYT finally
retracted that in June, 2017: "The assessment was made by four intelligence agencies --
the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Central Intelligence Agency, the
Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National Security Agency. The assessment was not
approved by all 17 organizations in the American intelligence community."
AP claimed on February 2, 2018, that the Free Beacon commissioned the Steele Dossier;
they thereafter acknowledged that was false and
noted, instead: "Though the former spy, Christopher Steele, was hired by a firm that was
initially funded by the Washington Free Beacon, he did not begin work on the project until
after Democratic groups had begun funding it."
Widespread government and media claims that accused Russian agent Maria Butina offered
"sex for favors" were
totally false (and scurrilous).
After a Russian regional jet crashed on February 11, 2018, shortly after it took off from
Moscow, killing all 71 people aboard, Harvard Law Professor and frequent MSNBC contributor
Laurence Tribe
strongly implied Putin purposely caused the plane to go down in order to murder Sergei
Millian, a person vaguely linked to George Papadopoulos and Jared Kushner; in fact, Millian
was not on the plane nor, to date, has anyone claimed they had any evidence that Putin
ordered his own country's civilian passenger jet brought down.
This neocons is definitely past her shelf live. But MIC still controls the US foreign policy,
and this is that's why she is able to publish yet another second rate book.
One of the disasters that she endorsed was the Iraq war. Although not as enthusiastic about
launching an illegal, aggressive war as Sen. Hillary Clinton, Albright said at the time: "I
personally felt the war was justified on the basis of Saddam's decade-long refusal to comply
with UN Security Council resolutions on WMD." When pressed on America's alleged
indispensability, she allowed: "Vietnam clearly was a terrible disaster. The war in Iraq was a
terrible disaster. I do think that we have misunderstood the Middle East." Yet such admissions
don't appear to have tempered her enthusiasm for Washington's meddling around the globe.
She does run away from her flip answer to journalist Lesley Stahl's question about the death
of a half million Iraqi children due to sanctions: "we think the price is worth it." Albright
even claims that the Clinton administration came to recognize the human cost of sanctions and
moved to better targeted "smart" penalties. Yet there is nothing smart about America's current
economic war on Venezuela, Iran, and North Korea.
Moreover, she did not retreat from the assumption that U.S. policymakers are entitled to
decide on the life and death of foreigners. She might doubt in retrospect that the price was
worth it. But she still believes that decision was for her and other Clinton administration
officials to make.
This mindset has made the U.S. government anathema to many around the globe. Why do "they"
hate us? Because of officials like Albright. These days even the Europeans loath Washington. No
doubt, she would be horrified to be lumped with President Donald Trump and some of his aides,
such as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, but they all are swimming in hubris. Albright is simply
more polite when dealing with representatives of wealthy industrialized countries. In contrast,
Trump and Pompeo are ever ready to insult them as well.
Nor does she appear to retreat from the hubris she constantly expressed in other forms. For
instance, while declaring the U.S. to be "the indispensable nation," she also claimed: "We
stand tall and we see further than other countries into the future, and we see the danger here
to all of us." That assertion was bad enough when she made it in 1998. After Afghanistan, Iraq,
Libya, Yemen, Syria, and more it is positively ludicrous. Overweening arrogance among foreign
policy elites has cost America thousands of lives and trillions of dollars, while killing
hundreds of thousands of foreigners and ravaging foreign nations.
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However, it is not just those overseas for whom Albright has contempt. In 1992 she
famously queried Colin Powell: "What's the use of having this superb military you're always
talking about if we can't use it?" Never mind the lives of those who volunteered to defend
America. For her, they were just gambit pawns to be sacrificed in whatever global chess game
she was playing at the time. Powell, then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, observed: "I
thought I would have an aneurysm." Having served in Vietnam, he knew what it was like to lose
soldiers in combat. Anyone who has family in the military, as I do, cannot help but react
similarly.
A decade later she was asked about her comment. She responded: "what I thought was that we
had -- we were in a kind of a mode of thinking that we were never going to be able to use our
military effectively again." A strange claim, since shortly before George H. W. Bush had sent
American military personnel into a limited war against Iraq, while avoiding an interminable
guerrilla war and attempt at nation-building. She well represented the sofa samurai who
dominate Washington policy-making.
Even worse, however, in 1997 she said to Gen. Hugh Shelton, also JCS chairman: "I know I
shouldn't even be asking you this, but what we really need in order to go in and take out
Saddam is a precipitous event -- something that would make us look good in the eyes of the
world. Could you have one of our U-2s fly low enough -- and slow enough -- so as to guarantee
that Saddam could shoot it down?" He appeared to react rather like Powell, indicating that it
could be done as soon as she was ready to fly.
Albright is intelligent and has a fascinating family background. But she should be kept
far away from American foreign policy.
Doug Bandow is a
Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute. A former Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan, he
is author of Foreign Follies: America's New Global Empire.
Yhe president announced on Friday that he was firing Steve Linick, the State Department's
Inspector General.
One possible reason that Linick was removed may have been that he was conducting an
investigation into the
bogus emergency declaration that the administration used to expedite arms sales to Saudi
Arabia and the UAE last year:
House Democrats have discovered that the fired IG had mostly completed an investigation
into Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's widely criticized decision to skirt Congress with an
emergency declaration to approve billions of dollars in arms sales to Saudi Arabia last year,
aides on the Foreign Affairs Committee tell me.
"I have learned that there may be another reason for Mr. Linick's firing," Rep. Eliot L.
Engel (D-N.Y.), the chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a statement sent to me.
"His office was investigating -- at my request -- Trump's phony declaration of an emergency
so he could send weapons to Saudi Arabia."
If Linick was investigating the bogus emergency declaration, he would have come across
reporting that showed how a
former Raytheon lobbyist serving at the department was instrumental in pushing through the
plan to expedite arms sales that benefited his old employer. He would have discovered that
there was no genuine emergency that justified going around Congress. Once his investigation was
concluded, it would have found that the emergency declaration was made in bad faith and that
the law was abused so that the administration could proceed with arms sales that Congress
opposed.
Another reason for the firing was to
protect Mike Pompeo from an investigation into the Secretary's abuses of government
resources for personal purposes:
The State Department inspector general fired by President Trump was looking into
allegations that a staffer for Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was performing domestic errands
and chores such as handling dry cleaning, walking the family dog and making restaurant
reservations, said a congressional official familiar with the matter.
The House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman and the ranking member of the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee released a statement immediately on Friday objecting to Linick's firing and
suggesting that it might be an illegal act of retaliation. There will now be a Congressional
investigation into the circumstances surrounding Linick's firing. If Trump hoped to reduce the
scrutiny on Pompeo by getting rid of Linick, he will be disappointed. It remains to be seen how
much of a price Pompeo will pay for this, but the price is likely higher now than it would have
been if he hadn't pushed for removing the inspector general.
Pompeo reportedly recommended
Linick's removal. This is not the first time that Pompeo has been accused of misusing
government resources. There was a report
last summer that a whistleblower alleged that Pompeo and his wife were using Diplomatic
Security agents as their personal errand boys:
Democrats on a key House congressional committee are investigating allegations from a
whistleblower within the State Department about Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his
family's use of taxpayer-funded Diplomatic Security -- prompting agents to lament they are at
times viewed as "UberEats with guns".
Congressional investigators, who asked for the committee not to be named as they carry out
their inquiries, tell CNN that a State Department whistleblower has raised multiple issues
over a period of months, about special agents being asked to carry out some questionable
tasks for the Pompeo family.
Pompeo has also repeatedly used government resources for domestic travel that seems to have
more to do with advancing the Secretary's political ambitions in Kansas. There has been
widespread speculation that he has used official trips in an attempt to lay the groundwork for
a possible
Senate campaign . If so, it would be a flagrant violation of the Hatch Act. That prompted a
call for a special counsel investigation into Pompeo's travel. If Pompeo and his wife have
been using a political appointee as a gofer, that would be more of the same abusive
behavior.
Linick has previously clashed with other Trump administration officials at State. Last year,
he released a damning
report on Brian Hook over his treatment of Sahar Nowrouzzadeh, the Iranian-American
official who was apparently
targeted for political retaliation because of her policy views and ethnic background. The
fired inspector general was well-respected at the department, and his firing at Pompeo's urging
will likely cause further demoralization at a department that has already been run into the
ground under the Secretary's dismal leadership.
The Secretary of State seems to think that government funds and personnel are at his
disposal for his personal errands and political activities. Linick was doing exactly what an
inspector general is supposed to be doing by investigating the allegations against him, and
then he was conveniently fired on Pompeo's recommendation. You could hardly ask for a more
straightforward case of a corrupt official using his influence to remove the person responsible
for scrutinizing his conduct. If Linick was also fired because he was in the process of
exposing the administration's dishonest push for more arms sales to the Saudi coalition, that
makes his removal all the more outrageous and sinister.
Hawk Elliot Abrams, reborn as a U.S. envoy, is at the spear point of recent aggressive moves
in Venezuela. US Special Representative for Venezuela Elliot Abrams addresses the Atlantic
Council on the future of Venezuela in Washington, DC, on April 25, 2019. (Photo credit NICHOLAS
KAMM/AFP via Getty Images)
Called the "neocon zombie" by officials at the State Department, Abrams is known as an
operator who doesn't let anything stand in his way. He has a long history of pursuing
disastrous policies in government.
"Everything Abrams is doing now is the same thing he was doing during the Reagan
administration. He's very adept at manipulating the levers of power without a lot of
oversight," a former senior official at the State Department told The American
Conservative. The official added that Abrams is "singularly focused" on pursuing regime
change in Venezuela.
A little background on Abrams: when he served as Reagan's assistant secretary of state for
human rights, he concealed a
massacre of a thousand men, women, and children by U.S.-funded death squads in El Salvador.
He was also involved in the Iran Contra scandal, helping to secure covert funding for Contra
rebels in Nicaragua in violation of laws passed by Congress. In 1991, he pled guilty to
lying to Congress about the America's role in those two fiascos -- twice.
But then-president George H.W. Bush pardoned Abrams. He went on to support "measures to
scuttle the Latin American peace process launched by the Costa Rican president, Óscar
Arias" and use "the agency's money to unseat the Sandinistas in Nicaragua's 1990 general
elections," according
to Brian D'Haeseleer.
Under President George W. Bush, Abrams promoted regime change in Iraq.
Abrams was initially blocked from joining the Trump administration on account of a Never
Trump op-ed he'd penned. But Secretary of State Mike Pompeo succeeded in bringing him onboard
last year, despite his history of support for disastrous regime change policies.
It's no surprise that with Abrams at the helm, U.S. rhetoric and actions towards Venezuela
are constantly "escalating," Dr. Alejandro Velasco, associate professor of Modern Latin America
at New York University, said an interview with TAC.
In just the last month, Washington has placed bounties on the heads of President
Nicolás Maduro and a dozen current and former Venezuelan officials. The U.S. also
deployed the largest fleet ever to the Southern Hemisphere.
Meanwhile, Abrams announced the " Democratic
Transition Framework for Venezuela ," which calls on Maduro's government to embrace a
power-sharing deal. The plan doesn't explain how Venezuelan leaders with bounties on their
heads are supposed to come to the table and negotiate with Juan Guaido, whom the U.S.
recognizes as Venezuela's legitimate leader. Abrams has also said that the U.S. does not
support a coup.
A few days after recommending a power-sharing arrangement, and 18 years after the U.S.
backed a putsch against Hugo Chavez, Abrams
warned that if Maduro resisted the organization of a "transitional government," his
departure would be far more "dangerous and abrupt." To many, Abrams'
aggressive rhetoric against Maduro made it sound like the U.S. was "effectively threatening
him with another assassination attempt," like the one Washington had "tacitly
supported" in 2018.
Two weeks after Abrams' warning, Operation Gideon began. Jordan Goudreau, an American
citizen, former Green Beret, and three-time Bronze Star recipient for bravery in Iraq and
Afghanistan, along with Javier Nieto, a retired Venezuelan military captain, posted a video
from an undisclosed location saying they had launched an attack that was meant to begin a
rebellion that would lead to Maduro's arrest and the installation of Juan Guaido.
In a public relations coup for Maduro, the plot was quickly foiled. Given that American
citizens were involved and have produced a contract allegedly signed by Guaido,
the incident has severely harmed the reputations of both the U.S. and the Venezuelan
opposition.
Both President Trump and Pompeo have denied that the U.S. had any "direct" involvement with
Goudreau's plot.
However, the Trump administration has given billions of dollars from USAID to Venezuela, and
that money is largely untraceable due to concerns about outing supporters of Guaido.
"With all the cash and arms sloshing around in Venezuela," it is not hard to imagine how
U.S. funding could inadvertently wind up supporting something like this, said Velasco.
There are other signs that the U.S. may have been more involved in the plot than they are
saying publicly.
For one, American mercenaries don't carry passports identifying themselves as American nor
do they return to the U.S. where they can be brought up on charges for their work, said Sean
McFate, professor of war and strategy at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service and
the National Defense University.
In order to sell weapons or training to another nation, it is necessary to receive
permission from the State Department. It's unclear whether Goudreau and his band did so. But
Goudreau's social media posts look like a pretty "clear cut" violation of the International
Convention Against the Recruitment, Financing and Training of Mercenaries and the U.S.
International Traffic in Arms Regulation (ITAR) said Peter Singer, a senior fellow at New
America.
We know that months before the fated coup, the CIA met with Goudreau in Jamaica and
allegedly warned him off the project. According to the AP, Goudreau is now under
investigation for arms trafficking . Members of Congress have asked the State Department
what they knew of Goudreau's plans. Given the illegal nature of the supposedly unauthorized
project, it's very strange that the ringleader is at present in Florida, talking to the press
and posting on social media.
Besides that warning, it seems no one in government tried to stop this calamitous
operation.
And it's not just regime change. Last year, Abrams
advocated granting special immigration status for the 70,000 Venezuelans residing illegally
in the U.S. as a way to "pressure Maduro" even though Trump ran on the promise to severely
limit the number of people granted Temporary Protected Status.
It was in pursuit of special status for Venezuelans that Abrams showed himself to be
"incredibly pompous, bull-headed, and willing to destroy anyone who opposes him, in a personal
way, including by trashing their reputations in the media," another senior State Department
official told TAC. Abrams is not above hiding policy options he doesn't like and
offering only those he favors to Pompeo to present to Trump, sources said.
Abrams ultimately prevailed and Venezuelans received refugee status from the Trump
administration, despite the fact that it betrayed Trump's campaign promises.
According to Velasco, there are some people in the administration who believe that
Venezuelans are the "new Cubans" -- that they will become a solid, loyal Republican vote in the
swing state of Florida if they're granted special status. They also believe that Venezuelan
expats want to see the U.S. remove Maduro. There are "many Cold Warriors" who believe all it
will take is a "little push" for Venezuelans to rise up and take out Maduro, said Velasco.
The State Department did not respond to a request for comment on whether Abrams is pursuing
a military confrontation in Venezuela.
"Cold Warrior" beliefs are dangerous. While "Operation Gideon" was especially clownish, had
it been more sophisticated, it could have easily sparked a world war. The Russians, Iranians,
and Chinese are all operating in Venezuela.
That specter is even more concerning now that Russia's Foreign Minister Lavrov has
said that Russian special
services are on standby to help Venezuela's investigation of the mercenaries. about the
author Barbara Boland is TAC's foreign policy and national security reporter.
Previously, she worked as an editor for the Washington Examiner and for CNS News. She is
the author of Patton Uncovered , a book about General George Patton in World War II, and
her work has appeared on Fox News, The Hill , UK Spectator , and elsewhere.
Boland is a graduate from Immaculata University in Pennsylvania. Follow her on Twitter
@BBatDC .
In the interest of full disclosure, I am writing this review before having finished the
book. I've had the book for almost a year, but have only recently dared look through it. It
is massive. I bought the book because I have never believed in Obama, I always thought he was
the personification of the empty suit: lots of talk, little accomplishment. I finally turned
to this book when I realized I had been confused about when Obama had been a community
organizer. I thought it had been after Harvard Law, but he actually worked for a couple of
years before attending law school. Having checked out some of the later events, I ran across
his former girlfriend's asssertion that in 1986 he decided he was born to be President. This
sent me to the beginning of the book to try to find out how that happened. (Or even if it
did.) I'm not there yet, but I do have a handle on how the book was written and why it's so
massive.
Obama's supposed autobiographies have been pretty well debunked as "historical fiction."
They were not concerned with facts. Garrow's book is an antidote to the pretty fictional
accounts Obama has used to his advantage, and Garrow has made every effort to nail down as
many facts as possible. He not only has the facts, he interviews the participants, seeks out
multiple sources, and even checks the newspapers of the day when necessary. This makes for a
lot of verification of even the most insignificant details. But then again, we now have the
details of Obama's life, maybe more than we may have wanted. Garrow does not provide
analysis. He is concerned with the facts and only the facts as he's been able to verify them.
But Barack's has been an unusual life, and so maybe the details count.
Barack's Kenyan father came from a tribe that recognizes multiple wives. He left a first
wife in Kenya and married at least once in the US to Barack's mother. The marriage was at his
grandfather's insistence. They never lived together. In fact, Barack's mother never lived
with either of her husbands until she eventually followed the 2nd to Indonesia. But as long
as she was in Hawaii, she lived with her parents. The only exception was that about a month
after Barack's birth, she took her baby back to Washington State, where she had grown up, and
she lived there for the following year, while Barack's father was in Hawaii. As soon as he
left to attend Harvard, she returned to Hawaii with the baby and moved back in with her
parents. It is so unusual for a first time mother to move that far away from her own mother.
Most first time mothers are uncertain and anxious about taking care of a new baby.
I am struck that, once in Indonesia, Barack never picked up the language. By the 4th
grade, he was having trouble communicating with friends his own age. I thought that odd. When
I was 6, my family moved to northern Italy in June. In September, I was enrolled in the 1st
grade of an Italian school. By December, I could speak & write Italian. (Writing Italian
is pretty easy - it is spelled as it sounds.) My parents were never fluent and I was the
family interpreter during our three year stay there. But, given my own experience, I found it
very odd that Barack never learned Indonesian. He was there at the time to do so. God knows,
I've failed to learn any other language as an adult! You gotta do it as a kid for it to be
painless.
Barack's mother was unhappy with her 2nd husband when she perceived that he was becoming a
successful businessman. Most wives appreciate success. It generally comes with more money.
But that is not how Barack's mother viewed it.
Garrow confirms that Barack's grandfather's good friend in Hawaii was indeed an active
Communist with an extensive FBI dossier. The FBI was watching him, but never accused him of
espionage. Oahu is known for its naval bases, so I wondered. Garrow makes no mention of the
grandfather being a Communist, so we can assume that there is no verification of that. Just
that the two men were pretty close friends.
Being one of the few people who recognized Bill Ayres name when he appeared as a neighbor
& friend of the Obamas in Chicago, I looked up some of the Ayres association. Apparently,
Obama met Valerie Jarrett through the Ayres, who were close friends of her parents, and her
parents were on the left politically.
I am intrigued by this biography of our most opaque president. I'm not sure I'll make it
through the w-h-o-l-e book. But I do think that Obama's life was unusual enough to warrant
care that incidents are not taken out of context, so I might struggle through to the end. I'm
not sure how long that will take me. But I'm retired now, so perhaps this can be my
retirement project!
Book Reviewer , Reviewed in the United States on July 15, 2017
This book is brilliant because it was written by an author, David Garrow, who's not only
mastered the art of beautiful prose but also possesses unparalleled skills in researching his
subjects (which is why he won the Pulitzer for 'Bearing the Cross', the bio of Martin Luther
King, Jr.). Alas, this book is also sorrowful because it is clear Garrow began his biography
of Barack Hussein Obama honestly believing in the hope and change his subject promised - only
to be bitterly disappointed by the man his research ultimately uncovered. As 'Rising Star'
describes it, Obama began his life in Chicago as an idealistic community organizer whose
ambition was to change the world. Alas, this ambition was not realized when he failed to
secure any funding (a failure that would sadly be repeated again and again). Undeterred,
Obama simply shifted his focus to public office and prepared to run for the Illinois state
legislature. That position, he felt sure, would give him the funds he needed to make his
dreams come true. But there was a problem. The voters in Obama's district were black - and he
wasn't. That is, he was not perceived by them as such and, to be honest, Barack had never
thought of himself as black either. Up until the moment he first ran for public office,
Barack had never defined himself along racial lines but instead along emotional ones - that
of a lost child abandoned by his father and mother. By and large, Barack's life had been
devoid of black associations. He had next to no black friends growing up in Hawaii; in
college he'd persisted in avoiding black friendships, teachers and the black movement as a
whole. The black persona was simply not how he defined himself - but it would have to be if
he hoped to achieve public office in Chicago. What to do? Well, the solution which all of
Barack's advisers gave was for him to marry a woman who WAS black. Thus, Barack abandoned the
beautiful half-white, half-Japanese woman, Sheila Miyoshi Jager, whom he'd been living with
for nearly two years in Chicago (and whom he'd originally intended to marry) and instead
proposed marriage to Michelle Robinson. It was a political move which Barack would pay
bitterly for.
Michelle was not interested in politics, she hated it. What she loved was money. However,
in the beginning of their marriage she grudgingly acquiesced to Barack's low-paying position
with the Illinois State legislature because Michelle herself was earning a six-figure salary
at Sidley Austin. But then suddenly, mysteriously, Michelle left the firm AND forfeited her
law license (after barely 3 years of practice) to take a public job which paid barely
one-third of her old income. She was not pleased about this and immediately demanded that her
husband leave politics and get a job at a prestigious law firm that would bring in the salary
she craved. Barack balked at that and instead began working three jobs at once (state
legislature, law school professor and lawyer) to bring in the money. But it wasn't enough for
her. He then tried to placate her by promising her they would get rich from his book 'Dreams
Of My Father' (which Garrow takes great pains to insist was NOT written with the help of Bill
Ayers). Alas, the book was a flop. Michelle's anger at her husband's failure to make money
provoked countless arguments between the two of them; fights which she had no qualms
displaying in public, humiliating Barack constantly in front of friends and strangers. At
this point, Barack bargained desperately with Michelle to allow him to run for U.S.
Representative; surely this would bring in the funds she craved. Alas, he not only badly lost
the election but plunged into debt up to his ears. Barack had truly hit bottom. And then?
Suddenly money began pouring in for him.
Garrow gives no explanation as to why, he merely describes how Barack for the first time
in his life was in charge of the allocation of millions of dollars in public funds which he
began distributing as political patronage right and left. Shortly afterwards, Barack
announced he would run for the United States Senate, a hugely expensive venture. But once
again, he mysteriously came into possession of huge sums of money which would more than pay
for that run. His fortunes had changed, he was no longer the penniless spouse Michelle had
sneered at. Alas - and this is where the sorrow enters Garrow's writing - Barack himself had
changed as well. He was no longer the idealistic community organizer of the past, no longer
the fun-loving and outgoing person he'd once been. Instead, he was a cold, withdrawn
individual who distanced himself from his old friends, abandoned his old alliances, displayed
loyalty to no one but Michelle (and Valerie Jarrett). Garrow never puts it into words but
it's clear nonetheless; Barack had sold out.
Needless to say, the Leftist establishment does NOT view Garrow's book kindly. It's bad
enough 'Rising Star' uncovers Obama's failures, it's worse that Garrow's astounding research
is so precise, so accurate it's impossible to disprove his revelations of those failures.
It's no comfort to Obama's disillusioned followers that Garrow is as upset as they. I'm
certain in my heart he would have given anything to have come up with a different conclusion
for his subject. Alas, however, Garrow is a prisoner of his phenomenal skills as a researcher
and his own honesty. The result is a brilliant sorrowful book on a man who ultimately
betrayed the hope he had promised to the world - and himself.
44, the biggest fraudulent, groomed 'president' in USA history. Imagine if legal citizens
knew the TRUTH about corruption within the political arena? Thank you, @TuckerCarlson
Here's another link: Patrick Lawrence interviewing-at length- Diane Johnstone.
France, but it applies to the UK and elsewhere:
"A major paradox is that the left and the Yellow Vests call for economic and social
policies that are impossible under EU rules, and yet many on the left shy away from even
thinking of leaving the EU. For over a generation, the French left has made an imaginary
"social Europe" the center of its utopian ambitions...."
German
"But Germany has been an occupied country -- militarily and politically -- for 75 years,
and I suspect that many German political leaders (usually vetted by Washington) have
learned to fit their projects into U.S. policies. But I also think that the political
debate in Germany is overwhelmingly hypocritical, with concrete aims veiled by fake issues
such as human rights and, of course, devotion to Israel..."
Russia in Europe:
"Including Russia, Europe might become an independent pole of power. The U.S. is
currently doing everything to prevent this. But there is a school of strategic thought in
Washington which considers this a mistake, because it pushes Russia into the arms of China.
This school is in the ascendant with the campaign to denounce China as responsible for the
pandemic. As mentioned, the Atlanticists in Europe are leaping into the anti–China
propaganda battle. But they are not displaying any particular affection for Russia, which
shows no sign of sacrificing its partnership with China for the unreliable Europeans.
"If Russia were allowed to become a friendly bridge between China and Europe, the U.S.
would be obliged to abandon its pretensions of world hegemony."
"... Sydney Powell can only appeal the conduct of the Judge. This serves as a nice distraction from the unconstitutional conduct of the Obama administration in wiretapping political opponents; as well as multiple members of Congress ..."
"... We do know Rosenstein appointed Mueller as SC to investigate Flynn, among other things. ..."
"... And we now know there was no predicate for any of the Mueller SCO appointment; thus, Rosenstein, too: what was he doing? ..."
"... We do know that at some point after Bill Barr was confirmed as AG last year, that he began to investigate outing of Flynn and release of classified information, that is, actual crimes. ..."
"... And we know Obama is an enemy of Flynn. If the CIA never took any steps, prior to the Barr confirmation as AG -- and I have no way of knowing whether they did or did not, viz. the Flynn outing and leak of classified information, ---what, if any, might or should be, if any, the consequences of that? And, ditto the DOJ. ..."
"... It appear this judge want to protect the likes of Obama, and Yates, and the long list of villains whose mission remain: Destroy Flynn at all costs. ..."
"... General Flynn's original law team belonged to Covington & Burling. That's where Eric Holder made partner. Since his time as Attorney General, Holder has returned to that law firm. Like Fred said, they sandbagged the case. ..."
"... Flynn swore before two judges under penalty of perjury that he lied to the FBI. He then swore that he didn't lie to the FBI when he asked to withdraw his guilty plea. There's the conundrum. If we had the transcript of the Flynn-Kislyak conversations, we would know the answer to one of your questions. We could compare that to his guilty plea. We would then know if the prosecution's case was false. In that case both the prosecution and Flynn would be liable for perjuring themselves. It would also constitute prosecutorial misconduct IMO. Barr is doing Flynn a disservice by not releasing those transcripts. ..."
"... So all those mass incarcerated black men who pled guilty are really guilty because prosecutorial misconduct and defective legal advice neither happen to them nor are mitigating when a plea of guilty is made? "swore before two judges under penalty of perjury" The DOJ dropped the charges, it is up to the to prosecute for the new accusation that pleading guilty was actually perjury. Good luck at a jury trial with that. ..."
"... It seems to be a last minute desperation play by Sullivan to keep Obama out of the frying pan. ..."
"... Just today, the neocon-infested Washington Post ran an editorial, apparently by one of their DNC-affiliated writers, which attempted to jape the whole Obamagate narrative through a paroxysm of superlatives, mocking it as some gigantic and wholly imaginary conspiracy. This effort reminded me of their similar jocularity phase relative to Trump during the 2016 primary season. ..."
"... I suspect the reality is just the sleazy truth of Obama being just as much of a crooked bastard as Bush. The Obama gang, of course, is desperate to prevent the tarnishing of Saint Barry ..."
"... When Judge Sullivan said three days ago that he was going to make a schedule for outside persons and organizations to file written arguments, it was essentially an invitation for arguments against the government's request to dismiss the case. I started to put together an article about that brazen move. ..."
Firstly, Larry Johnson and Robert Willmann know more about this case than I do. It now
appears, if this report today is to be believed, that Emmett Sullivan is now inclined to
charge General Flynn with contempt of court and perjury. I have to ask; for what? This is
Kafkaesque.
For agreeing to a plea deal that Flynn knew was false? For failing to plead innocence? For
reversing his plea when it was demonstrated that the prosecution case against him was utterly
untrue and corrupt?
"Judge", I use the term loosely, Sullivan seems to be so ensnared in the coils of judicial
procedure that he has forgotten that truth and justice matter. That is the nicest construct I
can put on it. I think it's time for Sidney Powell to rip this judge to shreds. I await Larry
and Roberts comments.
Flynn was told by his lawyers from Covington & Burling that he was guilty. Covington
& Burling were not only wrong they made no effort to get the exculpatory evidence and
purposely withheld what evidence they did possess - repeatedly - from Flynn's new lawyer.
But then that has already been reported on publicly and discussed here. Perhaps your
memory is faulty.
Sydney Powell can only appeal the conduct of the Judge. This serves as a nice distraction
from the unconstitutional conduct of the Obama administration in wiretapping political
opponents; as well as multiple members of Congress, multiple governors and state health officials in response to China's
biological attack against the US and Western nations.
Yes, I agree with you. Sullivan trying to charge Flynn with perjury and contempt of court
is a deliberate distraction. I would have thought the people who should be charged are the
ones who constructed and prosecuted the bogus charge in the first place.
How many defendants automatically claim they are "not guilty, your honor" when asked to enter
their plea, even when there is still gunpowder on their hands?
Do they also get charged with perjury after their guilt is established, beyond a
reasonable doubt by a jury of their peers? You lied to the court - you said you were
innocent. Double time in the slammer for you.
Defendant statements of either their own guilt or innocence should be "privileged" and
therefore not actionable. Those statements are fundamental to our trust in our judicial
system, and should never later be claimed perjury or false statements if the defendant
changes their mind or a jury makes their ultimate finding.
Although different people at different times, and different circumstances: a
comparison.
Then CIA Agent Valerie Plame outing [she is currently a Democrat candidate for a New
Mexico congressional seat].
And, Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn [NSA-designee] outing.
Outing, that is: leaking their identities, by government officials[s], to . . . .and
release of classified information.
How do the actions taken by government compare and contrast, at the time of outing/leaking
crimes.
1] Both leaks went to the Washington Post.
2] Substance of the Plame and Flynn leaks related to . . .
WAP published Plame's identity, July 14, 2003. George Bush the younger, then president.
Robert David Sanders "Bob" Novak put his name to this at WAP. [Her husband, Joseph C. Wilson
4th, "What I Didn't Find in Africa", in The New York Times, July 6, 2003, disputed
Bush/Cheney administration claims, their claims of WMD in Iraq.]
WAP published Flynn's identify, Jan. 12, 2017. Barack Obama, then president. David
Reynolds Ignatius put his name to it at WAP. Flynn disputed Obama administration "facts"
about their Syrian war in particular, and more generally, in west Asia/near East/middle
east.]
3] Investigation at the time or no investigation at the time.
Executive Order 12333 of Dec. 4, 1981 requires actions on such matters.
In the Plame matter, the CIA, on July 24, 2003 made a phone call to the DOJ about this,
according to the CIA. They followed this up with a July 30, 2003 letter.
Government records show "on 24 July 2003, a CIA attorney left a phone message for the
Chief of the Counterespionage Section of DoJ noting concerns with recent articles on this
subject and stating that the CIA would forward a written crimes report pending the outcome of
a review of the articles by subject matter experts. By letter dated 30 July 2003, the CIA
reported to the Criminal Division of DoJ a possible violation of criminal law concerning the
unauthorized disclosure of classified information. The letter also informed DoJ that the
CIA's Office of Security had opened an investigation into this matter. This letter was sent
again to DoJ by facsimile on 5 September 2003."
Sept. 30, 2003, Bush famously stated, viz. the identities of the leaker[s]: "I want to
know who it is ... and if the person has violated law, the person will be taken care of."
Dec. 30, 2003 a Special Counsel was also appointed to investigate the Plame matter, as
well.
Then AG John Ashcroft recused himself and thus declined to make this SC appointment.
Patrick Fitzgerald was named the Special Counsel by then Deputy AG James Comey. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
We know many more details now about the Plame matter, than about what, if any,
investigation may, or may not have, begun, at the time of the Flynn outing and release of
classified information.
What we do know, so far, about the Flynn matter is that, at the time, there was no attempt
-- or at least, we don't know if there was -- any attempt from the Flynn outing on Jan. 12,
2017, to Jan. 20 of that year, when Obama was still president: a] if the CIA asked for an investigation b] if then AG Lynch did c] if DAG at the time Yates did d] if Obama did
We also don't know if, beginning Jan. 20 a] if then acting AG Yates did b] if President Trump did c] if the CIA did
Once Jeff Sessions was confirmed as AG, we don't know if he did, nor do we know if DAG Rod
Rosenstein did.
Nor do we know if the CIA did.
We do know Rosenstein appointed Mueller as SC to investigate Flynn, among other
things.
And we now know there was no predicate for any of the Mueller SCO appointment; thus,
Rosenstein, too: what was he doing?
We do know that at some point after Bill Barr was confirmed as AG last year, that he began
to investigate outing of Flynn and release of classified information, that is, actual
crimes.
It is a fair question to ask when he actually began investigation on the Flynn outing, and
leaking of classified material related to that.
And to ask when, or if, the CIA, since Jan. 20, 2017, ever did.
We do know there were many public enemies of Flynn at highest levels of DOJ, FBI, CIA, and
the office Clapper was in charge of at the time, Director of National Intelligence.
And we know Obama is an enemy of Flynn. If the CIA never took any steps, prior to the Barr confirmation as AG -- and I have no way
of knowing whether they did or did not, viz. the Flynn outing and leak of classified
information, ---what, if any, might or should be, if any, the consequences of that? And, ditto the DOJ.
As an aside: Judge Emmett Sullivan's ongoing tomfoolery and slapdash in the Flynn criminal
case puts in relief, sharp relief, just how upside down this entire issue has become.
It appear this judge want to protect the likes of Obama, and Yates, and the long list of
villains whose mission remain: Destroy Flynn at all costs.
Flynn's guilty plea being sworn to under penalty of perjury is no small matter, and the
DOJs actions have been, in total, extremely odd.
It may be unwise to read too much into this at this point. The DOJ has wasted a couple of
years and no doubt millions of dollars worth of the court's time. Sullivan is providing a
platform wherein the DOJ will have to fully explain itself in this matter. Both past and
present DOJs, that is.
As a general observation, there has been a tidal wave of criticism in American media over
the DOJ dropping the charges against Flynn.
I have made an attempt to follow what the American MSM are saying about this, and the
hostility to both Flynn and Barr is just overwhelming. Surely that overwhelming media opinion had an effect on Judge Sullivan's bad
decision.
Perhaps I'm missing something. I know the FBI can listen in on phone calls made to foreign
nationals, but how can the FBI legally listen in on phone calls made by the NSC Director of
the President-Elect, regardless of who he is talking to?
General Flynn's original law team belonged to Covington & Burling. That's where Eric
Holder made partner. Since his time as Attorney General, Holder has returned to that law
firm. Like Fred said, they sandbagged the case.
My husband's default TV channel is MSNBC, programming which I often overhear. A fair-minded
observer can't help but notice that Obama apologists only mention that Flynn plead guilty
twice. They NEVER emphasize the beyond-mitigating aspects of the matter, e.g., that his
counsel at the time (which was a law firm also employing former Obama AG Eric Holder) was
either incompetent or purposefully negligent in advising him to do so. Nor do they mention
that Flynn was threatened with the prospect of his son being prosecuted using rarely-enforced
FARA laws. The apologists also fail to remind their audiences that the FBI investigation of
Flynn was about to be closed -- much less do they report that he was NEVER charged with
perjury in the first place!
The convenient and expedient failure to fully inform people has become typical among the
MSM/Democrats/NeverTrumpers, et al. Their efforts to misinform, to perpetuate ignorance,
continue to play out not only in the entire Obamagate scandal but it seems also when it comes
to COVID-19 policy. No wonder zombie-themed entertainment is so popular in recent years.
SMFH...
Flynn wasn't outed. He was a widely known public figure for years. Trump and Pence
announced Flynn lied to them and the FBI when he was fired. I'm not if this was mentioned in
the press before Trump's announcement.
Flynn swore before two judges under penalty of perjury that he lied to the FBI. He then
swore that he didn't lie to the FBI when he asked to withdraw his guilty plea. There's the
conundrum. If we had the transcript of the Flynn-Kislyak conversations, we would know the
answer to one of your questions. We could compare that to his guilty plea. We would then know
if the prosecution's case was false. In that case both the prosecution and Flynn would be
liable for perjuring themselves. It would also constitute prosecutorial misconduct IMO. Barr
is doing Flynn a disservice by not releasing those transcripts.
TTG, there is this legal thing called the litigation privilege that, I think, covers what an
accused can say in a trial. Plenty of people plead guilty to charges that they know to be
false without the slightest demur by anyone..
Furthermore, Flynn may have become convinced by his lawyers that he had, in effect lied to
the FBI. In addition, since he was not under oath or cautioned by the FBI at the time, even
if he deliberately did lie for perhaps political or strategic reasons how is that a crime?
People lie to people all the time.
To put that another way, is telling a female FBI agent "I'll still respect you in the
morning" going to get you 20 years?
So all those mass incarcerated black men who pled guilty are really guilty because
prosecutorial misconduct and defective legal advice neither happen to them nor are
mitigating when a plea of guilty is made? "swore before two judges under penalty of perjury"
The DOJ dropped the charges, it is up to the to prosecute for the new accusation that
pleading guilty was actually perjury. Good luck at a jury trial with that.
Mark,
"Sullivan is providing a platform wherein the DOJ will have to fully explain itself in
this matter."
So he is willfully refusing to dismiss the case so the DOJ can give him an explanation -
other than the one they already gave him in the motion to dismiss? Justice Sullivan, on
behalf of the Judiciary, is now taking it upon itself to determine what the executive branch
of government was thinking in this case? To get that explanation he has appointed a former
member of the judiciary, one who had previously worked side by side with Andrew Weissman. No
bias there. You don't need to be a lawyer to see how ludicrous the suggestion and the judges
actions appear.
Sullivan, like most of the Federal judiciary, is just another swamp creature. He apparently slept through the class in law school where they said that the state has to
prosecute the case, a judge can't - even as much as he may want to.
The issue is both: the criminal leak of classified information; and the criminal outing --
the identity of Flynn -- related to classified information leak. Those are indissolubly
linked.
The issue is also this, thanks to Judge Emmett Gilbert & Sullivan, who wrote May 13,
2020:
"ORDERED that amicus curiae shall address whether the Court should issue an Order to Show
Cause why Mr. Flynn should not be held in criminal contempt for perjury. . . and any other
applicable statutes, rules, or controlling law."
Who would be charging Flynn with "criminal contempt for perjury"? And/Or, "and any other
applicable statutes, rules, or controlling law"?
Perhaps Gilbert & Sullivan will keep the case open until after the November
presidential election, or the November 2024 election, or the next one, so that another DOJ --
not headed by Bill Barr -- can so charge Flynn.
Or perhaps Gilbert & Sullivan is inviting Congress to name a Special Prosecutor.
Who might that be? James Comey? Andrew Weissmann? Sally Yates?
After all, how dare anyone expose Barry as anything but "the scandal free" administration.
This is Gilbert & Sullivan's motive, as I see it, my opinion, based on what I have seen
so far: To protect Barry, among others. And do that via keeping alive a prosecution of Flynn,
based on DOJ/FBI/CIA skullduggery. [Another theory is the judge wants to throw the book at
Covington for misconduct; perhaps both or one or the other are at play, I don't have the
evidence at this time to clearly say.]
As for Trump and Pence, that is grist for another mill.
For all we know, Trump and Pence may have wanted Flynn gone and they did not care how it
was done. And they did not want their finger prints on it; and for all we know, Trump and
Pence were not opposed to the Mueller SC appointment.
These are also things we actually just don't have clear answers to, just yet.
But that sideshow is irrelevant to this legal proceeding/circus per the May 13 order.
However, it may [or may not] be relevant to whether or not Trump and Pence actually wanted
Flynn gone – using the "Flynn lied" as an excuse to be rid of him.
Pence, at the time, had no business speaking about what was essentially classified
information, at the time, by the way; he did, on national TV, and Flynn was the patsy.
Did Trump and Pence, and their administration, sit on their hands as well, and do nothing
about the criminal leak of classified information linked to the outing of Flynn?
Claiming he lied could suggest they also were not interested in the crime of leaking
classified information and his outing.
At least Bush said or claimed to wanted to get to the bottom of the Plame matter. Did
Trump and Pence, at the time?
And if they did want to get to the bottom of it, I would like to see evidence that they
did so, and/or evidence that they were thwarted in doing so.
Surely, Trump and Pence can argue this was why they were not opposed to Mueller
appointment.
We don't know all the contents of the scope memo Rosenstein wrote, as the boss of Mueller,
-- whether or not investigation of the criminal leak and outing of Flynn was or was not part
of Mueller's scope of work.
We don't know because chunks of scope memo are still redacted and not available to the
public.
Presumably, AG Barr is investigation this; he came back on the scene last year.
What happened before him, going back to Jan. 20, 2017? And, what happened from Jan. 12 to
Jan. 2020, with respect to the Obama administration, on this crime?
Did anyone, prior to Barr, do anything, or try to do anything?
If this was not part of Rosenstein's scope memo to Mueller, what can one conclude? -30-
In recent years we have seen numerous individuals released from jail due to their innocence
being found by DNA and other scientific processes. A good number of those individuals had
plead guilty. In the Sullivan courtroom Flynn plead quietly twice (once to Sullivan the other
to Contreras) but now pleads innocent and the government has decided to drop the case. But
Judge Sullivan now questions what to do with Flynn and is asking for help from the legal
community to determine what to do. It has become a circus or Sullivan wants his pound of
flesh. Time will tell but if it is not to the benefit of Flynn then it's off to the Appeals
Court where it will be justly determined. After insinuating that Flynn was a traitor this Judge should drop the case quickly but no he
wants make himself like a bigger Idiot.
Flynn's case never went to trial. It went straight to a guilty plea and was awaiting the
sentencing phase. If the DOJ dropped charges before this guilty plea or at any time during a
trial, I doubt we would be in this mess. What Flynn signed onto is straightforward. I don't
know if this litigation privilege would apply to this Defendant's Acceptance.
"The preceding statement is a summary, made for the purpose of providing the Court with a
factual basis for my guilty plea to the charge against me. It does not include all of the
facts known to me regarding this offense. I make this statement knowingly and voluntarily and
because I am, in fact, guilty o f the crime charged. No threats have been made to me nor am I
under the influence o f anything that could impede my ability to understand this Statement o
f the Offense fully." "I have read every word of this Statement of the Offense, or have had it read to me. Pursuant
to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11, after consulting with my attorneys, I agree and
stipulate to this Statement of the Offense, and declare under penalty of perjury that it is
true and correct."
Sullivan is addressing the guilty plea by Flynn and his subsequent withdrawal of that plea.
creating the charge of perjury to the court.
Barr is opening up the DOJ to prosecutorial misconduct if the reason for the withdrawal is
exculpatory information that was not provided defendant prior to his guilty plea.
Sullivan is exploiting this discrepancy. I am neither a legal expert nor lawyer so will
stand corrected.
It seems to be a last minute desperation play by Sullivan to keep Obama out of the frying
pan.
Just today, the neocon-infested Washington Post ran an editorial, apparently by one of
their DNC-affiliated writers, which attempted to jape the whole Obamagate narrative through a
paroxysm of superlatives, mocking it as some gigantic and wholly imaginary conspiracy. This
effort reminded me of their similar jocularity phase relative to Trump during the 2016
primary season.
I suspect the reality is just the sleazy truth of Obama being just as much of a crooked
bastard as Bush. The Obama gang, of course, is desperate to prevent the tarnishing of Saint
Barry.
If Flynn does get off in the end, might he sue Obama and at some point depose him? An
interesting thought experiment.
I find this hilarious. It is like POTUS is a helpless bystander. Does he not realize it is
his DOJ that has "stolen or destroyed" the 302? Does he not know that he can declassify all
of "Obamagate"?
Or is his intent to just troll everyone?
And what about him throwing Flynn to the hyenas by firing him?
When Judge Sullivan said three days ago that he was going to make a schedule for outside
persons and organizations to file written arguments, it was essentially an invitation for
arguments against the government's request to dismiss the case. I started to put together an
article about that brazen move.
Now Sullivan has abandoned that move and has exposed himself as an advocate singularly
against the defendant Flynn, which of course is not his role. His order of Wednesday, 13 May,
appointed John Gleeson, a former federal judge in the Eastern District of New York, to
present arguments against the motion to dismiss Flynn's case and whether Flynn should be the
subject of a proceeding for criminal contempt of court for perjury.
Judge Sullivan's new order indicates that he has improperly invested his ego in the case,
and that something is likely going on behind the curtain.
With all that is emerging from the recent releases of sworn testimony from various
actors surrounding the Flynn case, and the Russiagate hoohaw exposing the motivations of
these individuals, can it be doubted that given the depth of the duplicity on exhibit here
that it is entirely possible (indeed, likely) that something as incriminating as the
"missing" 302 was destroyed to cover the tracks?
Although some of the principals left of their own volition, and others were removed
through being fired, it is clear that others acted as "stay behind" forces of the Deep State
to continue the coup from inside the DOJ, FBI, and IC. Under these circumstances, it is not
at all clear that President Trump was (and is now) substantially in command of these
agencies. Incriminating documents and recordings may well have been preemptively destroyed on
the sayso of the "stay behind" plotters still in high positions, so calls for
declassification of already disappeared evidence would be futile.
No, it doesn't look good that Flynn was fired, but at the time, and with what was known
at that time , and given Flynn's plea, what could be expected? Now that things have
subsequently been revealed, it looks like a bad call; hindsight is, as the saying has it,
20/20.
"... The majority of U.S. media will most likely try and find appropriate excuses so they can minimize Obama's role in these scandals. It is completely clear that the battle over who will be in the White House in the next four years is now taking focus on the Obama era as of opposed to Trump's mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic that has claimed the lives of over 80,000 Americans and infected more than 1.3 million people. ..."
"... With endless tweets by Donald Trump dedicated to Obama over the past few days, it is as if the presidential battle in November will be fought between him and Obama, and not Democrat сandidate Joe Biden . ..."
"... It is likely Obama is becoming more public as Trump's opponent Biden is proving inadequate and incapable of defeating Trump ..."
"... Trump also retweeted statements from CIA agent Buck Sexton, in which he accused Obama of sabotaging the Trump administration in the first days of his term. Sexton also called former FBI Director Andrew McCabe "a dishonorable partisan scumbag who has done incalculable damage to the reputation of the FBI and should be sitting in a cell for lying under oath" ..."
"... As for the affair with the secret operation of selling weapons to Mexican drug cartels, journalists of Forbes in 2011 wondered whether that operation would become Obama's "Watergate," ..."
Source: InfoBricsFormer
U.S. President Barack Obama is coming under increasing pressure, led by what President Donald
Trump is calling "Obamagate." This comes as Mexico has requested to finally clarify the affair
with the secret sale of American weapons to Mexican drug cartels. Mexico is asking for the case
to be clarified after almost ten years.
In this secret operation conducted by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and
Explosives, weapons from the U.S. were sold to Mexican drug cartels. The U.S. claimed that
about 2,000 automatic weapons were sold to Mexicans so that the Barack Obama administration
could follow their path to the drug cartels. Instead, these weapons were used in massacres.
Mexican authorities are now seeking answers from the United States.
In addition to selling weapons to Mexican drug cartels, Obama is responsible for a lot of
global upheaval on the world stage – primarily the so-called "Arab Spring" that should be
more accurately described as the "Arab Winter" as it brought death and destruction across the
Arab world.
The sale of these weapons to Mexican drug cartels is another ugly legacy of Obama's rule
that liberals like to view as one of the best periods of American history. Let's not forget
that in 2009 Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize for his apparent "extraordinary efforts to
strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between people."
The majority of U.S. media will most likely try and find appropriate excuses so they can
minimize Obama's role in these scandals. It is completely clear that the battle over who will
be in the White House in the next four years is now taking focus on the Obama era as of opposed
to Trump's mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic that has claimed the lives of over 80,000
Americans and infected more than 1.3 million people.
With endless tweets by Donald Trump dedicated to Obama over the past few days, it is as if
the presidential battle in November will be fought between him and Obama, and not Democrat
сandidate Joe Biden .
The reason for Trump's many tweets against the former president was because of Obama's
private conversation that was leaked to the public in which he criticized the suspension of the
investigation against Trump's former national security adviser Michael Flynn , while he called
Trump's fight against the coronavirus epidemic a "chaotic disaster."
The American president started tweeting on the morning of May 10 and stopped late in the
evening, making over a hundred tweets against Obama. This exchange between Obama and Trump is
not common in American politics as former presidents usually do not interfere in the politics
of their successors. However, there are suggestions that Obama still has connections to the
deep state and is actively undermining Trump.
Obama, who openly admitted he would remain active in politics and wished he could contend
for a third term, could be exerting influence through Hillary Clinton and Biden. It is likely
Obama is becoming more public as Trump's opponent Biden is proving inadequate and incapable of
defeating Trump.
The battle between Obama and Trump started with the announcement that the Ministry of
Justice is terminating the investigation against former Trump's national security adviser
Michael Flynn. Flynn, who was probably the shortest-serving national security adviser in
history, was sacked at the beginning of his term on charges of lying to Vice President Mike
Pence about talks with the Russian ambassador to Washington. His removal triggered a chain of
failed investigations and campaigns against Trump and his alleged links to Russian interference
during the U.S. presidential election, which also ended in a failed impeachment.
In private conversations that leaked to the public, Obama described Flynn's acquittal as a
threat to the rule of law.
Trump also retweeted statements from CIA agent Buck Sexton, in which he accused Obama of
sabotaging the Trump administration in the first days of his term. Sexton also called former
FBI Director Andrew McCabe "a dishonorable partisan scumbag who has done incalculable damage to
the reputation of the FBI and should be sitting in a cell for lying under oath"
Trump then continued with accusations on Twitter and said that Obama
committed "the biggest political crime in American history, by far!" and ended briefly with
"Obamagate."
As for the affair with the secret operation of selling weapons to Mexican drug cartels,
journalists of Forbes in 2011 wondered whether that operation would become Obama's "Watergate,"
and it appears that it very well could be. Obama's attempts to smear Trump has not only
backfired, but it could have very serious legal ramifications against him and others in his
administration.
The reason why the U.S. Government must be prosecuted for its war-crimes
against Iraq is that they are so horrific and there are so many of them, and international law
crumbles until they become prosecuted and severely punished for what they did. We therefore now
have internationally a lawless world (or "World Order") in which "Might makes right," and in
which there is really no effective international law, at all. This is merely gangster "law,"
ruling on an international level. It is what Hitler and his Axis of fascist imperialists had
imposed upon the world until the Allies -- U.S. under FDR, UK under Churchill, and U.S.S.R.
under Stalin -- defeated it, and established the United Nations. Furthermore, America's leaders deceived the American public into
perpetrating this invasion and occupation, of a foreign country (Iraq) that had never
threatened the United States; and, so, this invasion and subsequent military occupation
constitutes the very epitome of "aggressive war" -- unwarranted and illegal international
aggression. (Hitler, similarly to George W. Bush, would never have been able to obtain the
support of his people to invade if he had not lied, or "deceived," them, into invading and
militarily occupying foreign countries that had never threatened Germany, such as Belgium,
Poland and Czechoslovakia. This -- Hitler's lie-based aggressions -- was the core
of what the Nazis were hung for, and yet America now does it.)
Invoking the precedent set by the United States and its allies at the Nuremberg trial
in 1946, there can be no doubt that the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 was a war of
aggression. There was no imminent threat to U.S. security nor to the security of the world.
The invasion violated the U.N. Charter as well as U.N. Security Council Resolution
#1441.
The Nuremberg precedent calls for no less than the arrest and prosecution of those
individuals responsible for the invasion of Iraq, beginning with President George W. Bush,
Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State
Condoleez[z]a Rice, former Secretary of State Colin Powell and former Deputy Secretary of
Defense Paul Wolfowitz.
Take, for example, Condoleezza Rice, who famously warned
"We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud." (That warning was one of the most
effective lies in order to deceive the
American public into invading Iraq, because President Bush had had no real evidence, at all,
that there still remained any WMD in Iraq after the U.N. had destroyed them all, and left Iraq
in 1998 -- and he knew this; he was informed of this; he knew that he had no real evidence,
at all: he offered none; it was all mere
lies .)
So, the Nuremberg precedent definitely does apply against George W, Bush and his
partners-in-crime, just as it did against Hitler and his henchmen and allies.
The seriousness of this international war crime is not as severe as those of the Nazis were,
but nonetheless is comparable to it .
On 15 March 2018, Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J.S. Davies headlined at Alternet "The Staggering Death Toll in Iraq" and wrote that
"our calculations, using the best information available, show a catastrophic estimate of 2.4
million Iraqi deaths since the 2003 invasion," and linked to solid evidence, backing up their
estimate.
On 29 September 2015, I headlined "GALLUP: 'Iraqis Are the Saddest & One of the Angriest
Populations in the World'," and linked to Gallup's survey of 1,000 individuals in each of
148 countries around the world, which found that Iraq had the highest "Negative Experience
Score." That score includes "sadness," "physical pain," "anger," and other types of misery --
and Iraq, after America's invasion, has scored the highest in the entire world, on it, and in
the following years has likewise scored at or near the highest on "Negative Experience Score."
For example: in the latest, the 2019, Gallup "Global
Emotions Report" , Iraq scores fourth from the top on "Negative Experience Score," after
(in order from the worst) Chad, Niger, and Sierra Leone. (Gallup has been doing these surveys
ever since 2005, but the first one that was published under that title was the 2015 report,
which summarized the 2014 surveys' findings.) Of course, prior to America's invasion, there had
been America's 1990 war against Iraq and the U.S. regime's leadership and imposition of U.N.
sanctions (which likewise were based largely on U.S.-regime-backed lies , though not totally on lies like
the 2003 invasion was), which caused massive misery in that country; and, therefore, not all of
the misery in Iraq which showed up in the 2015 Global Emotions Report was due to only
the 2003 invasion and subsequent military occupation of that country. But almost all of
it was, and is. And all of it was based on America's rulers lying to the public in order to win
the public's acceptance of their evil plans and invasions against a country that had never
posed any threat whatsoever to Americans -- people residing in America . Furthermore, it is
also perhaps relevant that the 2012
"World Happiness Report" shows Iraq at the very bottom of the list of countries (on page 55
of that report) regarding "Average Net Affect by Country," meaning that Iraqis were the most
zombified of all 156 nationalities surveyed. Other traumatized countries were immediately above
Iraq on that list. On "Average Negative Affect," only "Palestinian Territories" scored higher
than Iraq (page 52). After America's invasion based entirely on lies, Iraq is a wrecked
country, which still remains under the U.S. regime's boot, as the following will document:
Bush's successors, Obama and Trump, failed to press for Bush's trial on these vast crimes,
even though the American people had ourselves become enormously victimized by them, though far
less so than Iraqis were. Instead, Bush's successors have become accessories after the fact, by
this failure to press for prosecution of him and his henchmen regarding this grave matter. In
fact, the "Defense One" site bannered on 26 September 2018, "US Official: We May Cut Support for Iraq If New Government Seats
Pro-Iran Politicians" , and opened with "The Trump administration may decrease U.S.
military support or other assistance to Iraq if its new government puts Iranian-aligned
politicians in any 'significant positions of responsibility,' a senior administration official
told reporters late last week." The way that the U.S. regime has brought 'democracy' to Iraq is
by threatening to withdraw its protection of the stooge-rulers that it had helped to place into
power there, unless those stooges do the U.S. dictators' bidding, against Iraq's neighbor Iran.
This specific American dictator, Trump, is demanding that majority-Shiite Iraq be run by
stooges who favor, instead, America's fundamentalist-Sunni allies, such as the Saud family who
own Saudi Arabia and who hate and loathe Shiites and Iran. The U.S. dictatorship insists
that Iraq, which the U.S. conquered, serve America's anti-Shiite and anti-Iranian
policy-objectives. "The U.S. threat, to withhold aid if Iran-aligned politicians occupy any
ministerial position, is an escalation of Washington's demands on Baghdad." The article went on
to quote a "senior administration official" as asserting that, "if Iran exerts a tremendous
amount of influence, or a significant amount of influence over the Iraqi government, it's going
to be difficult for us to continue to invest." Get the euphemisms there! This article said that
"the Trump administration has made constraining Iran's influence in the region a cornerstone of
their foreign policy." So, this hostility toward Iran must be reflected in Iraq's policies,
too. It's not enough that Trump wants to destroy Iran like Bush has destroyed Iraq; Trump
demands that Iraq participate in that crime, against Iraq's own neighbor. This article said
that, "There have also been protests against 'U.S. meddling' in the formation of a new Iraqi
government, singling out Special Presidential Envoy Brett McGurk for working to prevent parties
close to Iran from obtaining power." McGurk is the rabidly neconservative
former high G.W. Bush Administration official, and higher Obama Administration official, who
remained as Trump's top official on his policy to force Iraq to cooperate with America's
efforts to conquer Iran. Trump's evil is Obama's evil, and is Bush's evil. It is bipartisan
evil, no matter which Party is in power. Though Trump doesn't like either the Bushes or Obamas,
all of them are in the same evil policy-boat. America's Deep State
remains the same, no matter whom it places into the position of nominal power. The regime
remains the same, regardless.
On April 29th, the whistleblowing former UK Ambassador Craig Murray wrote :
Nobody knows how many people died as a result of the UK/US Coalition of Death led
destruction of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and, by proxy, Syria and Yemen. Nobody even knows how
many people western forces themselves killed directly. That is a huge number, but still under
10% of the total. To add to that you have to add those who died in subsequent conflict
engendered by the forced dismantling of the state the West disapproved of. Some were killed
by western proxies, some by anti-western forces, and some just by those reverting to ancient
tribal hostility and battle for resources into which the country had been regressed by
bombing.
You then have to add all those who died directly as a result of the destruction of
national infrastructure. Iraq lost in the destruction 60% of its potable drinking water, 75%
of its medical facilities and 80% of its electricity. This caused millions of deaths, as did
displacement. We are only of course talking about deaths, not maiming.
UK's Prime Minister Tony Blair should hang with the U.S. gang, but who is calling for this?
How much longer will the necessary prosecutions wait? Till after these international
war-criminals have all gone honored to their graves?
Although the International Criminal Court considered and dismissed possible criminal charges
against Tony Blair's UK Government regarding the invasion and military occupation of Iraq, the
actual crime, of invading and militarily occupying a country which had posed no threat to the
national security of the invader, was ignored, and the
conclusion was that "the situation did not appear to meet the required threshold of the
Statute" (which was only
"Willful killing or inhuman treatment of civilians" and which ignored the real
crime, which was "aggressive war" or "the crime of
aggression" -- the crime for which Nazis had been hanged at Nuremberg). Furthermore, no charges
whatsoever against the U.S. Government (the world's most frequent and most heinous violator of
international law) were considered. In other words: the International Criminal Court is
subordinate to, instead of applicable to, the U.S. regime. Just like Adolf Hitler had
repeatedly made clear that, to him, all nations except Germany were dispensable and only
Germany wasn't, Barack Obama repeatedly said that "The United States is and remains the one indispensable nation" ,
which likewise means that every other nation is "dispensable." The criminal
International Criminal Court accepts this, and yet expects to be respected.
The U.S. regime did "regime change" to Iraq in 2003, and to
Ukraine in 2014 , and tried to do it to Syria since 2009 , and to Yemen since 2015, and to Venezuela since
2012, and to Iran since 2017 -- just to
mention some of the examples. And, though the Nuremberg precedent certainly applies,
it's not enforced. In principle, then, Hitler has posthumously won WW II.
Hitler must be smiling, now. FDR must be rolling in his grave.
The only way to address this problem, if there won't be prosecutions against the 'duly
elected' (Deep-State-approved and enabled) national leaders and appointees, would be
governmental seizure and nationalization of the assets that are outright owned or else
controlled by America's Deep State. Ultimately, the Government-officials who are s'elected' and
appointed to run the American Government have been and are representing not the American people
but instead represent the billionaires who
fund those officials' and former officials' careers . In a democracy, those individuals --
the financial enablers of those politicians' s'electoral' success -- would be dispossessed of
all their assets, and then prosecuted for the crimes that were perpetrated by the public
officials whom they had participated in (significantly funded and propagandized for) placing
into power. (For example, both
Parties' Presidential nominees are unqualified to serve in any public office in a
democracy.)
Democracy cannot function with a
systematically lied-to public . Nor can it function if the responsible governmental
officials are effectively immune from prosecution for their 'legal' crimes, or if the financial
string-pullers behind the scenes can safely pull those strings. In America right now,
both of those conditions
pertain, and, as a result, democracy is impossible . There are only two ways to address
this problem, and one of them would start by prosecuting George W. Bush.
Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They're Not Even
Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST'S
VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity .
Fresh off of his defense of the
foreign policy "Blob," Hal Brands
suggests that the U.S. might get back into the business of covertly overthrowing foreign
governments:
Just as the U.S. sought to undermine or topple unfriendly regimes during the Cold War, it
may look to such methods again in its increasingly heated rivalry with China. Caution will be
necessary: History tells us that while covert intervention can sometimes be a cost-effective
tool of competition, it is fraught with risks and profound moral trade-offs.
It is difficult to think of examples where sponsoring coups in other countries has ever
really been "cost-effective," unless one is comparing those coups to full-blown invasions and
occupations. The up-front costs to the U.S. may seem low, but the U.S. usually ends up losing
much more than it bargained for. The cost to the people in the affected country is quite high,
and that ought to be part of any calculation. Brands' own examples of what he counts as
successes are telling for how horrible they were:
But is covert intervention a good idea? Some analysts argue that it rarely works and
should be avoided, yet this is probably the wrong standard. Countries usually resort to
covert action when other options have either failed or are deemed undesirable, so the
likelihood of success is low to begin with. That built-in handicap notwithstanding, the U.S.
did, in some cases, get serious strategic mileage out of its meddling.
In the late 1940s, covert support for democratic politicians in Italy played a modest but
probably important role in shoring up that country against communist challenges at the polls.
For the cost of a few hired mobs, the U.S. facilitated the toppling of Prime Minister
Mohammed Mossadegh of Iran in 1953, securing its strategic flank in the Persian Gulf for 25
years. CIA support helped the Indonesian military consolidate power after it toppled an
increasingly anti-American Sukarno in 1965, thus avoiding the prospect of Southeast Asia's
most important country turning hostile.
Overthrowing Mossadegh ended up being one of the most short-sighted instances of U.S.
interference of the entire Cold War. It may have bought the U.S. a semi-reliable client for a
couple decades, but it came at the cost of alienating the Iranian people and fostering
generations of hostility towards the U.S. For the sake of having an oppressive dictator on
"our" side for a short time, the U.S. earned enmity that has lasted almost twice as long. The
U.S. is still paying the price for that coup almost seventy years later as Washington's
obsession with Iran distorts our policies in the region. Continued interest in pursuing regime
change in Iran shows that many in Washington have still learned nothing from the last time.
Backing Suharto was not driven by any real necessity. It was driven by the same bankrupt domino
theory that poisoned our foreign policy thinking throughout that period. It did make the U.S.
complicit in a horrific
campaign of mass murder :
It was an anti-Communist blood bath of at least half a million Indonesians. And American
officials watched it happen without raising any public objections, at times even applauding
the forces behind the killing, according to newly declassified State Department files that
show diplomats meticulously documenting the purge in 1965-66.
Brands acknowledges these things later in the column, so what is the point of this exercise
in entertaining such a terrible option as potentially "useful"? Useful to whom? To do what? His
argument gets even shakier when he says this:
The U.S. didn't do this gratuitously, or to protect American investments overseas.
Engineering the overthrow of a foreign government that poses absolutely no threat to the
U.S. is the definition of gratuitous. Every Cold War-era coup that the U.S. sponsored was
gratuitous. If U.S. officials claimed that they were compelled to take these actions, they were
offering up strained rationalizations for what they already wanted to do.
Whatever apparent short-term gains the U.S. might think it is getting by acquiring a
despotic client somewhere are usually quite limited and they are always fleeting. The U.S. is
usually saddled with an increasingly unpopular ruler whose people come to resent the U.S. for
our part in supporting that ruler. Like other kinds of regime change, covert regime change is
never really necessary. Brands asserts that governments resort to these tactics when "other
options have failed," but this misses the point completely. Believing that the U.S. has the
right to remove another country's government is a profound error that has inspired many of our
worst policies. Invoking rivalry with China is just another excuse to consider doing things
that the U.S. should reject on principle. Brands writes:
A few years from now, Washington might find itself desperately seeking covert options to
prevent some important country in sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East or Southeast Asia from
aligning with Beijing.
If we start hearing more arguments like this in a few years, we can be fairly sure that the
importance of the country in question will be greatly exaggerated and the danger of "losing" it
to China will be much smaller than the alarmists claim. A Cold War-like rivalry with China is
undesirable for many other reasons, and the possibility of reviving the worst tactics of the
Cold War to engage in that rivalry is one more reason to reject it.
Covert regime change is an intervention that the U.S. has chosen in the past out of
excessive fear that a rival might gain a foothold in some far-off country, and in almost every
case the alignment of that country didn't matter to the larger rivalry anyway. Going down that
road again means fueling more civil wars, abetting more authoritarianism and atrocities, and
ultimately "losing" the country forever when the people have finally had enough of the
repression and corruption that are typical of these client governments.
Brands strives mightily to make these covert operations seem more valuable than they were.
He even goes so far as to say this:
Without covert action, America might not have won the Cold War.
It is impossible to know for sure how things would have turned out if the U.S. had not done
these things, but this doesn't make much sense. Toppling minor governments and stoking civil
wars in far-flung countries had no appreciable effect on the USSR, and they are not why the
Soviet Union collapsed. The tragedy of the Cold War is that the USSR was going to implode
because of the failings of its own system, but U.S. policies were based on the false assumption
that it was a juggernaut that had to be combated everywhere. The U.S. backed a lot of ugly
armed groups over the decades in the belief that engaging in these proxy wars mattered greatly
to the outcome of the rivalry with Moscow, but in the end they proved to be strategically
irrelevant. Whatever form U.S.-China rivalry takes in the years to come, we should not repeat
those mistakes.
One is sometimes pressed to wonder just how little the rest of the world sees between
Washington, Moscow, or Peking (pardon me, Beijing ) when it comes to leaving them
the hell alone. Especially when we consider, the Brits were very good at playing the Great
Game, and the US fumbles almost every time we sally forth. (Must have been the public
school tradition, or something.)
"The cost to the people in the affected country is quite high, and that ought to be part of
any calculation." This is definitely out of the equation for those interventionists. From
the perspective of an ordinary third-world citizen (me included), to think the US
government and its hawks have my best (or for that matter better than my own, perhaps
problematic, government) interest in mind is beyond naivety.
"Hal Brands that the U.S. might get back into the business of covertly overthrowing
foreign governments"
Could some one please point to where the US ever stopped over throwing
governments. It is currently in the middle of over throwing the
governments of Iran, Syria, Iraq, North Korea, Venezuela etc, etc. The
US didn't stop trying. It just switched tactics to arming, training and
paying terrorist groups to do the heavy lifting.
DL wrote: Overthrowing Mossadegh ended up being one of the most short-sighted instances of
U.S. interference of the entire Cold War.
And it was wrong. It is WRONG to bring down a government just because you want to steal
their natural resources. That used to be a US talking point. Then, whoosh, we are an Empire
and are trying to imitate imperial Britain.
This is well said. Yes, coups are bad realpolitik in both the short term and the long term.
Yes, despite fancy accounting, they are not at all cost effective.
But they are also morally wrong. And it is not the job of the clandestine services to
determine the morality, they are simply tools that carry out the subconscious animus and
power dynamics of the American politics.
It is the job of the politicians who do the work of staffing the upper echelons of the
services and then manage the tone of the nation to make sure we don't do things that are
both stupid and morally wrong. And on this front, we are failing so miserably that it's
fair to despair. To point out Trump's failings as a leader, both in terms of his native
abilities and his native moral center, is old news. But there ya go. Here we are.
The problem is that the neocons define morality as whatever benefits the U.S., other
countries be damned. They completely reject the idea of a broader-based morality or foreign
relations founded on mutual respect. This zero sum way of looking at the world ends up
poisoning relations even when there is little or no benefit to the U.S.. It also means that
they see the U.N. as an obstacle to be overcome rather than a tool of diplomacy.
They may have a point, and the U.S. sometimes needs to play hardball, but needlessly
antagonizing other countries costs the U.S. influence. That's bad for business.
I don't think the foreign policy realists or America Firsters are really any more moral
than the neo-cons, at least not when a country falls within what they feel is America's
natural sphere of influence or threatens American Capital's interests in their country. The
neo-cons just have a more grandiose vision of America's role in the world, and pretensions
to a different morality.
That may have been a US talking point at one time, but decades of gunboat diplomacy and
sending in the marines says it was a crock and that the US had no problem at all stealing
the natural resources of other countries. The main difference before and after World War II
was that the behavior we used to mostly limit to the Western Hemisphere - with occasional
forays into the Pacific and the Pacific Rim - could now be exercised all over the world,
including in previously British, French, Italian, Dutch, Belgian and Japanese colonies and
spheres of influence, not to mention the broken remnants of Europe itself. Decades of
practice in Latin America and the Caribbean, not to mention Hawaii and the Philippines, had
prepared us all too well for "the American Century."
Some of these people have a disregard for human life that makes them worse than the most
cold hearted serial killer. But they have the ear of the most powerful people in the US.
My first reaction is why do want to go back to all these coups that might have worked 25%
but just as often blew up in our face back in the Cold War.
1) One thing to remember was the Soviet'Union was not effective with similar methods and
sap their nation resources even worse than the US did.
2) Even when the US 'lost' nations in the Cold War, it usually just made life worse for
the people. The Vietnam set that nation back generation and Cuba is still driving 1950s US
made cars.
3) These coups often ended in Mission Creep and along with the fears of another Cuba,
was the main reason we ended up at war with Vietnam.
4) I know you made this point, WE ARE NOT IN COLD WAR with China. There is a lot wrong
with China and my guess this virus spread to South America is going to very contentious
with SA nations and China in 6 - 12 months. This point can not be repeated enough.
6) The Domino Theory only worked once...And for reasons where our military or coups did
not play a role. Japan led the captialism in Asia and other Pacific Rim nations, including
China, followed.
Chancellor Angela Merkel that stupid? "Chancellor Angela Merkel used strong words on Wednesday condemning an "outrageous"
cyberattack by Russia's foreign intelligence service on the German Parliament, her personal
email account included. Russia, she said, was pursuing "a strategy of hybrid warfare."
Notable quotes:
"... That alleged attack happened in 2015. The attribution to Russia is as shoddy as all attributions of cyberattacks are. ..."
"... Intelligence officials had long suspected Russian operatives were behind the attack, but they took five years to collect the evidence, which was presented in a report given to Ms. Merkel's office just last week. ..."
"... This is really funny because we recently learned that the company which investigated the alleged DNC intrusion, CrowdStrike, had found no evidence , as in zero, that a Russian hacker group had targeted the DNC or that DNC emails were exfiltrated over the Internet: ..."
"... CrowdStrike, the private cyber-security firm that first accused Russia of hacking Democratic Party emails and served as a critical source for U.S. intelligence officials in the years-long Trump-Russia probe, acknowledged to Congress more than two years ago that it had no concrete evidence that Russian hackers stole emails from the Democratic National Committee's server. ..."
"... The DNC emails were most likely stolen by its local network administrator, Seth Rich , who provided them to Wikileaks before he was killed in a suspicious 'robbery' during which nothing was taken. ..."
"... The whole attribution of case of the stolen DNC emails to Russia is based on exactly nothing but intelligence rumors and CrowdStrike claims for which it had no evidence. As there is no evidence at all that the DNC was attacked by a Russian cybergroup what does that mean for the attribution of the attack on the German Bundestag to the very same group? ..."
The New York Times continues its anti-Russia campaign with a report about an old
cyberattack on German parliament which also targeted the parliament office of Chancellor Angela
Merkel.
Chancellor Angela Merkel used strong words on Wednesday condemning an "outrageous"
cyberattack by Russia's foreign intelligence service on the German Parliament, her personal
email account included. Russia, she said, was pursuing "a strategy of hybrid warfare."
But asked how Berlin intended to deal with recent revelations implicating the Russians,
Ms. Merkel was less forthcoming.
"We always reserve the right to take measures," she said in Parliament, then immediately
added, "Nevertheless, I will continue to strive for a good relationship with Russia, because
I believe that there is every reason to always continue these diplomatic efforts."
That alleged attack happened in 2015. The attribution to Russia is as shoddy as all
attributions of cyberattacks are.
Intelligence officials had long suspected Russian operatives were behind the attack, but they
took five years to collect the evidence, which was presented in a report given to Ms.
Merkel's office just last week.
Officials say the report traced the attack to the same Russian hacker group that targeted
the Democratic Party during the U.S. presidential election campaign in 2016.
This is really funny because we recently learned that the company which investigated the
alleged DNC intrusion, CrowdStrike,
had found no evidence , as in zero, that a Russian hacker group had targeted the DNC or
that DNC emails were exfiltrated over the Internet:
CrowdStrike, the private cyber-security firm that first accused Russia of hacking Democratic
Party emails and served as a critical source for U.S. intelligence officials in the
years-long Trump-Russia probe, acknowledged to Congress more than two years ago that it had
no concrete evidence that Russian hackers stole emails from the Democratic National
Committee's server.
...
[CrowdStrike President Shawn] Henry personally led the remediation and forensics analysis of
the DNC server after being warned of a breach in late April 2016; his work was paid for by
the DNC, which refused to turn over its server to the FBI. Asked for the date when alleged
Russian hackers stole data from the DNC server, Henry testified that CrowdStrike did not in
fact know if such a theft occurred at all : "We did not have concrete evidence that the data
was exfiltrated [moved electronically] from the DNC, but we have indicators that it was
exfiltrated," Henry said.
The DNC emails were most likely stolen by its local network administrator, Seth Rich , who provided
them to Wikileaks before he was killed in a suspicious 'robbery' during which nothing was
taken.
The whole attribution of case of the stolen DNC emails to Russia is based on exactly nothing
but intelligence rumors and CrowdStrike claims for which it had no evidence. As there is no
evidence at all that the DNC was attacked by a Russian cybergroup what does that mean for the
attribution of the attack on the German Bundestag to the very same group?
While the NYT also mentions that NSA actually snooped on Merkel's private phonecalls
it tries to keep the spotlight on Russia:
As such, Germany's democracy has been a target of very different kinds of Russian
intelligence operations, officials say. In December 2016, 900,000 Germans lost access to
internet and telephone services following a cyberattack traced to Russia.
That mass attack on internet home routers, which by the way happened in November 2016 not in
December, was done with the Mirai
worm :
More than 900,000 customers of German ISP Deutsche Telekom (DT) were knocked offline this
week after their Internet routers got infected by a new variant of a computer worm known as
Mirai. The malware wriggled inside the routers via a newly discovered vulnerability in a
feature that allows ISPs to remotely upgrade the firmware on the devices. But the new Mirai
malware turns that feature off once it infests a device, complicating DT's cleanup and
restoration efforts.
...
This new variant of Mirai builds on malware
source code released at the end of September . That leak came a little more a week after
a botnet based on Mirai was used in a record-sized
attack that caused KrebsOnSecurity to go offline for several
days . Since then, dozens of new Mirai botnets have emerged , all
competing for a finite pool of vulnerable IoT systems that can be infected.
The attack has not been attributed to Russia but to a British man who offered attacks as a
service.
He was arrested in February 2017:
A 29-year-old man has been arrested at Luton airport by the UK's National Crime Agency (NCA)
in connection with a massive internet attack that disrupted telephone, television and
internet services in Germany last November. As regular readers of We Live Security will
recall, over 900,000 Deutsche Telekom broadband customers were knocked offline last November
as an alleged attempt was made to hijack their routers into a destructive botnet.
...
The NCA arrested the British man under a European Arrest Warrant issued by Germany's Federal
Criminal Police Office (BKA) who have described the attack as a threat to Germany's national
communication infrastructure.
According to German prosecutors, the British man allegedly offered to sell access to the
botnet on the computer underground. Agencies are planning to extradite the man to Germany,
where – if convicted – he could face up to ten years imprisonment.
During the trial, Daniel admitted that he never intended for the routers to cease
functioning. He only wanted to silently control them so he can use them as part of a DDoS
botnet to increase his botnet firepower. As discussed earlier he also confessed being paid by
competitors to takedown Lonestar.
In Aug 2017 Daniel was
extradited back to the UK to face extortion charges after attempting to blackmail Lloyds
and Barclays banks. According to press reports, he asked the Lloyds to pay about
£75,000 in bitcoins for the attack to be called off.
The Mirai attack is widely known to have been attributed to Kaye. The case has been
discussed
at length . IT security journalist Brian Krebs, who's site was also attacked by a Mirai bot
net, has written several
stories about it. It was never 'traced to Russia' or attributed it to anyone else but Daniel
Kaye.
Besides that Kennhold writes of "Russia's foreign intelligence service, known as the
G.R.U.". The real Russian foreign intelligence services is the SVR. The military intelligence
agency of Russia was once called GRU but has been renamed to GU.
The New York Times just made up the claim about Russia hacking in Germany from
absolutely nothing. The whole piece was published without even the most basic research and fact
checking.
It seems that for the Times anything can be blamed on Russia completely independent
of what the actually facts say.
Posted by b on May 14, 2020 at 14:38 UTC |
Permalink
Along the same lines, it always bothered me that among all the (mostly contrived)
arguments about who might have been responsible for the alleged "hacking" of DNC as well as
Clinton's emails, we never heard mentioned one single time the one third party that we
absolutely KNOW had intercepted and collected all of those emails--the NSA! Never a peep
about how US intelligence services could be tempted to mischief when in possession of
everyone's sensitive, personal information.
The "Fancy Bear" group (also knowns as advanced persistent threat 28) that is claimed to be
behind the hacks is likely little more than the collection of hacking tools shared on the
open and hidden parts of RuNet or Russian-speaking Internet. Many of these Russian-speaking
hackers are
actually Ukrainians .
Some of the Russian hackers also worked for the FSB, like the members of Shaltai
Boltai group that were later arrested for treason. George Eliason claims Shaltai Boltai
actually worked for Ukrainians. For a short version of the story read this:
Cyberanalyst George Eliason has written some intriguing blogs recently claiming that the
"Fancy Bear" which hacked the DNC server in mid-2016 was in fact a branch of Ukrainian
intelligence linked to the Atlantic Council and Crowdstrike. I invite you to have a go at
one of his recent essays...
Patrick
Armstrong , May 14 2020 15:27 utc |
3 Wow! You've done it again. I was just writing my Sitrep and thinking what an amazing
coincidence it is that, just as the Russian pipelaying ship arrived to finish Nord Stream,
Merkel is told that them nasty Russkies are doing nasty things. I come here and you've
already solved it. Yet another scoop. Congratulations.
The NYT has removed that sentence about the attack on internet/phone access:
"Correction: May 14, 2020
An earlier version of this article incorrectly attributed responsibility for a 2016
cyberattack in which 900,000 Germans lost access to internet and telephone services. The
attack was carried out by a British citizen, not Russia. The article also misstated when the
attack took place. It was in November, not December. The sentence has been removed from the
article. "
From this we can learn that anything can be blamed by MSM, completely independent of what the
facts are. It is not limited to allegations related to Russia or China, but any and all
claims by MSM that have no direct reference to provable fact.
great coverage b... thank you... facts don't matter.. what matters is taking down any
positive image of russia, or better - putting up a constantly negative one... of this the
intel and usa msm are consistent... the sad reality is a lot of people will believe this
bullshit too...
i was just reading paul robinsons blog last night -
#DEMOCRACY RIP AND THE NARCISSISM OF RUSSIAGATE .. even paul is starting to getting
pissed off on the insanity of the media towards russia which is rare from what i have read
from him!
@ 3 patrick armstrong.. keep up the good work!! thanks for your work..
There is already a correction made to the DT attack - someone reads MofA! Shame they don't
get more of their new interpretation form here.
Whole piece reads here like it started as a Merkel gets close to Russia piece, shown
around to colleagues and politicians for feedback, and a ton of fake "why Merkel actually
hates the Russians" nonsense was added in.
After all pretty much everyone has tapped Merkel's phone by now.
The late and famous George Keenan has written the operational manual for the Containment
Strategy and the main points are Pillar #2 and #3. Unfortunately I didn't save the document
and the link to post it here. So it goes. (I am just reading Slaughterhouse Number 5).
One wonders why? Because it describes the CPC as the biggest pooling agency in the world
and shows how the bottom up approach to developing policies work?
@Kouroi
Were you referring to this? I went first to Wikipedia but found no mention of it –
perhaps the most important document Kennan ever wrote. How astonishing (not).
"We have about 50% of the world's wealth but only 6.3% of its population. This disparity
is particularly great as between ourselves and the peoples of Asia. In this situation, we
cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment.
Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will
permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national
security. To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and day-dreaming; and
our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives.
We need not deceive ourselves that we can afford today the luxury of altruism and
world-benefaction".
– George Kennan (secret US State Department memo, 1948)
@Tom
Welsh I am not referring to the Long Telegram. At one point I cam across a pdf /image
document online written by Keenan that was the operational blueprint on how to conduct all
these shadows operations through third parties: business, NGOs, media, and have plausible
deniability. Very, very operational.
"... former CIA Deputy Director Mike Morell admitted in a TV interview he views that the US should be in the business of "killing Russians and Iranians covertly" ). ..."
"... Ironically, Jeffrey's official title has been Special Envoy for the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIL, but apparently the mission is now to essentially "give the Russians hell". His comments were made Tuesday during a video conference hosted by the neocon Hudson Institute : ..."
"... He also emphasized that the Syrian state would continue to be squeezed into submission as part of long-term US efforts (going back to at least 2011) to legitimize a Syria government in exile of sorts. This after the Trump administration recently piled new sanctions on Damascus. As University of Oklahoma professor and expert on the region Joshua Landis summarized of Jeffrey's remarks: "He pledged that the United States will continue to deny Syria - international funding, reconstruction, oil, banking, agriculture & recognition of government." ..."
Washington now says it's all about defeating the Russians . While it's not the first time
this has been thrown around in policy circles (recall that a year after Russia's 2015 entry
into Syria at Assad's invitation, former CIA Deputy Director Mike Morell
admitted in a TV interview he views that the US should be in the business of "killing
Russians and Iranians covertly" ).
"My job is to make it a quagmire for the Russians."
Ironically, Jeffrey's official title has been Special Envoy for the Global Coalition to
Defeat ISIL, but apparently the mission is now to essentially "give the Russians hell". His
comments were made Tuesday during a video conference hosted by the neocon Hudson Institute :
Asked why the American public should tolerate US involvement in Syria, Special Envoy James
Jeffrey points out the small US footprint in the fight against ISIS. "This isn't Afghanistan.
This isn't Vietnam. This isn't a quagmire. My job is to make it a quagmire for the
Russians."
He also emphasized that the Syrian state would continue to be squeezed into submission as
part of long-term US efforts (going back to at least 2011) to legitimize a Syria government in
exile of sorts. This after the Trump administration recently piled new sanctions on Damascus.
As University of Oklahoma professor and expert on the region Joshua Landis summarized of
Jeffrey's remarks: "He pledged that the United States will continue to deny Syria -
international funding, reconstruction, oil, banking, agriculture & recognition of
government."
"My job is to make it a quagmire for the Russians."
Special US envoy to Syria - James Jeffery
He pledged that the United States will continue to deny Syria - international funding,
reconstruction, oil, banking, agriculture & recognition of government. https://t.co/MSAkQqAmdh
But no doubt both Putin and Assad have understood Washington's real proxy war interests all
along, which is why last year Russia delivered it's lethal S-300 into the hands of Assad (and
amid constant Israeli attacks). But no doubt both Putin and Assad have understood Washington's
real proxy war interests all along, which is why last year Russia delivered it's lethal S-300
into the hands of Assad (and amid constant Israeli attacks).
As for oil, currently Damascus is well supplied by the Iranians, eager to dump their stock
in fuel-starved Syria amid the global glut. Trump has previously voiced that part of US troops
"securing the oil fields" is to keep them out of the hands of Russia and Iran.
* * *
Recall the CIA's 2016 admission of what's really going on in terms of US action in
Syria:
"... it's clear that Obama was always the vector through which the entire investigation into Donald Trump pointed. He's the only one with the power to have marshaled the forces arrayed against Trump for the past four years. ..."
"... What's clear now is the President Obama's administration was regularly engaged in illegally using NSA database access to spy on Americans and political opponents . This operation pre-dates Trump by a few years ..."
"... On April 18, 2016, following the preliminary audit results, Director Rogers shut down all FBI contractor access to the database after he learned FISA-702 "about"(17) and "to/from"(16) search queries were being done without authorization ..."
"... And that's when everything changed. Because at that point, having lost access Obama's spy team needed another way into the NSA database. Enter Fusion GPS, Christopher Steele and the ridiculous dossier used to issue FISA warrants on Carter Page and all the rest of it. ..."
"... Obama is guilty of the highest crimes a President can be guilty of, utilizing Federal law enforcement and intelligence services to spy on a political opponent during an election. This is after eight years of ruinous wars, coups both successful and not, drone-striking U.S. citizens and generally carrying on like the vandal he is. ..."
"... Obama's people have been covering for him for nearly four years now. They have been exposed as bald-faced liars by the transcripts of their impeachment testimonies to Adam Schiff and the House Intelligence Committee. ..."
"... Now that the heat is rising and the apparatus they used to control turns its attention to what they did, enough of them will roll over and give Attorney General William Barr what he wants. ..."
"... And here we are coming into the home stretch and the bitter end is staring these people in the face. They've lost all credibility, corrupted whole swaths of the Federal government beyond recognition and activated every resource they have in the media and the chattering classes to make manifest a bald-faced lie. And it didn't work. Now the desperation sets in. The exoneration of Gen. Michael Flynn, the release of the transcripts and conflicting stories told by John Brennan, James Clapper, James Comey and the rest all point to something beyond sinister. ..."
"... You can smell the fear now. From Bill Kristol to John Brennan they can see the end of their project, whether it was for a New American Neocon Century or just the cynical push for a transnational oligarchy based around the European Union, their Utopian dreams have run into the immovable object of a people refusing to believe their lies anymore. ..."
From the beginning of the story RussiaGate was always about Barack Obama . I didn't always see it that way, certainly. My seething
hatred for all things Hillary Clinton is a powerful blind spot I admit to freely.
But, it's clear that Obama was always the vector through which the entire investigation into Donald Trump pointed. He's the
only one with the power to have marshaled the forces arrayed against Trump for the past four years.
We've known this for a couple of years now but there were a seemingly endless series of distractions put in place to obfuscate
the truth...
Donald Trump was not a Russian agent.
What's clear now is the President Obama's administration was regularly engaged in illegally using NSA database access to spy
on Americans and political opponents . This operation pre-dates Trump by a few years.
It was de rigeur by the time the election cycle ramped up in 2016. The timing of events is during that time period paints a very
damning picture.
This article from Zerohedge by way of
Conservative Treehouse lays out the timing, the activities and the shifts in the narrative that implicate Obama beyond any doubt.
On April 18, 2016, following the preliminary audit results, Director Rogers shut down all FBI contractor access to the
database after he learned FISA-702 "about"(17) and "to/from"(16) search queries were being done without authorization. Thus
begins the first discovery of a much bigger background story.
And that's when everything changed. Because at that point, having lost access Obama's spy team needed another way into the
NSA database. Enter Fusion GPS, Christopher Steele and the ridiculous dossier used to issue FISA warrants on Carter Page and all
the rest of it.
The details are all there for anyone with eyes willing to see, the question is whether anyone deep in the throes of Trump Derangement
Syndrome will take their eyes off the shadow play in front of them long enough to look.
I'm not holding my breath.
Obama is guilty of the highest crimes a President can be guilty of, utilizing Federal law enforcement and intelligence services
to spy on a political opponent during an election. This is after eight years of ruinous wars, coups both successful and not, drone-striking
U.S. citizens and generally carrying on like the vandal he is.
-- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)
May 12, 2020
... ... ...
These people obviously missed the key point about Goebbels' Big Lie theory of propaganda. For it to work there has to be a nugget
of truth to wrap the lie in before you can repeat it endlessly to make it real. And that's why RussiaGate is dead. Long live ObamaGate.
Obama's people have been covering for him for nearly four years now. They have been exposed as bald-faced liars by the transcripts
of their impeachment testimonies to Adam Schiff and the House Intelligence Committee.
None of them were willing to testify under oath, and be guilty of perjury, to the effect that Trump was colluding with the Russians.
But, they'd say it on TV, Twitter and anywhere else they could to attack Trump with patent nonsense.
Now that the heat is rising and the apparatus they used to control turns its attention to what they did, enough of them will
roll over and give Attorney General William Barr what he wants. Some of them will fall on their sword for Obama.
But I don't think Trump will be satisfied with that. He has to know that Obama is the key to truly draining the Swamp if that
is, in fact, his goal. Because if he doesn't attack Obama now, Obama will be formidable in October. Both men are fighting for their
lives at this point.
Trump was supposed to roll over and play nice. But Pat Buchanan rightly had him pegged at the beginning of this back in January
of 2017, saying that Trump wasn't like Nixon, he wouldn't walk away to protect the office of the Presidency. He would fight to the
bitter end because that's who he is.
And here we are coming into the home stretch and the bitter end is staring these people in the face. They've lost all credibility,
corrupted whole swaths of the Federal government beyond recognition and activated every resource they have in the media and the chattering
classes to make manifest a bald-faced lie. And it didn't work. Now the desperation sets in. The exoneration of Gen. Michael Flynn,
the release of the transcripts and conflicting stories told by John Brennan, James Clapper, James Comey and the rest all point to
something beyond sinister.
You can smell the fear now. From Bill Kristol to John Brennan they can see the end of their project, whether it was for a
New American Neocon Century or just the cynical push for a transnational oligarchy based around the European Union, their Utopian
dreams have run into the immovable object of a people refusing to believe their lies anymore.
The United States Navy is both overstretched and threatened. The two US Pacific-based
carriers -- USS Ronald Reagan and USS Theodore Roosevelt -- are in trouble;
USS Reagan is in Japan, where it is being repaired, while USS Roosevelt is in
Guam, with its crew devastated by COVID-19. Meanwhile, the US has
sent an aircraft carrier group to threaten Venezuela using the excuse of counter-narcotics.
Threatening several countries far apart from each other makes it difficult for the US to focus
its superior military power against any one country.
Missile capacities shown by Iran and by China have meant that the US continuous bomber
presence at al-Udeid Air Base (Qatar) and at Andersen Air Force Base (Guam) has been withdrawn.
These bombers are now at Minot Air Force Base (North Dakota) and Barksdale Air Force Base
(Louisiana). General Timothy Ray of the US Air Force Global Strike Command put a brave face on
these withdrawals, saying
that it gives the US greater flexibility. The real reason for the bombers leaving Qatar and
Guam is that the US military fears that these strategic assets are in harm's way.
Neither Iran nor China has the capacity to defeat the US in a military confrontation. But
alongside both of their borders, Iran and China have the capacity to strike US targets and US
allies. This capacity hampers the US ability to establish the complete subordination of these
countries. It is this local power developed by China and Iran that the United States wants to
extinguish. Regain the Advantage
Admiral Davidson's April
report calls for "Forward-based, rotational joint forces" as the "most credible way to
demonstrate US commitment and resolve to potential adversaries." What the Indo-Pacific Command
means is that rather than have a fixed base that is vulnerable to attack, the US will fly its
bombers into bases on the soil of its allies in the Indo-Pacific network (Australia, India, and
Japan) as well as others in the region (South Korea, for instance); the bombers, he suggests,
will be better protected there. China will still be threatened, but Chinese missiles will -- so
the theory goes -- find it more difficult to threaten mobile US assets.
Davidson's report has a stunning science-fiction quality to it. There is a desire for the
creation of
"highly survivable, precision-strike networks" that run along the Pacific Rim, including
missiles of various kinds and radars in Palau, Hawaii, and in space. He asks for vast amounts
of money to develop a military that is already very powerful.
Furthermore, the US is committed to the development of anti-space weapons, autonomous
weapons, glide vehicles, hypersonic missiles, and offensive cyber weapons -- all meant to
destabilize missile defense techniques and to overpower any adversary. Such developments
presage a new arms race that will be very expensive and that will further destabilize the world
order.
The United States has unilaterally increased a buildup around China and has ramped up
threatening rhetoric against Beijing. Anxiety about a possible war against China imposed by the
United States is growing within China; although sober
voices are asking the Chinese government not to get drawn into an arms race with the United
States. Nonetheless, the threats are credible, and the desire to build some form of deterrence
is growing.
The absence of a strong world peace movement with the capacity to prevent this buildup by
the United States is of considerable concern for the planet. The need for such a movement could not be greater.
Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian, editor and journalist. He is a writing fellow
and chief correspondent at Globetrotter , a project of the
Independent Media Institute. He is the chief editor of LeftWord Books and the director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research . He has
written more than twenty books, including
The Darker Nations and
The Poorer Nations . His latest book is Washington Bullets, with an introduction by Evo
Morales Ayma.
This article was produced by Globetrotter , a project of the
Independent Media Institute.
"... House Intelligence Committee staff told me that after an exhaustive investigation reviewing intelligence and interviewing intelligence officers, they found that Brennan suppressed high-quality intelligence suggesting that Putin actually wanted the more predictable and malleable Clinton to win the 2016 election . ..."
"... Instead, the Brennan team included low-quality intelligence that failed to meet intelligence community standards to support the political claim that Russian officials wanted Trump to win, House Intelligence Committee staff revealed. They said that CIA analysts also objected to including that flawed, substandard information in the assessment. ..."
"... Fox 's Henry said that he has obtained independent confirmation of the pro-Clinton Russia claim made by Fleitz . ..."
"... Brennan's concealment of this key information was yet another link in the chain of the Obama administration's plot to smear Donald Trump as a Russian asset - a hoax supported by the Clinton-funded Steele dossier, which the FBI knew was Russian disinformation (or, more likely, Steele's Russophobic fantasies) before they used it as a predicate to spy on Trump aide Carter Page during the 2016 election. ..."
Former CIA director John Brennan suppressed intelligence which
indicated that Russia wanted Hillary Clinton to win because "she was a known quantity," vs. the
unpredictable Donald Trump, according to Fox News ' Ed Henry.
During a Tuesday night discussion with Tucker Carlson, Henry said that Brennan "also had
intel saying, actually, Russia wanted Hillary Clinton to win because she was a known quantity,
she had been secretary of state, and Vladimir Putin's team thought she was more malleable,
while candidate Donald Trump was unpredictable."
Perhaps Russian President Vladimir Putin has fond memories of the time Bill Clinton
hung out at his 'private homestead' during the same trip where he collected a $500,000
payday for a speech at a Moscow bank, right before the Uranium One deal was approved.
And as
Breitbart 's Joel Pollak notes, Henry's claim backs up a similar
allegation by former National Security Council chief of staff Fred Fleitz , who said on
April 22:
House Intelligence Committee staff told me that after an exhaustive investigation
reviewing intelligence and interviewing intelligence officers, they found that Brennan
suppressed high-quality intelligence suggesting that Putin actually wanted the more
predictable and malleable Clinton to win the 2016 election .
Instead, the Brennan team included low-quality intelligence that failed to meet
intelligence community standards to support the political claim that Russian officials wanted
Trump to win, House Intelligence Committee staff revealed. They said that CIA analysts also
objected to including that flawed, substandard information in the assessment.
Fox 's Henry said that he has obtained independent confirmation of the pro-Clinton Russia
claim made by Fleitz .
Brennan's concealment of this key information was yet another link in the chain of the Obama
administration's plot to smear Donald Trump as a Russian asset - a hoax supported by the
Clinton-funded Steele dossier, which the FBI
knew was Russian disinformation (or, more likely, Steele's Russophobic fantasies) before
they used it as a predicate to spy on Trump aide Carter Page during the 2016 election.
And now, Brennan is a contributor on MSNBC. How fitting.
@JoaoAlfaiate
– You mean the Syria where US troops sent by Obama are being withdrawn by Trump.
– What Syrian oil has Trump stolen? None.
FYI:
– Obama was the first president in US history to be at war for every single day of his
eight year presidency.
– Obama approved military action in seven countries, including Iraq, Afghanistan,
Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria and Yemen as well as special operations on a smaller
scale all over the globe.
R ep. Lee Zeldin demanded that Rep. Adam Schiff be stripped
of his post as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and resign because of his role in
the Russia investigation.
"Adam Schiff should not be the chair of the House Intelligence Committee. His gavel should
be removed. He should be censured. He should resign," Zeldin said Monday on Fox News. "There's
a lot that should happen, but Nancy Pelosi isn't going to punish Adam Schiff. In fact, that's
the reason why he has the gavel in the first place."
Republicans have been critical of Schiff in recent weeks after reports suggested that
Schiff was trying to block the release of some of the transcripts of the investigation's 53
witness interviews.
Some of the transcripts were eventually released and
undercut claims used by Democrats to push for impeachment.
"He's the chair of the House Intelligence Committee, which became the House Impeachment
Committee because of the way he writes these fairy-tale parodies," Zeldin said.
The Republican from New York suggested that Schiff and Democrats who impeached Trump and
tried to remove him from office were aided by friends in the media.
"It's actually one that the Democrats reward. It's one that the media rewards," Zeldin said.
"So, I'm not going to expect any repercussions even though he should resign today."
This is nationwide gaslighting by Clinton gang of neoliberals who attempted coup d'état, and Adam Schiff was just one of the
key figures in this coupe d'état, king of modern Joe McCarthy able and willing to destroy a person using false evidence
What is interesting is that Tucker attacked Republicans for aiding and abetting the coup
d'état against Trump
"... "This is one particular episode, but we view it as part of a number of related acts ... and we're looking at the whole pattern of conduct," Barr added, saying that they're investigating actions taken before "and after ... the election." ..."
"... And according to Fox' s source, Durham is investigating a "pattern of conduct" which includes lying to the FISA court to obtain warrants to spy on Trump campaign adviser Carter Page . ..."
"... "Barr talks to Durham every day," a source recently told Fox News . " The president has been briefed that the case is being pursued, and it's serious. " ..."
"... " It was a very dangerous situation what they did ," Trump said during an interview with "Fox & Friends" Friday. " These are dirty politicians and dirty cops and some horrible people and hopefully they're going to pay a big price in the not too distant future. ..."
"... Durham's probe is expected to wrap up by the end of the summer. Right as Trump is expected to face off against Joe Biden - who was VP while most of this was going on . ..."
John Durham has supercharged his review into the origins of the
Russiagate hoax orchestrated by the Obama administration during and after the 2016 US election
- adding additional top prosecutors to explore different components of the original probe,
according to
Fox News .
Durham, the U.S. Attorney for Connecticut tasked with by Attorney General Bill Barr with
investigating the actions taken against the Trump team, has tapped Jeff Jensen - U.S. attorney
for the Eastern District of Missouri who had been investigating the Michael Flynn case. Also
added to the team is interim U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, Timothy Shea,
according to Fox 's sources.
" They farmed the investigation out because it is too much for Durham and he didn't want to
be distracted ," said one source, adding "He's going full throttle, and they're looking at
everything. "
Word of Durham's beefed-up team comes amid worsening tensions between the Trump
administration and congressional Democrats, who have been making the case that the Justice
Department's reviews have become politicized given the decision last week to drop the Flynn
case - a move which House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) called
"outrageous."
" The evidence against General Flynn is overwhelming ," said Nadler - who probably wasn't
referring to handwritten notes by one of the FBI agents who interviewed Flynn which
exposed their perjury trap . Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his perfectly
legal communications with a Russian ambassador - a plea he made while under severe financial
strain due to legal expenses, and to save his son from the FBI 'witch hunt.' Flynn would later
withdraw his plea as evidence mounted that he was set up.
The DOJ determined that the bureau's 2017 Flynn interview -- which formed the basis for
his guilty plea of lying to investigators -- was "conducted without any legitimate
investigative basis."
Breadcrumbs were being dropped in the days preceding the decision that his case could be
reconsidered. Documents unsealed the prior week by the Justice Department revealed agents
discussed their motivations for interviewing him in the Russia probe – questioning
whether they wanted to "get him to lie" so he'd be fired or prosecuted, or get him to admit
wrongdoing. Flynn allies howled over the revelations, arguing that he essentially had been
set up in a perjury trap. In that interview, Flynn did not admit wrongdoing and instead was
accused of lying about his contacts with the then-Russian ambassador – to which he
pleaded guilty. -
Fox News
Jensen, the U.S. attorney now working with Durham, was reportedly the one who recommended
dropping the Flynn case to Barr.
Barr speaks
When asked whether he thought the FBI conspired against Flynn, Barr told CBS News on
Thursday "I think, you know, that's a question that really has to wait [for] an analysis of all
the different episodes that occurred through the summer of 2016 and the first several months of
President Trump's administration," adding that Durham is "still looking at all of this."
"This is one particular episode, but we view it as part of a number of related acts ... and
we're looking at the whole pattern of conduct," Barr added, saying that they're investigating
actions taken before "and after ... the election."
And according to Fox' s source, Durham is investigating a "pattern of conduct" which
includes lying to the FISA court to obtain warrants to spy on Trump campaign adviser Carter
Page .
President Trump has long-referred to the investigation as a "witch hunt" - which Barr and
Durham are now untangling.
"Barr talks to Durham every day," a source recently told Fox News . " The president has been
briefed that the case is being pursued, and it's serious. "
President Trump on Friday offered a vague, but ominous, warning as the Durham probe
proceeds.
" It was a very dangerous situation what they did ," Trump said during an interview with
"Fox & Friends" Friday. " These are dirty politicians and dirty cops and some horrible
people and hopefully they're going to pay a big price in the not too distant future. "
Trump
was specifically reacting to newly released transcripts of interviews from the House
Intelligence Committee's Russia investigation
that revealed top Obama officials acknowledged they knew of no "empirical evidence" of a
conspiracy despite their concerns and suspicions. -
Fox News
Durham's probe is expected to wrap up by the end of the summer. Right as Trump is expected
to face off against Joe Biden - who was VP while most of this was going on .
A black swan is slang for an unexpected event with large consequences. 2020 has brought us
two so far: the COVID-19 pandemic and the collapse of oil prices.
Each will have potent consequences for the Imperium Americanum. And there is a nest of black
cygnets maturing.
COVID-19
A new infectious disease was noticed in China at the end of last year, identified as a
coronavirus in January and a pandemic was declared in March. Since then economic and social
life has come to a stop in the West as governments have been convinced to declare shutdowns.
Restrictions became widespread in March and April and are still in effect; while some
jurisdictions lessen them, others talk about more months . It is not the purpose of
this essay to wonder whether these measures were justified or effective, only to state that
they happened and that the world economy will have been enfeebled for two to three months or
even longer. A big black swan indeed.
POMPEO: Look, the best experts so far seem to think it was manmade. I have no reason to
disbelieve that at this point.
RADDATZ: Your -- your Office of the DNI says the consensus, the scientific consensus was
not manmade or genetically modified.
POMPEO: That's right. I -- I -- I agree with that. Yes. I've -- I've seen their analysis.
I've seen the summary that you saw that was released publicly. I have no reason to doubt that
that is accurate at this point.
Most of the West is still shut down but China is opening. Observers know that China is
becoming the world's top economy – the World Bank had already
given it that title in PPP terms in 2013 – and COVID-19 is sure to accelerate the
process by giving it a head start out of the economic slowdown. With cheap energy too .
Of the downstream effects of the COVID-19 black swan, we can see at least three:
great and possibly fatal damage to the assumption of American and Western
competence;
a widening of the economic gap with China;
a further change in the world soft power balance.
The "blame China" diversion (not forgetting the rest of the current Enemy Package –
Russia and Iran ) is childish and will earn disgust.
None of these changes is to the benefit of the Imperium Americanum.
Oil
In March Riyadh, on behalf of OPEC, proposed to Moscow that they reduce oil production in
order to keep prices up. Moscow refused and Riyadh started pumping. COVID-19 shutdowns
collapsed demand. A month later
West Texas Intermediate futures went negative and the price of a barrel of oil passed below
$20.
The end result of this price competition in a demand crash is unknown but it is unlikely
that the U.S. shale industry will do well out of it. And, because so much of Washington's
behaviour is based on the confidence that it is
oil-independent , the U.S. will not come out of this stronger.
So two black swans are likely to leave the Imperium Americanum weaker and less influential.
And, it should be said, more contemned. But there is more.
And some black cygnets
Some may remember the excitement of TV commentators about cruise missiles in the Gulf War of
1990. And a weapon that could be launched a thousand kilometres away and hit a particular floor
of the building aimed at was pretty amazing. That was the first large-scale public
combat use of very long-range precision weapons and for many years cruise missiles were a
signature feature of U.S. attacks and practically a monopoly.
Until 2015 when Russia struck targets in Syria from otherwise insignificant small craft in the
Caspian Sea . So flabbergasted was Washington by this that its first reaction was to
pooh-pooh the accuracy . But they were real; many Kalibres have been launched from
different platforms including submerged submarines . So, there were now two
demonstrated members of the club that could, in real conditions, precisely hit a target a long
distance away.
The Trump Administration is very hostile towards Iran but no more so than most U.S.
Administrations since the departure of the Shah – himself put back into power by a
U.S.-UK coup. Probably the hottest moment of this undeclared war was in 1988 , but there have been
many other crises and we just had another
threat from Washington . Tehran knows it is on Washington's hit list and has been preparing
for decades. Missiles will be one of its principal defenses. Washington would do well to
reflect on Iran's – surprising to it – membership in these two elite clubs before
it makes any more threats. Little cygnets become big swans.
Another black cygnet is the
Iraq parliament's demand that U.S. forces leave the country . Washington is
consolidating its troops but they will be besieged prisoners if the country rises against
them. Which sooner or later it will when the new
Prime Minister forms his government . Two consequences of the neocon-dominated "New
American Century" in the Middle East have been the growth of Iran's influence and the
demonstration that the U.S. military is not the omnipotent force it thought it was. When the
effort to get it out starts, Washington will have three choices: hunker down and hope it goes
away, enormously reinforce its troops for a completely new war, withdraw à la Vietnam.
This cygnet is growing.
* * *
A pandemic, oil price collapse, a target country showing it has more capability than
assumed, threatened expulsion from Iraq. The surprises have exposed long-time weaknesses.
It's always the unexpected things that test things to destruction.
This was a coup d'état and it has little to do with the protection of Oabama policies,
but a lot with protection of Clinton clan to which Obama belongs.
FBI investigators were corrupt and acted as a political police
Notable quotes:
"... Heavily redacted FBI documents that have been released indicate Flynn was one of several Trump campaign members who merited their own subfile investigation under the larger, now infamous " Crossfire Hurricane " debacle. Flynn even got his own cool codename -- "Crossfire Razor." (No, the FBI isn't usually that absurd. But absurdity colored that entire period of time.) ..."
"... FBI documents show that a Foreign Agent Registration Act ( FARA ) case was opened against Flynn. The stated reasons, in rank order, for initiating the investigation were that he was a member of the Trump campaign; he had "ties" to various Russian state-affiliated entities; he traveled to Russia; and he had a high-level top-secret clearance -- for which, by the way, he was polygraphed regularly to determine if he was a spy. ..."
"... None of the listed reasons is unusual activity for the kind of positions he held. Overall it is pretty thin justification for investigating an American citizen. Yet, most chillingly, the Crossfire Hurricane team stated it was investigating Flynn "specifically" because he was "an adviser to then Republican presidential candidate Donald J. Trump for foreign policy issues." ..."
"... Kevin R. Brock, former assistant director of intelligence for the FBI, was an FBI special agent for 24 years and principal deputy director of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC). He is a founder and principal of NewStreet Global Solutions , which consults with private companies and public safety agencies on strategic mission technologies. ..."
investigation
of Michael Flynn , the
more it appears he was targeted precisely because, as the national security adviser to the
incoming Trump administration, he signaled that the new administration might undo Obama
administration policies -- which is kind of what the American people voted for in 2016.
Some will say that Gen. Flynn was investigated for legitimate criminal or national security
reasons. Yet, the FBI's ultimate interview of Flynn addressed none of the grounds that the FBI
used to open the original case against him. For those of us who have run FBI investigations,
that is more than odd.
Heavily redacted
FBI documents that have been released indicate Flynn was one of several Trump campaign
members who merited their own subfile investigation under the larger, now infamous "
Crossfire Hurricane " debacle. Flynn even got his own cool codename -- "Crossfire Razor."
(No, the FBI isn't usually that absurd. But absurdity colored that entire period of time.)
For the record, Flynn clearly exercised poor judgment as a result of being interviewed by
the FBI. The larger question is whether the team under then-Director James Comey had a legitimate basis to conduct the
interview at all.
FBI documents show that a Foreign Agent Registration Act ( FARA ) case was opened against Flynn. The stated
reasons, in rank order, for initiating the investigation were that he was a member of the Trump
campaign; he had "ties" to various Russian state-affiliated entities; he traveled to Russia;
and he had a high-level top-secret clearance -- for which, by the way, he was polygraphed
regularly to determine if he was a spy.
None of the listed reasons is unusual activity for the kind of positions he held. Overall it
is pretty thin justification for investigating an American citizen. Yet, most chillingly, the
Crossfire Hurricane team stated it was investigating Flynn "specifically" because he was "an
adviser to then Republican presidential candidate Donald J. Trump for foreign policy
issues."
Let me be clear: That is not a legitimate justification to investigate an American
citizen.
There is a theme that runs through the entire Crossfire Hurricane disaster, which has been
publicly articulated by Comey and his deputy director, Andrew McCabe : They saw themselves as stalwarts
in the breach defending America from a presidential candidate who they believed was an
agent
of Russia .
... ... ...
Kevin R. Brock, former assistant director of intelligence for the FBI, was an FBI
special agent for 24 years and principal deputy director of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC). He is a
founder and principal of NewStreet Global
Solutions , which consults with private companies and public safety agencies on strategic
mission technologies.
All-in-all Obama was a CIA sponsored fraud: In 2008 I posted at another blog this: "Obama is a fraud and my view does not hang on
the controversial birther movement. " From whence he came? He made a speech at the Democratic
National Convention; 3 years in the Senate, then runs to occupy the White House. The media
puff pieces. "Hope and Change, Yes, We Can" Watch for the broken promises."
Notable quotes:
"... Now why is Obama against General Flynn? Hmmm. Good question. Did the FBI target Michael Flynn to protect Obama's policies, not national security? LINK ..."
"... Gen. Flynn: Obama Administration made a "wilful decision" to support Sunni extremists (a Jihadi proxy army) against Assad . This directly contradicts the phony narrative of Obama as peace-loving black man (as certified by his Nobel Prize!). ..."
"... In 2008 I posted at another blog this: "Obama is a fraud and my view does not hang on the controversial birther movement. " From whence he came? He made a speech at the Democratic National Convention; 3 years in the Senate, then runs to occupy the White House. The media puff pieces. "Hope and Change, Yes, We Can" Watch for the broken promises." ..."
Whether or not General Flynn is loathed or liked, there is Supreme Court decisions setting
precedence for dropping a case when found to be wrapped in prosecutorial misdeeds:
As for the first 'black' president out from the shadows;
Thanks for that additional link. And that's why Obama could not standby with Flynn in the
NSA role. Recall Hillary's on Trump- "if he is elected we'll hang" (paraphrased)
In 2008 I posted at another blog this: "Obama is a fraud and my view does not hang on
the controversial birther movement. " From whence he came? He made a speech at the Democratic
National Convention; 3 years in the Senate, then runs to occupy the White House. The media
puff pieces. "Hope and Change, Yes, We Can" Watch for the broken promises."
Fast Forward to 2011 he signs NDAA. "How Obama disappointed the world." Der Spiegel had
such an article 9 Aug.2011. But he was re-(S)-elected.
And you have to ask yourself one question. They all stuck with the same exact propaganda,
the same exact his information, that the Trump administration, that the Trump campaign
conspired with Russia, even though they had no evidence whatsoever, and they manufactured that
evidence against the president."
"And this is why all of them need to be investigated" explained Carter.
FBI under Obama acted as Gestapo -- the political police. Obama looks now especially bad and probably should be
prosecuted for the attempt to stage coup d'état against legitimately elected president. His CIA connections need to investigated
and prosecuted too, and first of all Brennan.
Notable quotes:
"... Yates, who was briefly the acting attorney general during the early days of the Trump administration before getting fired, also laid out how in the ensuing days, Comey kept the FBI's actions cloaked in secrecy and repeatedly rebuffed her suggestions that the incoming Trump team be made aware of the Flynn recordings. ..."
"... "One thing people will see when they look at the documents is how Director Comey purposely went around the Justice Department and ignored Deputy Attorney General Yate s," Attorney General William Barr said during a Thursday interview with CBS News. "Deputy Attorney General Yates, I've disagreed with her about a couple of things, but, you know, here she upheld the fine tradition of the Department of Justice. She said that the new administration has to be treated just like the Obama administration, and they should go and tell the White House about their findings And, you know, Director Comey ran around that." ..."
"... Obama asked Yates and Comey to stay behind when the meeting concluded. ..."
"... Obama "started by saying that he had 'learned of the information about Flynn' and his conversation with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak," Yates said, according to the notes. "Obama specified he did not want any additional information on the matter but was seeking information on whether the White House should be treating Flynn any differently." washington examiner ..."
"... Obama did not want any additional information on the matter? Careful CYA. From the account of this meeting it is clear that Obama and Biden knew that Comey was intent on pursuing Flynn. If that is so, then subsequent events indicate that Obama did not act to stop Comey, and since Comey was hiding his effort against Flynn from main Justice, it must be that someone on high was encouraging him. Now, who would that be? pl ..."
"... All this was known in DC for the past few years. Everyone on the HSPCI knew what the closed door testimony was. Clapper was categorical that there was "no empirical evidence of collusion". The Crowdstrike CEO was categorical that he had no definitive evidence that the Russians exfiltrated data from the DNC servers. Yet Schiff, Clapper, Brennan and all the media hacks were on TV every night screaming Russia! Russia! and Collusion! Collusion! ..."
"... I'm revealing my age by using this expression from the Watergate era, but "what did Obama, Biden and Comey know, and when did they know it?" ..."
"... So Obama used Yates to go after Flynn. They have really worked a number on Flynn to discredit him, and it almost worked. Now it would appear their scheme is starting to unravel a bit. ..."
"... Is Obama being thrown under the bus here? Are Comey and Yates (or others) trying to cover their asses now that Flynn is free? Did Trump and his allies always know this and waited for the right moment to reveal it for better effect? The game is at hand. ..."
"... Brennan was encouraging Comey. I just learned something recently. Brennan spent time in Indonesia around the same time that Obama's mother lived there. It has been reported that Obama and Brennan had a fairly close relationship. I wonder how long they have known each other. ..."
"... I did see a clip of Matt Gaetz calling out Ryan and Trey Gowdy from preventing them from issuing subpoenas. Why do you think the Republican leadership in the House and Senate did not want to investigate? ..."
"
Former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates told special counsel Robert Mueller's team that
she first learned the FBI possessed and was investigating recordings of Flynn's late 2016
conversations with a Russian envoy following a Jan. 5, 2017, national security meeting at the
White House. It wasn't Comey who told her, but former President Barack Obama.
Yates, who was briefly the acting attorney general during the early days of the Trump
administration before getting fired, also laid out how in the ensuing days, Comey kept the
FBI's actions cloaked in secrecy and repeatedly rebuffed her suggestions that the incoming
Trump team be made aware of the Flynn recordings.
These revelations appear in declassified FBI interview notes of the Mueller team's
conversation with Yates in August 2017, highlighted by the Justice Department on Thursday as
U.S. Attorney for D.C. Timothy Shea moved to drop its
criminal charges against Flynn.
"One thing people will see when they look at the documents is how Director Comey purposely
went around the Justice Department and ignored Deputy Attorney General Yate s," Attorney
General William Barr
said during a Thursday
interview with CBS News. "Deputy Attorney General Yates, I've disagreed with her about a
couple of things, but, you know, here she upheld the fine tradition of the Department of
Justice. She said that the new administration has to be treated just like the Obama
administration, and they should go and tell the White House about their findings And, you know,
Director Comey ran around that."
Yates told Mueller's team she first learned of the Flynn recordings following a White House
meeting about the Intelligence Community Assessment attended by Yates, Comey, Vice
President Joe Biden , then-CIA Director John Brennan, then-Director of National
Intelligence James Clapper, then-national security adviser Susan Rice, and others. Obama asked
Yates and Comey to stay behind when the meeting concluded.
Obama "started by saying that he had 'learned of the information about Flynn' and his
conversation with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak," Yates said, according to the notes.
"Obama specified he did not want any additional information on the matter but was seeking
information on whether the White House should be treating Flynn any differently." washington
examiner
-------------
Obama did not want any additional information on the matter? Careful CYA. From the account
of this meeting it is clear that Obama and Biden knew that Comey was intent on pursuing Flynn.
If that is so, then subsequent events indicate that Obama did not act to stop Comey, and since
Comey was hiding his effort against Flynn from main Justice, it must be that someone on high
was encouraging him. Now, who would that be? pl
All this was known in DC for the past few years. Everyone on the HSPCI knew what the
closed door testimony was. Clapper was categorical that there was "no empirical evidence of
collusion". The Crowdstrike CEO was categorical that he had no definitive evidence that the
Russians exfiltrated data from the DNC servers. Yet Schiff, Clapper, Brennan and all the
media hacks were on TV every night screaming Russia! Russia! and Collusion! Collusion!
Devin Nunes was spot on and correct that there was an attempted coup. All the media and
even many Republicans called him a conspiracy theorist.
SST maintaining its glorious tradition was spot on in its analysis with the limited data
available that there was a coup and the traitors were not those in the Trump campaign but the
leadership in law enforcement and intelligence. A big shoutout to you, Larry and David
Habakkuk.
Trump himself was like deer caught in the headlights. Furiously tweeting but not doing
much of anything else while his own nominees at the DOJ and FBI were plotting and acting to
destroy his presidency. Devin Nunes imploring him to declassify and expose all the evidence
from the FISA applications, the 302s, the internal communications among the plotters
including the prolific FBI lovers. He still hasn't.
What happens next? Will the whole coup be exposed in its entirety? Will anyone be held to
account?
If Trump doesn't care enough even when his ass was being fried to disclose all the
evidence with the stroke of his pen and if all he cares is to tweet "witch-hunt" and "Drain
the Swamp", how realistic is it that any of the coup plotters will be tried for treason?
So Obama used Yates to go after Flynn. They have really worked a number on Flynn to discredit
him, and it almost worked. Now it would appear their scheme is starting to unravel a bit.
Is Obama being thrown under the bus here? Are Comey and Yates (or others) trying to cover
their asses now that Flynn is free? Did Trump and his allies always know this and waited for
the right moment to reveal it for better effect? The game is at hand.
Yahoo released a leaked call today of Obama criticizing Trump's response over coronavirus.
Here's the big headline Yahoo is running:
Exclusive: Obama says in private call that 'rule of law is at risk' in Michael Flynn
case
The Flynn case was invoked by Obama as a principal reason that his former administration
officials needed to make sure former Vice President Joe Biden wins the November election
against President Trump. "So I am hoping that all of you feel the same sense of urgency
that I do," he said. "Whenever I campaign, I've always said, 'Ah, this is the most
important election.' Especially obviously when I was on the ballot, that always feels like
it's the most important election. This one -- I'm not on the ballot -- but I am pretty darn
invested. We got to make this happen."
Obama misstated the charge to which Flynn had previously pleaded guilty. He was charged
with false statements to the FBI, not perjury.
Misstated seems like a stretch. The call sounds scripted and I suspect the leak was
deliberate.
Brennan was encouraging Comey.
I just learned something recently. Brennan spent time in Indonesia around the same time
that Obama's mother lived there. It has been reported that Obama and Brennan had a fairly close relationship. I wonder how
long they have known each other.
O'Biden's Dad just wheeled around the corner in a wood paneled station wagon and dressed
down the neighborhood kids who took O'Biden's ball. A humiliating experience for O'Biden who
sits in the passenger seat as a mere spectator.
The open question is: Just who were those contractors?
Surely that is known to some, and is significant to current politically-charged
inquiries.
Just why that information has not become public is a good question.
Can anyone provide a reliable source for that information?
It is unsurprising @realDonaldTrump enjoys wallowing in his fetid self-indulgence, but I
find it surreal that so many other government officials encourage his ignorance,
incompetence, & destructive behavior.
BTW, history will be written by the righteous, not by his lickspittle.
She served as Acting AG, accepting the post when Trump was inaugurated. What did she tell him
about his whole affair? Was the opposition to the EO 13769 just an excuse to have herself
fired so she would not have to either perjure herself or reveal the truth to Trump?
Jack,
"All this was known in DC for the past few years."
You left out that Paul Ryan was Speaker of the House because the Republicans were in the
majority then and the HPSCI under his term as speaker did not subpoena a very large group of
people, didn't ask relevant questions, didn't release information to the public and thus
ensuring the left took over the House after the 2016 elections.
I, too, coincidentally just concluded a close reading of the Conservative Tree House post
that Mr. Harbaugh just recommended. It is, indeed, well worth such a close reading. There
have been various puzzling things along the way these last few years for which this post
provides explanations. Of particular utility, is its inclusion of a timeline of the arc of
the episodes of illegal government surveillance that began (?) with the IRS spying of 2012,
and how - and why - it evolved from that episode into the massive abuses of the FISA process
of which we are becoming increasingly aware as revelations are forthcoming.
CTH's work is superb, but I do want to say that I am also supremely grateful for all of
the good work and analysis from Larry Johnson, and other contributors, as well as for the
trenchant comments of Col. Lang. Multivalent sources of information, analysis, and comment
provide one with the parallax requisite to understanding this web of perfidy. My gratitude
also is owing to all of you Members of the Committee of Correspondence, each of whom brings
personal observations and insights to bear, always much to my benefit.
I did see a clip of Matt Gaetz calling out Ryan and Trey Gowdy from preventing them from
issuing subpoenas. Why do you think the Republican leadership in the House and Senate did not
want to investigate?
["One thing people will see when they look at the documents is how Director Comey purposely
went around the Justice Department and ignored Deputy Attorney General Yates," Attorney
General William Barr said during a Thursday interview with CBS News. "Deputy Attorney General
Yates, I've disagreed with her about a couple of things, but, you know, here she upheld the
fine tradition of the Department of Justice. She said that the new administration has to be
treated just like the Obama administration, and they should go and tell the White House about
their findings And, you know, Director Comey ran around that."]
++++++++++++
This is fascinating because: this, what Barr is discussing, on national TV, . . . this
particular dimension, this Yates/Comey playing hide the bacon has nothing at all to do with
actual Brady material in the Lt. Gen. Flynn case.
Barr is referring to the Special Counsel Mueller Office's interview with Yates on Aug. 15,
2017, entered into the system three weeks later. Her interview occurred more than two months
prior to Flynn's coerced guilty plea.
This SCO document was released to the court May 7 as exhibit 4 attached to the DOJ motion
to end the prosecution of Flynn. It was produced in line with request by defense for Brady
material.
What Barr forgets to say is: This SCO interview of Yates shows that Comey and Yates talked
on the phone -- prior to -- the notorious Jan. 24, 2017 FBI interview of Flynn.
"Comey . . . informed her that two agents were on their way to interview Flynn at the
White House," the SCO said, according to the new court filing.
Yates took no action, -- she did nothing to order Comey to abort this soon-to-happen FBI
interview of Flynn, this SCO interview of her shows.
She was Comey's boss, the Acting Attorney General, at the time.
It shows that she was upset precisely because she wanted the FBI to coordinate with the
DOJ -- on getting Flynn screwed -- even suggesting, she told the SCO, that consideration that
Flynn be recorded, instead of memorialized using standard 302 form –
in-writing-only.
Yates wanted Flynn fired, she told the SCO.
Yates apparently was unable on her own to figure out, as the AG, the FBI and DOJ -- none
of them had any predicate, no "materiality," nothing "tethered" to any crime, as there was no
crime. And if she did not know these basic facts, had no awareness of them, then: why was she
the AG in the first place?
And what did Yates glean, right after this Jan. 24 interview of Flynn?
"Yates received a brief readout of the interview the night it happened, and a longer
readout the following day," which begs the question of why the original 302 of this was never
produced by the DOJ, to the defense; and also, why Covington law firm never asked to see this
before allowing Flynn to make his plea.
"Yates did not speak to the interviewing agents herself, but understood from others that
their assessment was that Flynn showed no 'tells' of lying," the SCO report says.
Based on her personal preference, rather than DOJ norms, she went to the White House, and
her expectation was they would fire Flynn. I fail to see how this nonsense by Yates seem to
escape Barr's notice. Or, is something else also going on?
She personally went to the White House, and her smear campaign against Flynn began, went
on and on and on, even after she was fired after being Acting AG for just ten days.
In her brief stint as Acting AG: Yates refused to tell the White House Counsel if Flynn
was being investigated, when the WHC asked her, directly, about this, according to what she
told the SCO. Can't blame this fact on the unctuous Comey.
She did tell the SCO that she wanted the WHC to know Flynn had been interviewed by the FBI
– and that she had concerns about Flynn, and she said those concerns related to the
Logan Act. Yates told SCO her concerns were because of the Logan Act, and that she expressed
this to the White House.
The Washington Examiner reporting that "It wasn't Comey who told her, but former President
Barack Obama" -- about the Flynn-Kislyak phone call --- this is interesting, very
interesting, if true, assuming Yates was telling the SCO the truth. This is what she claims
in her August 2017 interview with SCO.
But this bit of information is hardly Brady material [how is whether Obama or Comey told
her materially germane to the Flynn case, viz. Brady material?].
The question the SCO should have been concerned about is: who actually leaked the
transcript of the Flynn-Kislyak telephone call to the media?
Is this a serious crime? Or is this OK?
We still do not know this answer, and AG Barr has not told us. Nor has his boss,
Trump.
It is interesting that Barr chose to highlight that Comey went around Yates' back in Comey
ordering FBI to interview Flynn, but not that Yates knew of the Flynn interview before it
went down, and sat on her arse about it.
In fairness to Comey, they were, as the FB of Investigations, conducting the
investigation, which is their job, however rogue this FBI's I actually was, targeting
Flynn.
The Flynn-Kislyak telephone call, occurring late December of 2016, was reported by the
Washington Post on Jan. 12, 2017, eight days before Trump was sworn in.
And who leaked this, has anyone been prosecuted, will anyone be?
Obama still president, Loretta Lynch still AG, Yates still Deputy AG, Comey FBI director,
McCabe Deputy FBI director, etc.
Starting Jan. 20 and for ten days, Yates was the AG. She appeared bent on destroying
Flynn, and did nothing that I know of to prosecute who leaked the Flynn-Kislyak telephone
call to WAPO. Did someone on high perhaps ask her not to?
Nor was Comey and McCabe investigating this as best I can tell. Yet this was an actual,
clear cut crime we all saw, plain as day. Or maybe this is OK? Was someone on high asking
them not to?
I watched Barr say, during his interview with CBS news, [following the May 7 release of
documents to the court]: "One thing people will see when they look at the documents is how
Director Comey purposely went around the Justice Department and ignored Deputy Attorney
General Yates," Barr told Catherine Herridge.
And my first thought was: why is Barr doing an apparent CYA for Yates?
What office might she want to be running for in the future; is she a cooperating witness
in the wider Durham probe, why is Yates being portrayed as someone other than what she was: A
leader in the effort to destroy Michael Flynn.
She was the AG, and she failed to hold Comey accountable at the time; this is a fact,
apparently, that reflects poorly on her.
She told the White House -- as best she could -- that Flynn was a piece of dung, and told
the SCO, in their interview of her, that she expected the White House to fire Flynn. This
reflects poorly on her.
And threatened Logan Act prosecution of Flynn to the White house. This reflects poorly on
her.
She smeared Flynn in a CNN interview on May 16, the day before Mueller was appointed. This
reflects poorly on her.
Well, who leaked the Flynn-Kislyak telephone call, and did Yates act on that?
Folks that "should have known better" -- far and wide, smeared Flynn, justified the
lawlessness against him; one of many examples, titled: "Leaking Flynn's name to the press was
illegal, but utterly justified" published by TheHill.com.
She wasn't the only one, but Yates was smack dab in the middle of enabling and
perpetuating a long-running smear campaign against Flynn, to destroy him by any means
necessary. This reflects poorly on her.
Why is Barr carrying water for her.
As for Obama, he did nothing to stop Comey in 2016 when Comey announced he was exonerating
Clinton. Nor did AG Lynch, even though that is not the function of the FBI -- an act of
insubordination, by the way, for which Rosenstein officially fired him in May 2017, which
set, somehow, in motion the Mueller SC appointment by Rosenstein.
If Comey is such a rogue, and Barr is now claiming Yates tried to do the right thing, in
spite of Comey, then why didn't Yates fire Comey Jan. 24 right on the spot? And end the
fiasco right then and there?
In her May 16, 2017 CNN interview she only has kind words to say about him.
AS for who on high was encouraging Comey's extra legal free-lancing in the Clinton and
Flynn matters is a pertinent question.
Who were the enablers, in other words?
Barr appears to imply Comey did it all on his own, which is not entirely accurate. Perhaps
this also implies that Durham will prosecute Comey? I don't know if anyone will be prosecuted
at all. Time will tell.
It is clear Comey's enablers would, by rank, have been, viz. the Clinton matter: Obama and
Lynch.
In the Flynn matter: Trump and Yates.
Simple logic dictates that: if Main Justice was "not in the loop" then, for Clinton
matter, this means Obama was enabling Comey to exonerate her; and also dictate that, for
Flynn, that Trump was the one "on high" enabling Comey.
If there are others on high, they were not in the chain of command as I understand the
current US Government structure.
-30-
You seem to think Trump was informed of all the relevant information about the FBI's
conduct during his first ten days in office. Because Barr, being appointed AG two years after
these events, has yet to indict anyone in the case, Trump was actually enabling Yates in
destroying Flynn? Neither appear to be logical conclusions to me.
So on a December 29, 2016 The Obama administration placed sanctions on Russia that evolved to
Flynn, at the instruction of the incoming Trump administration, contacting the Russian
ambassador requesting that they not retaliate or heighten the situation.
On January 5th Ms. Yates learned from Obama of the Flynn intervention.
Rather than contact Trump directly Obama went along with the Comey Logan Act thoughts.
The decision to enact sanctions obviously involved State, CIA, DNI and FBI but why not
Justice or did it. But why was the incoming Trump administration not consulted.
There was only one Machiavellian thinker in that group and it wasn't the idiot who got his
panties all twisted up.
Russiagate has been an obvious coup attempt from the beginning, and several attempts have
followed...
__________________________________________________
That is not at all obvious.
Russiagate was obviously designed to look like a coup attempt, but you have to be extremely
gullible to believe any of it is real.
The recent Flynn bruhaha is a perfect example of the phoniness surrounding Russiagate.
The FBI investigators that interviewed Flynn believed he had not been deceptive and any
fool who was paying attention at the time believed he was not guilty because 2 weeks before
that FBI interview the news media had reported that the phone call with Kislyak had been
recorded by the FBI and that there was nothing improper or illegal that would motivate Flynn
to lie about his talk with Kislyak. The story that Flynn lied to the FBI is unbelievable on
its face.
Don't blame the FBI for creating this fake story. Trump is the one and only one that
created the fake Flynn-lied-to-the-FBI story, Before Trump created the phony story that Flynn
had lied to the FBI nobody else had at that time believed Flynn lied to the FBI.
But once Trump had created the phony story that Flynn lied to the FBI then all the gullible
morons started to believe the phony story. And even Flynn himself goes along with Trump's
phony story because he is a good soldier that follows command.
Before Comey's testimony to Congress that suggested that Trump was twisting Comey's arm to
let Flynn go for lying to the FBI no one had ever said that Flynn lied to the FBI. That story
was created by Trump and reported by Comey.
And then Mueller and Flynn and Comey all helped Trump foist that phony story that Flynn lied
to the FBI onto the public.
The implication of Comey's testimony to Congress was that in order to get Flynn off a
charge of Lying to the FBI Trump first tried to cajole Comey to go easy on Flynn and when
that did not work Trump fired Comey.
The problem with that whole BS story is that the crux of it (that Flynn lied to the FBI)
never happened. It was entirely invented by Trump to make it look like Trump was engaged in
mortal combat with the deep state. But it was all staged and fake (i.e. Kayfabe)
_______________________________________________
Well duh....
Russiagate was designed to fall apart.
It was obvious all along that all the stories that came out in the Mueller Report were
badly written sit-com material - the script for a comic soap opera. And they were all
scripted to fall apart when examined closely.
What I could never figure out was what this guy Mueller was going to say when he was
dragged in front of Congress and required to answer tough questions about all the garbage he
had produced. I thought for sure that for Mueller the jig would be up there was no way the
farce would not be revealed for all to see.
And then it happened. Mueller testified and it turned out Mueller could not remember any
of it.
Senator: Did you say XYZ?
Mueller: Is that in the report??
Senator: yes it is.
Mueller: Then it is true.
Making Mueller Senile and unable to remember anything was brilliant - pure genius. The
rest of the Russiagate script was mediocre at best.
It was a transparently false narrative designed, by the most incompetent election
campaign team in history ...
Occam's razor says Hillary threw the election. No seasoned politician would make the
mistakes that she made - especially when they yearn to make history (as the first
woman president) and the entire establishment (left and right) is counting on them to
win.
Believing what is evidently incredible has long been a test of loyalty
...
And you prove your loyalty with the belief that Hillary lost because of an
"incompetent election campaign".
"... Avaaz supported the establishment of a no-fly zone over Libya, which led to the military intervention in the country in 2011. It was criticized for its pro-intervention stance in the media and blogs. [17] ..."
"... Avaaz supported the civil uprising preceding the Syrian Civil War . This included sending $1.5 million of Internet communications equipment to protesters, and training activists. Later it used smuggling routes to send over $2 million of medical equipment into rebel-held areas of Syria. It also smuggled 34 international journalists into Syria. [10] [18] ..."
"... Yes, pilgrims, my professional deformation leads me to find pattern where there may be none. ..."
"... It would be logical for there to exist connective tissue that relates the Sorosistas, The Clintonistas, the media freaks, Tom Perez' DNC, ..."
"... And then, there is Neil Ferguson the British epidemiologist who sold #10 on the idea of a national lock-down that looks to destroy the UK economy and political system. Antonia Staats his married mistress is a major figure in AVAAZ. He broke curfew twice to get a little bit of that. Coincidence? ..."
"... Even a small amount of google searching suggests that Avaaz is simply another Zionist-funded pro-Israel controlled opposition cutout type of organization. Funded by Zionist George Soros. Main honcho Ricken Patel is associated with Zionist lobby group J Street. ..."
"... Per the commentary above, supported the regime change operation in Syria (a longstanding Zionist goal, refer to the Clean Break plan.) ..."
"... What pillow talk went on between AVAAZ agent Antonia Staats and her Imperial College of London paramour Neil Ferguson right before he briefed Trump/Pence on their corona "we are all gonna die" projections. ..."
"Avaaz claims to unite practical idealists from around the
world. [8] Director Ricken Patel
said in 2011, "We have no ideology per se. Our mission is to close the gap between the world we
have and the world most people everywhere want. Idealists of the world unite!" [12] In practice ,
Avaaz often supports causes considered progressive, such as calling for global action on climate change ,
challenging Monsanto, and building greater global support for refugees. [13][14][15]
Avaaz supported the civil uprising
preceding the Syrian Civil War . This included sending $1.5 million of Internet
communications equipment to protesters, and training activists. Later it used smuggling routes
to send over $2 million of medical equipment into rebel-held areas of Syria. It also smuggled
34 international journalists into Syria. [10][18] Avaaz
coordinated the evacuation of wounded British photographer Paul Conroy from Homs . Thirteen Syrian activists died
during the evacuation operation. [10][19]
Some senior members of other non-governmental organizations working in the Middle East have
criticized Avaaz for taking sides in a civil war. [16] As of November
2016, Avaaz continues campaigning for no-fly zones over Syria in general and specifically
Aleppo . (Gen. Dunford,
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the United States, has said that establishing a no-fly
zone means going to war against Syria and Russia. [20] ) It has received
criticism from parts of the political blogosphere and has a single digit percentage
of its users opposing the petitions, with a number of users ultimately leaving the network. The
Avaaz team responded to this criticism by issuing two statements defending their decision to
campaign. wiki
----------------
Yes, pilgrims, my professional deformation leads me to find pattern where there may be
none. BUT, OTOH, there may BE a pattern. It would be logical for there to exist
connective tissue that relates the Sorosistas, The Clintonistas, the media freaks, Tom Perez'
DNC, etc., etc., ad nauseam. ...
And then, there is Neil Ferguson the British epidemiologist who sold #10 on the idea of
a national lock-down that looks to destroy the UK economy and political system. Antonia Staats
his married mistress is a major figure in AVAAZ. He broke curfew twice to get a little bit of
that. Coincidence? pl
Even a small amount of google searching suggests that Avaaz is simply another
Zionist-funded pro-Israel controlled opposition cutout type of organization. Funded by
Zionist George Soros. Main honcho Ricken Patel is associated with Zionist lobby group J
Street.
Per the commentary above, supported the regime change operation in Syria (a
longstanding Zionist goal, refer to the Clean Break plan.)
Bottom line: not a leftist organization. Faux leftist, controlled opposition, Zionist.
Neocons are probably delighted with Avaaz.
It was a ground hog day nightmare when I read the AVAAZ website and found all the
"progressive" chestnuts, alive, well and kicking into high gear. This AVAAZ agenda fuels the
politics in my state, California, so I know each element well plus how each of of them has
failed us so badly. They all teeter on OPM, which the state wide corona shut down has
decimated.
What pillow talk went on between AVAAZ agent Antonia Staats and her Imperial College
of London paramour Neil Ferguson right before he briefed Trump/Pence on their corona "we are
all gonna die" projections.
It all happened so fast - from runs on toilet paper in Australia reported on March 2 to
global shutdown on March 16 due to this Imperial College model in just two weeks. Who and
what communication network was behind this radical global shift that generated virtually no
push back? The message quickly became one case of corona and we are all gonna die. How did
that find such a willing audience?
I keep hearing that same echo in my nightmares, never let a crisis go to waste - now with
this very distinct German accent on the face of a red-lipped blonde. Too weird to see this
AVAAZ "global" network is so darn interested in over-turning a US Supreme Court Citizens
United ruling - the old Hilary Clinton rallying cry. What is with that - they care in
Malaysia?
Thank you for sunshining this very curious operation and its all too familiar cast of
known characters lurking in its history, shadows, funding and leadership circle. Injecting
them with Lysol is the better plan.
It is one thing to sic Barr-Durham on US government operations, but who can even explore
let alone touch the world of global NGO's.
It does explain where a lot of the Bernie Sanders fervor comes from and how it sustains
this energy despite defeat in the US election polls. The AVAAZ agenda winning the hearts and
minds of many young people around the world. It will be their world to inherit, if they go
down this path; not ours. God speed to all of them. Namaste. Dahl and naan for everyone.
A little internet search also questions if AVAAZ is an intelligence community funded
operation, linking key Obama administration players.
Good indoor fun during our national lockdowns - track AVAAZ in all its permutations and
recurrent players. Samantha Powers and her hundreds of FISA unmasking requests comes to mind
as well as her role in the AVAAZ games played in Syria.
Some AVAAZ fodder from a random internet search: Tinfoil hat fun times - keep digging.
......."Curiously, however, the absence of routine information on the Avaaz website --
board of directors, contact information, etc. -- raises the possibility that the organization
is one of innumerable such groups created around the world by intelligence organizations with
secret funding to advance hidden agendas.
This was the gist of a 2012 column by Global Research columnist Susanne Posel, headlined
Avaaz: The Lobbyist that Masquerades as Online Activism. She alleged that Avaaz
purports to be a global avenue for dissent, but channels reform energies on the most
sensitive issues into such pro-U.S. positions as support for Israel and the Free Syrian
Army......."
"Who and what communication network ..." ... " but who can even explore let alone touch
the world of global NGO's."
Have you noticed how fast Project Veritas gets shut down, how Twitter, FB, etc silence any
effective opposition to the message of the left?
"It is one thing to sic Barr-Durham on US government operations,..."
Perhaps now that FlynnFlu is evaporating in the disinfecting sunlight some sunshine should be
applied to the H1B visa holders at the aformentioned social media companies and add in
Google, Bing, Oath etc. and see how many Communist operatives are there, in addition to
"essential employee" non-citizen lefty's pushing the anti-American propaganda. A dinner
invitation to Jeff Bezos and his paramore might provide some interesting conversation on just
who at Amazon might be involved in the same type of anti-western operations; compare their
corporate response to distribution operations in the US vs. France as an example. https://twitter.com/JamesOKeefeIII/status/1143127502895898625
Furthermore, observe the Google leadership team discussion of the 2016 elections.
https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/09/12/leaked-video-google-leaderships-dismayed-reaction-to-trump-election/
Minute 12:30 CFO Ruth Porat
Minute 27:00 Q&A Sergey Brin response on matching donations to employee causes.
Make sure to watch minute 52 on H1B visa holders. With 30,000,000 unemployed Americans just
how many of those visas does Google need now? (I don't recall any organization telling China
they need open borders immigration since thier hispanic/african/caucasian population
percentages are effectively zero, so we might wonder who has been behind that message for the
past few decades and why it is only directed at Western democracies).
And the inevitable campaign against "low information" voters and "fake news". I wonder what
their take on Russian election interference is now? (Russia cyber trolling! minute
54:44.)
56:20 The inevitable arc of "progress". Make sure you join the fight for Hilary's values.
That's the actual corporate leadership message. See the final round of applause at 1:01. Our
new overlords know best. Too bad they don't own a mirror, or an ability to reflect on why
someone can see the same data and come to a different conclusion of than these experts.
That's just a scratch on the surface. How much money flowed through the Clinton Global
Initiative, which NGOs got some cleansed proceeds, which elections were influenced,
professors and research sponsored, local communities "organzied". There's plenty to look at
and "Isreal, Soros, Zionists" are the least of it.
avaaz always struck me like some intel agency psyc op... maybe israel like the poster outrage
beyond implies.. either way - one could read stay away based on everything about them..
A friend of a friend is a research scientist at Imperial in biology, he is as lefty as they
get and I think would be happy to falsify his research to serve his political goals. Besides
Imperial is a hard science uni, UCL is top in the University of London for medicine.
Soros and his organisations should be made persona non grata, as the Russians and
Hungarians have. Extraordinary his influence in the EU, he has picked up where the Soviet
Union left off, funding every organisation that demoralises society, from gay rights to
immigration promotion to ethnic lobbies, even in Eastern European countries where there are
no minorities.
The one woman standing up to a pompous judge who has called her "selfish" for wanting to earn
the money it takes to feed her child is the heroine of this week's news.
Hers is the story of our Democratic Republic, born in the Age of Reason. Voltaire's
Candide comes to the best conclusion for the way our elected representatives should make
decisions: what works best to help INDIVIDUALS tend their own gardens is the form of
government we should pursue.
It's true that young people have hearts and good intentions, but older people in most
cases have brains and understand human nature better.
This older person--even when she was young--always distrusted a popular uprising or
growing movement.
And if Obama and Hillary are for it, I know I am against it. (That's a more specific life
lesson I've learned.)
"... The foundational accusation of Russiagate was, and remains, charges that Russian President Putin ordered the hacking of DNC e-mails and their public dissemination through WikiLeaks in order to benefit Donald Trump and undermine Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election, and that Trump and/or his associates colluded with the Kremlin in this "attack on American democracy." As no actual evidence for these allegations has been produced after nearly a year and a half of media and government investigations, we are left with Russiagate without Russia. ..."
"... This is unprecedented, preposterous, and dangerous, potentially more so than even McCarthy's search for "Communist" connections. It would suggest, for example, that scores of American corporations doing business in Russia today are engaged in criminal enterprise. ..."
"... Russiagate began sometime prior to June 2016, not after the presidential election in November, as is often said, as an anti-Trump political project. ..."
"... Leaving aside possible financial improprieties on the part of General Flynn, his persecution and subsequent prosecution is highly indicative. Flynn pled guilty to having lied to the FBI about his communications with the Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak, on behalf of the incoming Trump administration, discussions that unavoidably included some references, however vague, to sanctions imposed on Russia by President Obama in December 2016, just before leaving office. ..."
"... Those sanctions were highly unusual-last-minute, unprecedented in their seizure of Russian property in the United States, and including a reckless veiled threat of unspecified cyber attacks on Russia. ..."
"... Finally, and similarly, Cohen points out, there is the ongoing effort by the political-media establishment to drive Secretary of State Tillerson from office and replace him with a fully neocon, anti-Russian, anti-détente head of the State Department. ..."
Cohen offers the following general observations, which form the basis of the discussion:
The foundational accusation of Russiagate was, and remains, charges that Russian President Putin ordered the hacking of DNC
e-mails and their public dissemination through WikiLeaks in order to benefit Donald Trump and undermine Hillary Clinton in the 2016
presidential election, and that Trump and/or his associates colluded with the Kremlin in this "attack on American democracy." As
no actual evidence for these allegations has been produced after nearly a year and a half of media and government investigations,
we are left with Russiagate without Russia. (An apt formulation perhaps first coined in an e-mail exchange by Nation writer
James Carden.) Special counsel Mueller has produced four indictments: against Gen. Michael Flynn, Trump's short-lived national-security
adviser, and George Papadopolous, a lowly and inconsequential Trump "adviser," for lying to the FBI; and against Paul Manafort and
his partner Rick Gates for financial improprieties. None of these charges has anything to do with improper collusion with Russia,
except for the wrongful insinuations against Flynn. Instead, the several investigations, desperate to find actual evidence of collusion,
have spread to "contacts with Russia"-political, financial, social, etc.-on the part of a growing number of people, often going back
many years before anyone imagined Trump as a presidential candidate. The resulting implication is that these "contacts" were criminal
or potentially so.
This is unprecedented, preposterous, and dangerous, potentially more so than even McCarthy's search for "Communist" connections.
It would suggest, for example, that scores of American corporations doing business in Russia today are engaged in criminal enterprise.
More to the point, advisers to US policy-makers and even media commentators on Russia must have many and various contacts with Russia
if they are to understand anything about the dynamics of Kremlin policy-making. Cohen himself, to take an individual example, was
an adviser to two (unsuccessful) presidential campaigns, which considered his wide-ranging and longstanding "contacts" with Russia
to be an important credential, as did the one sitting president he advised. To suggest that such contacts are in any way criminal
is to slur hundreds of reputations and to leave US policy-makers with advisers laden with ideology and no actual expertise. It is
also to suggest that any quest for better relations with Russia, or détente, is somehow suspicious, illegitimate, or impossible,
as expressed recently by Andrew Weiss in The Wall Street Journal and by The Washington Post, in an editorial. This is one reason
Cohen, in a previous Batchelor broadcast and commentary, argued that Russiagate and its promoters have become the gravest threat
to American national security.
Russiagate began sometime prior to June 2016, not after the presidential election in November, as is often said, as an anti-Trump
political project. (Exactly why, how, and by whom remain unclear, and herein lies the real significance of the largely bogus
"Dossier" and the still murky role of top US intel officials in the creation of that document.) That said, Cohen continues, the mainstream
American media have been largely responsible for inflating, perpetuating, and sustaining the sham Russiagate as the real political
crisis it has become, arguably the greatest in modern American presidential and thus institutional political history. The media have
done this by increasingly betraying their own professed standards of verified news reporting and balanced coverage, even resorting
to tacit forms of censorship by systematically excluding dissenting reporting and opinions. (For inventories of recent examples,
see Glenn Greenwald at The Intercept and Joe Lauria at Consortium News. Anyone interested in exposures of such truly "fake news"
should visit these two sites regularly, the latter the product of the inestimable veteran journalist Robert Parry.) Still worse,
this mainstream malpractice has spread to some alternative-media publications once prized for their journalistic standards, where
expressed disdain for "evidence" and "proof" in favor of allegations without any actual facts can sometimes be found. Nor are these
practices merely the ordinary occasional mishaps of professional journalism. As Greenwald points out, all of the now retracted stories,
whether by print media or cable television, were zealous promotions of Russiagate and virulently anti-Trump. They, too, are examples
of Russiagate without Russia.
Leaving aside possible financial improprieties on the part of General Flynn, his persecution and subsequent prosecution is
highly indicative. Flynn pled guilty to having lied to the FBI about his communications with the Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak,
on behalf of the incoming Trump administration, discussions that unavoidably included some references, however vague, to sanctions
imposed on Russia by President Obama in December 2016, just before leaving office.
Those sanctions were highly unusual-last-minute, unprecedented in their seizure of Russian property in the United States,
and including a reckless veiled threat of unspecified cyber attacks on Russia. They gave the impression that Obama wanted to
make even more difficult Trump's professed goal of improving relations with Moscow.
Still more, Obama's specified reason was not Russian behavior in Ukraine or Syria, as is commonly thought, but Russiagate-that
is, Putin's "attack on American democracy," which Obama's intel chiefs had evidently persuaded him was an entirely authentic allegation.
(Or which Obama, who regarded Trump's victory over his designated successor, Hillary Clinton, as a personal rebuff, was eager to
believe.) But Flynn's discussions with the Russian ambassador-as well as other Trump representatives' efforts to open "back-channel"
communications with Moscow–were anything but a crime. As Cohen pointed out in another previous commentary, there were so many precedents
of such overtures on behalf of presidents-elect, it was considered a normal, even necessary practice, if only to ask Moscow not to
make relations worse before the new president had a chance to review the relationship. When Henry Kissinger did this on behalf of
President-elect Nixon, his boss instructed him to keep the communication entirely confidential, not to inform any other members of
the incoming administration. Presumably Flynn was similarly secretive, thereby misinforming Vice President Pence and finding himself
trapped-or possibly entrapped-between loyalty to his president and an FBI agent. Flynn no doubt would have been especially guarded
with a representative of the FBI, knowing as he did the role of Obama's Intel bosses in Russiagate prior to the election and which
had escalated after Trump's surprise victory. In any event, to the extent that Flynn encouraged Moscow not to reply in kind immediately
to Obama's highly provocative sanctions, he performed a service to US national security, not a crime. And, assuming that Flynn was
acting on the instructions of his president-elect, so did Trump. Still more, if Flynn "colluded" in any way, it was with Israel,
not Russia, having been asked by that government to dissuade countries from voting for an impending anti-Israel UN resolution.
Finally, and similarly, Cohen points out, there is the ongoing effort by the political-media establishment to drive Secretary
of State Tillerson from office and replace him with a fully neocon, anti-Russian, anti-détente head of the State Department.
Tillerson was an admirable appointee by Trump-widely experienced in world affairs, a tested negotiator, a mature and practical-minded
man. Originally, his role as the CEO of Exxon Mobil who had negotiated and enacted an immensely profitable and strategically important
energy-extraction deal with the Kremlin earned him the slur of being "Putin's pal." This preposterous allegation has since given
way to charges that he is slowly restructuring, and trimming, the long bloated and mostly inept State Department, as indeed he should
do. Numerous former diplomats closely associated with Hillary Clinton have raced to influential op-ed pages to denounce Tillerson's
undermining of this purportedly glorious frontline institution of American national security. Many news reports, commentaries, and
editorials have been in the same vein. But who can recall, Cohen asks, a major diplomatic triumph by the State Department or a secretary
of state in recent years? The answer might be the Obama administration's multinational agreement with Iran to curb its nuclear-weapons
potential, but that was due no less to Russia's president and Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which provided essential guarantees to
the sides involved. Forgotten, meanwhile, are the more than 50 career State Department officials who publicly protested-in the spirit
of DOD-Obama's rare attempt to cooperate with Moscow in Syria. Call it by what it was: the sabotaging of a president by his own State
Department. In this spirit, there are a flurry of leaked stories that Tillerson will soon resign or be ousted. Meanwhile, however,
he carries on. The ever-looming menace of Russiagate compels him to issue wildly exaggerated indictments of Russian behavior while,
at the same time, calling for a "productive new relationship" with Moscow, in which he clearly believes. (And which, if left unencumbered,
he might achieve.) Evidently, he has established a "productive" working relationship with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov,
the two of them having just announced North Korea's readiness to engage in negotiations with the United States and other governments
involved in the current crisis.
Tillerson's fate, Cohen concludes, will tell us much about the number-one foreign-policy question confronting America: cooperation
or escalating conflict with the other nuclear superpower, a détente-like diminishing of the new Cold War or the growing risks that
it will become hot war. Politics and policy should never be over-personalized; larger factors are always involved. But in these unprecedented
times, Tillerson may be the last man standing who represents the possibility of some kind of détente. Apart, that is, from President
Trump himself, loathe him or not. Or to put the issue differently: Will Russiagate continue to gravely endanger American national
security?
Stephen F. Cohen is a professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at New York University and Princeton University.
A Nation contributing editor, his most recent book, War With Russia? From Putin & Ukraine to Trump & Russiagate, is available in
paperback and in an ebook edition. His weekly conversations with the host of The John Batchelor Show, now in their seventh year,
are available at www.thenation.com.
The OPCW is claimed to be an independent agency but we know that it suppressed the results of
its own engineers when it reported that the Syrian government was responsible for the alleged
chemical attack in Douma. The former head of the agency has publicly asserted that when John
Bolton demanded that he step down, he added, "We know where your children live." The US has a
history of corruption and intimidation. Any investigation would result in finding China
responsible just as Russia was found to be responsible for the airliner that was shot down
over Ukraine.
"... In 2010, Flynn co-authored an important analysis, Fixing Intel: A Blueprint for Making Intelligence Relevant in Afghanistan . Flynn's key conclusion warned that the U.S. intelligence effort in Afghanistan was failing: ..."
"... The paper argues that because the United States has focused the overwhelming majority of collection efforts and analytical brainpower on insurgent groups, our intelligence apparatus still finds itself unable to answer fundamental questions about the environment in which we operate and the people we are trying to protect and persuade. ..."
"... lambasted American intelligence performance in Afghanistan. . . [It] pulled no punches, using words like "marginally relevant," "ignorant," "hazy," and "incurious" to describe U.S. intelligence work in Afghanistan in a scathing fashion. ..."
"... During 2012-2013, DIA provided honest, objective analysis about the success of the Syrian Army in fighting against ISIS and Al Qaeda. If you go back and look at the media reporting at the time, there were dire reports claiming that the rebels were on the verge of ousting Syrian leader Assad and sweeping to power. Members of Congress, such as Senators McCain and Graham, were busy cheerleading the Syrian rebels progress. ..."
"... Few knew at the time that the CIA was running a massive arms and training program to support some of the Syrian rebels. ..."
"... This earned Michael Flynn the lasting enmity of DNI Director Jim Clapper and CIA Director John Brennan. Flynn would not play ball in down playing the jihadist threat in Syria. If you recall, President Obama referred to ISIS as the "junior varsity" during a January 2014 interview with the New Yorker: ..."
"... "The analogy we use around here sometimes, and I think is accurate, is if a jayvee team puts on Lakers uniforms that doesn't make them Kobe Bryant," Obama said, resorting to an uncharacteristically flip analogy. "I think there is a distinction between the capacity and reach of a bin Laden and a network that is actively planning major terrorist plots against the homeland versus jihadists who are engaged in various local power struggles and disputes, often sectarian. ..."
"... His refusal to downplay the ISIS threat was on of the contributing factors that led Obama to fire Flynn, who left the DIA position in August 2014. ..."
"... Michael Flynn did not go quietly into retirement. He became a vocal critic of Obama's failed policies in the Middle East ..."
"... This made him a target of both Clapper and Brennan. When Brennan put together a CIA Task Force in the late summer of 2015, I believe that one of the targets of the intelligence collection from that effort was Michael Flynn. By March of 2016, Flynn was squarely in the crosshairs of the Obama political/intelligence hit squad : ..."
"... Flynn, who was forced out of his post as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency in August 2014 after clashing with other senior officials, has said that "political correctness" has prevented the U.S. from confronting violent extremism, which he sees as a "cancerous idea that exists inside of the Islamic religion." Flynn has authored a forthcoming book that argues the U.S. government "has concealed the actions of terrorists like [Osama] bin Laden and groups like ISIS, and the role of Iran in the rise of radical Islam " ..."
"... But that did not stop Jim Comey and his cronies from stepping up their efforts to find something they could use to charge and prosecute Flynn. Text messages from Peter Strzok to the author of the memo recommending the case be closed show that Strzok begged to keep the investigation open and cited "7th Floor" interest as justification. The 7th Floor of the FBI is where Jim Comey and Andy McCabe were located. ..."
"... Who authorized that collection of those conversations? Flynn was the acting National Security Advisor to President elect Donald Trump. Listening in on such a phone call was a pure act of domestic espionage against a political opponent of Obama. There was no justification to UNMASK General Flynn. But that is exactly what the FBI did. ..."
"... If and that's a big IF, somehow these scumbags (Comey, Brennan, Clapper, Strzok, et. al) ever got to a courtroom, they'd be facing - in DC - a jury of 12 Trump-haters and an Obama judge;see Roger Stone's trial. ..."
"... Excellent summary. Yes, Flynn was scapegoated and dragged through the mud for embarrassing his "betters" with the truth. He made mistakes and was naive himself, but he did the right thing exposing their plan to arm and support a jihadi takeover of Syria and Iraq. The plan was to let them takeover and then take the "JV team" out. ..."
"... They didn't want to send too many more troops to war. Americans had grown weary due to Bush's madness, so they used jihadis to carry out their plan in the Middle East and North Africa, to fill in the void ..."
"... It was very naive policy making and in the end Obama grew paranoid he was being screwed like Carter, that Benghazi was going to be turned into another Iranian hostage-like situation. It's a curious thing that Obama warned Trump of Flynn. In Obama's mind, Flynn was part of a conspiracy to screw him for choosing to back "Syrian and Libyan farmers" over American troops. That this was the US military brass showing him who's really boss and that they were trying to embarrass him. In reality, he made a bad policy decision based on failure to understand the region. His failures to under these people, exactly as Flynn warned, precipitated these failures. ..."
"... Trump showed a lot of promise that these circumstances would change for the better. Sadly, he has performed no better. Netanyahu and Pompeo are so far up his ass that they are now his ventriloquists. Obama should have warned him of those two instead. ..."
"... ...We see the same thing has evolved in the American Empire. If you take time to read up on the Flynn case or the much larger plot around it, you see a large cast of people with one thing in common. They all live together as a social class. Some were having sex with one another. Others had been friends since college. Others developed their relationships when they came to Washington. All of these social relationships transcend the formal positions and titles of the people... ..."
"... At that time of the Syria events, it appeared one of the biggest names in the background pushing for more support for Syrian "rebels", was the shadowy activist group AVAAZ. ..."
"... Now comes the present day kicker, the mistress Antonia Staats of the recently fired UK "expert" Neil Ferguson that caused our global shut down with his wildly inaccurate corona death count numbers, works for US based AVAAZ. Did she have any influence over his draconian pronouncements based up on her known AVAAZ activism? ..."
"... Is AVAAZ just one more name for Bernnan's CIA, not like unlike CNN? Should these dots be connected or just discarded as one more right-wing wacko conspiracy theory. ..."
"... Thanks for the excellent summary of how Flynn became "persona non grata" to various powers in the IC. But there is another powerful group in Washington whose fervent enmity he drew: the Democratic establishment. See: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/10/how-mike-flynn-became-americas-angriest-general-214362 ..."
"... Adding to my comment just above, my personal feeling on why there was such a push to find something to prosecute Flynn over was as a direct response to Flynn's leading of chants to "lock her up." "What goes around comes around" seems to be an operative policy for some in Washington. I can't help but believe that is what drove DOJ's otherwise inexplicable drive to find something to prosecute Flynn over. ..."
Two and one-half years ago, Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller unveiled charges against
Michael Flynn for "lying to Federal agents." At the time I gave Mueller the benefit of the
doubt and assumed, incorrectly, that the investigation was fair and honest. We now know without
any doubt that the so-called investigation of Michael Flynn was frame-up. It was a punishment
in search of a crime and ultimately led the FBI to manufacture a crime in order to take out
Michael Flynn and damage the fledgling Presidency of Donald Trump.
It is important to understand the lack of proper foundation to investigate Michael Flynn as
a collaborator with Russia as part of some bizarre plot to steal the 2016 Presidential election
for Donald Trump.
Flynn was perceived as a threat to the CIA and refused to cook the intelligence for the
Obama Administration while he was Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency.
The paper argues that because the United States has focused the overwhelming majority of
collection efforts and analytical brainpower on insurgent groups, our intelligence apparatus
still finds itself unable to answer fundamental questions about the environment in which we
operate and the people we are trying to protect and persuade.
Flynn's work did not sit well with Jim Clapper and John Brennan. John Schindler, a rabid
anti-Trumper, wrote a hit piece on Flynn in December 2017, that highlights the Deep State anger
at Flynn. Schindler characterizes Flynn's work in unflattering terms and
claims that Flynn :
lambasted American intelligence performance in Afghanistan. . . [It] pulled no punches,
using words like "marginally relevant," "ignorant," "hazy," and "incurious" to describe U.S.
intelligence work in Afghanistan in a scathing fashion.
Flynn's honesty in that assessment did
not derail his next promotion -- he was sworn in as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency in
July 2012. Once in that position he refused to cook the intelligence. I saw this firsthand (at
the time I had access to the classified intelligence analysis by DIA with respect to the war in
Syria). During 2012-2013, DIA provided honest, objective analysis about the success of the
Syrian Army in fighting against ISIS and Al Qaeda. If you go back and look at the media
reporting at the time, there were dire reports claiming that the rebels were on the verge of
ousting Syrian leader Assad and sweeping to power. Members of Congress, such as Senators McCain
and Graham, were busy cheerleading the Syrian rebels progress.
Few knew at the time that the CIA was running a massive arms and training program to support
some of the Syrian rebels. The program was a failure and the attack on the CIA base in
Benghazi, Libya came close to exposing the covert effort. What the media was not reporting is
that the rebels the U.S. backed were inept. The only rebels achieving some success were the
radical jihadists aligned with ISIS and elements of Al Qaeda (e.g. Al Nusra).
This earned Michael Flynn the lasting enmity of DNI Director Jim Clapper and CIA Director
John Brennan. Flynn would not play ball in down playing the jihadist threat in Syria. If you
recall, President Obama referred to ISIS as the "junior varsity" during a January 2014
interview with the New Yorker:
"The analogy we use around here sometimes, and I think is accurate, is if a jayvee team puts
on Lakers uniforms that doesn't make them Kobe Bryant," Obama said, resorting to an
uncharacteristically flip analogy. "I think there is a distinction between the capacity and
reach of a bin Laden and a network that is actively planning major terrorist plots against the
homeland versus jihadists who are engaged in various local power struggles and disputes, often
sectarian.
But that was not the story that Flynn's DIA was telling. His refusal to downplay the ISIS
threat was on of the contributing factors that led Obama to fire Flynn, who left the DIA
position in August 2014.
Michael Flynn did not go quietly into retirement. He became a vocal critic of Obama's failed
policies in the
Middle East :
Since taking off his uniform last August, Flynn, 56, has been in the vanguard of those
criticizing the president's policies in the Middle East, speaking out at venues ranging from
congressional hearings and trade association banquets to appearances on Fox News, CNN, Sky News
Arabia, and Japanese television, targeting the Iranian nuclear deal, the weakness of the U.S.
response to the Islamic State, and the Obama administration's refusal to call America's enemies
in the Middle East "Islamic militants."
This made him a target of both Clapper and Brennan. When Brennan put together a CIA Task
Force in the late summer of 2015, I believe that one of the targets of the intelligence
collection from that effort was Michael Flynn. By March of 2016, Flynn was squarely in the crosshairs of the Obama
political/intelligence hit squad :
They question why the retired general, who has earned criticism for his leadership style but
has generally been regarded as a well-intentioned professional, would assist a candidate who
has called for military actions that would constitute war crimes.
"I think Flynn and Trump are two peas in a pod," one former senior U.S. intelligence
official who knows Flynn told The Daily Beast. "They have this naïve notion that yelling
at people will just solve problems."
Flynn, who was forced out of his post as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency in
August 2014 after clashing with other senior officials, has said that "political correctness"
has prevented the U.S. from confronting violent extremism, which he sees as a "cancerous idea
that exists inside of the Islamic religion." Flynn has authored a forthcoming book that argues
the U.S. government "has concealed the actions of terrorists like [Osama] bin Laden and groups
like ISIS, and the role of Iran in the rise of radical Islam "
His co-author, Michael Ledeen,
is a neoconservative author and policy analyst who was involved in the Iran-Contra Affair.
Thanks to the document release on 30 April, 2020, we know that the FBI opened an
unsuccessful investigation of Flynn. Here are the key points from the memo recommending the
investigation be closed:
The FBI opened captioned case based on an particularly false factual basis that CROSSFIRE RAZOR (CR)
may wittingly or unwittingly be involved in activity on behalf of the Russian Federation which
may constitute a federal crime· or threat to the national security.
The FBI predicated the investigation on predetermined criteria set forth by the CROSSFIRE
HURRICANE (CH) investigative team based on an assessment of reliable lead information received
during the course of the investigation.
The FBI queried the FBI databases and at least two other intelligence community databases
for incriminating information but found NO DEROGATORY INFORMATION .
The FBI used a Confidential Human Source (aka CHS probably Stefan Halper) to try to collect
incriminating information. The CHS claimed that Flynn was in contact with Svetlana Lokhova, a
British academic born in Russia, but a subsequent FBI search of their databases turned up NO
DEROGATORY INFORMATION .
The FBI memo concludes:
the absence of any derogatory information or lead information from these logical sources
reduced the number of investigative avenues and techniques to pursue. . . . The FBI is closing
this investigation.
But that did not stop Jim Comey and his cronies from stepping up their efforts to find
something they could use to charge and prosecute Flynn. Text messages from Peter Strzok to the
author of the memo recommending the case be closed show that Strzok begged to keep the
investigation open and cited "7th Floor" interest as justification. The 7th Floor of the FBI is
where Jim Comey and Andy McCabe were located.
They decided to pursue two lines of attack. First, to go after Flynn for allegedly failing
to register as a "Foreign Agent" because of a report his consulting firm prepared on a Turk
living in the United States that Turkey named as a "terrorist." Second, the FBI had in hand the
transcript of Flynn's conversations with Russia's Ambassador and wanted to entrap him into
lying about those conversations.
Who authorized that collection of those conversations? Flynn was the acting National
Security Advisor to President elect Donald Trump. Listening in on such a phone call was a pure
act of domestic espionage against a political opponent of Obama. There was no justification to
UNMASK General Flynn. But that is exactly what the FBI did.
The news of Mike Flynn's plea agreement in late 2017 with special prosecutor Robert Mueller
was trumpeted on the media as if Flynn admitted to killing Kennedy or having unprotected sex
with Vladimir Putin. But read the actual indictment and the accompanying agreement.
Here is the chronology of Michael Flynn's entirely appropriate actions as the National
Security Advisor to President-elect Donald Trump. This is not what an agent of Russia would do.
This is what the National Security Advisor to an incoming President would do.
December 21, 2016 --Egypt submitted a resolution to the United Nations Security Council on
the issue of Israeli settlements ("resolution").
December 22, 2016-- a very senior member of the Presidential Transition Team (reportedly
Jared Kushner) directed FLYNN to contact officials from foreign governments, including Russia,
to learn where each government stood on the resolution and to influence those governments to
delay the vote or defeat the resolution.
December 23, 2016-- FLYNN again spoke with the Russian Ambassador, who informed FLYNN that
if it came to a vote Russia would not vote against the resolution.
On this same day, President-elect Trump spoke with Egyptian leader Sisi, who agreed to
withdraw the resolution (
link ).
[I would note that there is nothing illegal or wrong about any of this. Quite an appropriate
action, in fact, for an incoming President. Moreover, if Trump and the Russians had been
conspiring before the November election, why would Trump and team even need to persuade the
Russian Ambassador to do the biding of Trump on this issue?]
December 28, 2016-- President Barack Obama signed Executive Order 13757, which was to take
effect the following day, imposing sanctions on Russia. Russian Ambassador Kislyak called
General Flynn (who was vacationing in the Caribbean).
December 29, 2016 , FLYNN called a senior official of the Presidential Transition Team ("PTT
official"), who was with other senior members of the Presidential Transition Team at the
Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, to discuss what, if anything, to communicate to the
Russian Ambassador about the U.S. Sanctions. On that call, FLYNN and the PTT official discussed
the U.S. Sanctions, including the potential impact of those sanctions on the incoming
administration's foreign policy goals. The PTT official and FLYNN also discussed that the
members of the Presidential Transition Team at Mar-a-Lago did not want Russia to escalate the
situation.
FLYNN called the Russian Ambassador and requested that Russia not escalate the
situation and only respond to the U.S. Sanctions in a reciprocal manner.
Shortly after his phone call with the Russian Ambassador, FLYNN spoke with the PTT
official to report on the substance of his call with the Russian Ambassador, including
their discussion of the U.S. Sanctions.
December 31, 2016-- the Russian Ambassador called FLYNN and informed him that Russia had
chosen not to retaliate in response to FLYNN's request.
After his phone call with the Russian Ambassador, FLYNN spoke with senior members of the
Presidential Transition Team about FLYNN's conversations with the Russian Ambassador regarding
the U.S. Sanctions and Russia's decision not to escalate the situation.
Michael Flynn's contact with the Russian Government and other members of the UN Security
Council in the month preceding Trump's inauguration was appropriate and normal. He did nothing
wrong. But President Obama's henchmen, including James Comey, John Brennan, Jim Clapper and
Susan Rice were out for blood and relied on the FBI to stick the shiv into General Flynn's
belly.
That travesty of justice is being methodically and systematically revealed in the documents
delivered to the Flynn defense team thanks to the efforts of Attorney General William Barr.
Barr is relying on the US Attorney in the Eastern District of Missouri (EDMO) to review the
case and provide Brady material to the Flynn defense team. This is by the book. Doing it this
way provides the legal foundation for future prosecution of the FBI and prosecutors who abused
the General Flynn's rights and violated the Constitution. Stay tuned.
All true in my book but it would be very hard to prosecute and get convictions as the defense
would be "We were working in the best interests of the US against the dastardly Russkies"
At least half the country believes it goes the Russians interfered materially in the 2016
election. 2018 poll
Great analysis, your article added a lot of context on why Flynn was targeted. What a
horrible thing to do to a person.
http://meaninginhistory.blogspot.com/ that has
been doing A+ work on the Flynn set up, linked to you.
If and that's a big IF, somehow these scumbags (Comey, Brennan, Clapper, Strzok, et. al) ever
got to a courtroom, they'd be facing -
in DC - a jury of 12 Trump-haters and an Obama judge;see Roger Stone's trial.
Bottom line: Until the swamp is drained and then burned (meaning all SES and over a certain GS level
bureaucrats gone), we will continue to live under the thumbs of this corrupt "ruling
class." And getting rid of all these people wouldn't make much of a difference to most
Americans; witness the notorious "shutdowns" in recent years.
Excellent summary. Yes, Flynn was scapegoated and dragged through the mud for embarrassing
his "betters" with the truth. He made mistakes and was naive himself, but he did the right
thing exposing their plan to arm and support a jihadi takeover of Syria and Iraq. The plan
was to let them takeover and then take the "JV team" out.
They didn't want to send too many more troops to war. Americans had grown weary due to
Bush's madness, so they used jihadis to carry out their plan in the Middle East and North
Africa, to fill in the void while they could before Russia remained weak and China yet to
fully emerge, to checkmate the grand chessboard Zbigniew wrote of while the US held
unchallenged supremacy.
Obama was very naive about what Muslims are really like in some of those parts. It's best
to liken them to Comanches. He bought into the Zbigniew/Neocon belief that they'll just be
another Taliban, but ask any Afghan who managed to escape the country at the time and they'll
tell you these guys are all devils, djinns.
It was very naive policy making and in the end Obama grew paranoid he was being screwed
like Carter, that Benghazi was going to be turned into another Iranian hostage-like
situation. It's a curious thing that Obama warned Trump of Flynn. In Obama's mind, Flynn was
part of a conspiracy to screw him for choosing to back "Syrian and Libyan farmers" over
American troops. That this was the US military brass showing him who's really boss and that
they were trying to embarrass him. In reality, he made a bad policy decision based on failure
to understand the region. His failures to under these people, exactly as Flynn warned,
precipitated these failures.
Obama made a lot of mistakes, but thankfully he didn't make it worse by invading in spite
of his red line. I have to credit him that much, but his failures in Libya and Syria are on
par with Bush's failures in Afghanistan and Iraq. Disastrous doesn't even begin to describe
these failures.
Trump showed a lot of promise that these circumstances would change for the better. Sadly,
he has performed no better. Netanyahu and Pompeo are so far up his ass that they are now his
ventriloquists. Obama should have warned him of those two instead.
"... internal investigation unit". If I run the IG and change the definition of "whistle
blower" to allow hearsay evidence that is not admissible as evidence in any court in the
Western world that still makes it okay to use hearsay, right? Of course it does. You forgot
about Horowitz and his IG report already, you guys must really be getting desperate. Thanks
for the laugh.
As much as I would love to see this "ruling class" brought low, by which I mean burnt to the
ground, we face the problem of The Ruling System, outlined in this post on the Z-Man blog:
http://thezman.com/wordpress/?p=20405 A little snippet from the post:
...We see the same thing has evolved in the American Empire. If you take time to read up
on the Flynn case or the much larger plot around it, you see a large cast of people with one
thing in common. They all live together as a social class. Some were having sex with one
another. Others had been friends since college. Others developed their relationships when
they came to Washington. All of these social relationships transcend the formal positions and
titles of the people...
Z-Man examines this in various historical settings, Versailles, Communist Russia, before
arriving at The Swamp. Interesting angle.
Small world, speaking of Seymour Hersh's lengthy CIA gun-running to Syria expose in "The Red
Line and Rat Line", that all his prior media connections refused to publish at the time
(Benghazi-Obama days), until it finally appeared in the London Review of Books- or something
like that.
At that time of the Syria events, it appeared one of the biggest names in the background
pushing for more support for Syrian "rebels", was the shadowy activist group AVAAZ.
Now comes the present day kicker, the mistress Antonia Staats of the recently fired UK
"expert" Neil Ferguson that caused our global shut down with his wildly inaccurate corona
death count numbers, works for US based AVAAZ. Did she have any influence over his draconian
pronouncements based up on her known AVAAZ activism?
Who was it that says there are no coincidences? Long time since I saw any media attention
given to AVAAZ, nor any final answers why the CIA was running such a big operation in
Benghazi in 2012. However, all the same names and players still swirling around gives one
pause.
Is AVAAZ just one more name for Bernnan's CIA, not like unlike CNN? Should these dots be
connected or just discarded as one more right-wing wacko conspiracy theory.
Adding to my comment just above, my personal feeling
on why there was such a push
to find something to prosecute Flynn over
was as a direct response to Flynn's leading of chants to "lock her up."
"What goes around comes around" seems to be an operative policy for some in Washington.
I can't help but believe that is what drove DOJ's otherwise inexplicable drive to find
something to prosecute Flynn over.
AVAAZ pushed FaceBook and Zuckerberg to ban about half of FB content on novel coronavirus,
starting last month, Politico gleefully reported. [Two medical doctors in California 'out of
step' with the diktats of some medical cartel's message, among those FB canceled, for
example.]
AVAAZ, which pushed regime change in Syria, no fly zone in Libya, spews hatred of Russia,
etc. is alive and well, working hard at increasing online censorship.
Their clicktivism business model and lock downs go hand in hand.
[[Avaaz discovered that over 40 percent of the coronavirus-related misinformation it found
on Facebook. . .]]
[[Avaaz said that these fake social media posts -- everything from advice about bogus
medical remedies for the virus to claims that minority groups were less susceptible to
infection -- had been shared, collectively, 1.7 million times on Facebook in six
languages]]
[[Avaaz tracked 104 claims debunked by fact-checkers to see how quickly they were removed
from the platform]]
" If I run the IG and change the definition of "whistle blower" to allow hearsay evidence
that is not admissible as evidence in any court in the Western world that still makes it okay
to use hearsay, right? Of course it does. You forgot about Horowitz and his IG report
already, you guys must really be getting desperate. Thanks for the laugh."
No laughing matter. The IG position is obviously politicized. It may be a surprise to you,
but many police forces have an internal investigation unit that has extremely wide powers
that. go far beyond those available in ordinary investigation. The staff of such units are a
rare and disliked breed and the units are managed by the natural enemies of the police -
criminal lawyers.
Given that I've seen what these units do here, I am surprised that Strzok, Page and others
were not apprehended and charged very quickly.
Jim, thank you for the further AVAAZ info. Call me gob-smacked. Hope the investigative media picks up this thread. Seymour Hersh, are
you listening? AVAAZ felt sinister during the Benghazi days - also reacll some connections
with Samantha Power and Susan Rice - Barry's Girls.
Maybe mistress Antonia Staats was on a mission; and not just being a scofflaw mistress? In
fact is she trying out to be the new S.P.E.C.T.R.E Bond Girl?
IG's are no surprise to me nor the politicalization, such as Baltimore and Chicago, cities
run by the same political party for decades. Or the "intelligence community" IG, who changed
to rules to allow the scam of Schiff's supersecret whistleblower fraud to go forward. But
then you probably forgot that guy like you did Horowitz.
"I am surprised that Strzok, Page and others were not apprehended and charged ...." Larry insists that will happen. I'm not holding my breath.
|
Ethan Paul dismantles H.R.
McMaster's "analysis"
of the Chinese government and shows how McMaster abuses the idea of strategic empathy for his
own ends:
But the reality is that McMaster, and others committed to great power competition, is
actually playing the role of Johnson and McNamara. This shines through clearest in McMaster's
selective, and ultimately flawed, application of strategic empathy.
Just as Johnson and McNamara used the Joint Chiefs as political props, soliciting their
advice or endorsement only when it could legitimize policy conclusions they had already come
to, McMaster uses strategic empathy as a symbolic exercise in self-validation. By conceiving
of China's perspective solely in terms of its tumultuous history and the Communist Party's
pathological pursuit of power and control, McMaster presents only those biproducts of
strategic empathy that confirm his policy conclusions (i.e. an intuitive grasp of China's
apparent drive to reassert itself as the "Middle Kingdom" at the expense of the United
States).
McMaster calls for "strategic empathy" in understanding how the Chinese government sees the
world, but he then stacks the deck by asserting that the government in question sees the world
in exactly the way that China hawks want to believe that they see it. That suggests that
McMaster wasn't trying terribly hard to see the world as they do. McMaster's article has been
likened to Kennan's seminal
article on Soviet foreign policy at the start of the Cold War, but the comparison only serves
to highlight how lacking McMaster's argument is and how inappropriate a similar containment
strategy would be today. Where Kennan rooted his analysis of Soviet conduct in a lifetime of
expertise in Russian history and language and his experience as a diplomat in Moscow, McMaster
bases his assessment of Chinese conduct on one visit to Beijing, a superficial survey of
Chinese history, and some boilerplate ideological claims about communism. McMaster's article
prompted some strong criticism along these lines when it came out:
I have heard from other colleagues that several CN scholars met w/ McMaster before he
wrote this (while working on his book) and corrected him on many issues. He apparently
ignored all of their views. This is what we face people: a simple, deceptive narrative is
more seductive.
McMaster's narrative is all the more deceptive because he claims to want to understand the
official Chinese government view, but he just substitutes the standard hawkish caricature. Near
the end of the article, he asserts, "Without effective pushback from the United States and
like-minded nations, China will become even more aggressive in promoting its statist economy
and authoritarian political model." It is possible that this could happen, but McMaster treats
it as a given without offering much proof that this is so. McMaster makes a mistake common to
China hawks that assumes that every other great power must have the same missionary,
world-spanning goals that they have. Suppose instead that the Chinese government is not
interested in that, but has a more limited strategy aimed at securing itself and establishing
itself as the leading power in its region.
Paul does a fine job of using McMaster's earlier work on the Vietnam War to expose the flaws
in his thinking about China. McMaster has often been praised for his criticism of the
military's top leaders over their role in running the war in Vietnam, but this usually
overlooks that McMaster was really arguing for a much more aggressive war effort. He faulted
the Joint Chiefs for "dereliction" because they didn't insist on escalation. Paul observes:
McMaster's tale of Vietnam is, counterintuitively, one of enduring confidence in the
U.S.'s ability to do good in the world and conquer all potential challengers, if only it
finds the will to overcome the temptations of political cowardice and stamp out bureaucratic
ineptitude. This same message runs through McMaster's tale about China: "If we compete
aggressively," and "no longer adhere to a view of China based mainly on Western aspirations,"
McMaster says, "we have reason for confidence."
McMaster would have the U.S. view China in the worst possible light as an implacable
adversary. Following this recommendation will guarantee decades of heightened tensions and
increased risks of conflict. McMaster's dangerous China hawkishness calls to mind something
that Jim Mattis said about him regarding a different
issue when they served together in the Trump administration: "Oh my God, that moron is going to
get us all killed." His aggressiveness towards China is not driven by an assessment of the
threat from China, but comes from his tendency to advocate for aggressive measures
everywhere.
As Paul notes, McMaster is minimizing the dangers and risks that his preferred policy of
confrontation entails. In that respect, he is making the same error that American leaders made
in Vietnam:
Like Johnson and McNamara before him, McMaster is misleading both the public and himself
about the costs, consequences, and likelihood for success of the path he is committed to
pursuing, and in so doing is laying the groundwork for yet another national tragedy.
McMaster's China argument is reminiscent of other arguments made by imperialists in the
past, and he relies on many of the same shoddy assumptions that they did. Like British
Russophobes in the mid-19th century, McMaster decided on a policy of aggressive containment and
then searched for rationalizations that might justify it. Jack Snyder described this in his
classic study
Myths of Empire thirty years ago:
Russia is portrayed as a unitary, rational actor with unlimited aims of conquest, but
fortunately averse to risk and weak if stopped soon enough. (p. 168)
McMaster uses the same "paper tiger image" to portray China as an unstoppable aggressor that
can nonetheless be stopped at minimal risk. He wants us to believe that China is at once
implacable but easily deterred, insatiable but quick to back off under pressure. We have seen
the same contradictory arguments from hawks on other issues, but it is particularly dangerous
to promote such a misleading image of a nuclear-armed major power. 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 .
RADDATZ: Do you believe it was manmade or genetically modified?
POMPEO: Look, the best experts so far seem to think it was manmade. I have no reason to
disbelieve that at this point.
RADDATZ: Your -- your Office of the DNI says the consensus, the scientific consensus
was not manmade or genetically modified.
POMPEO: That's right. I -- I -- I agree with that. Yes. I've -- I've seen their analysis.
I've seen the summary that you saw that was released publicly. I have no reason to doubt
that that is accurate at this point.
To summarize: Pompeo does not doubt that the virus has been genetically modified, but he
also does not doubt that is has not been genetically modified.
Could there be a more obvious demonstration that the man is FULL OF SHIT??
Those incompetent neo-confederates leading america into oblivion will jumble strategic
defeats with winning. So much for accountability, hard work and personal responsability...
Seems they can't compete fairly without superior military variable of adjustment and threat
of violence against adversaries. Orange springs eternal and their great white hope has now
adopted a paralizing rhetoric of victimization - republican lawmakers follow suit and are
going so far as invoking a western bid for monetary reparations from Chinese depredations. #
the art of winnig for maggots, derp.
"... Presidential determinations based on secret (and often false) information were sufficient to legally absolve any killings or calamities abroad. ..."
"... In 1999, Clinton unilaterally attacked Serbia, killing up to 1,500 Serb civilians in a 78 day bombing campaign justified to force the Serb government to embrace human rights and ethnic tolerance. Serbia had taken no aggression against the United States, but that did not deter Clinton from bombing Serb marketplaces, hospitals, factories, bridges, and the nation's largest television station (which was supposedly guilty of broadcasting anti-NATO propaganda). The House of Representatives took a vote and failed to support Clinton's war effort, and 31 congressmen sued Clinton for violating the War Powers Act. A federal judge dismissed the lawsuit after deciding that the congressmen did not have legal standing to sue. Most of the U.S. media ignored dead Serb women and children and instead portrayed the bombing as a triumph of American benevolence. ..."
"... In 2011, Obama decided to bomb Libya because the U.S. disapproved of its ruler, Muammar Gaddafi. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton notified Congress that the White House "would forge ahead with military action in Libya even if Congress passed a resolution constraining the mission." Plagiarizing the Bush administration, the Obama administration indicated that congressional restraints would be "an unconstitutional encroachment on executive power." ..."
Fifty years ago, President Richard Nixon popped up on national television on a
Thursday night to proudly announce that he invaded Cambodia. At that time, Nixon was selling
himself as a peacemaker, promising to withdraw U.S. troops from the Vietnam War. But after the
sixth time that Nixon watched the movie "Patton," he was overwhelmed by martial fervor and
could not resist sending U.S. troops crashing into another nation.
Presidents had announced military action prior to Nixon's Cambodia surprise but there was a
surreal element to Nixon's declaration that helped launch a new era of presidential
grandstanding. Ever since then, presidents have routinely gone on television to announce
foreign attacks that almost always provoke widespread applause -- at least initially.
Back in 1970, congressional Democrats were outraged and denounced Nixon for launching an
illegal war. In his televised speech, Nixon also warned that "the forces of totalitarianism and
anarchy will threaten free nations and free institutions throughout the world." Four days after
Nixon's speech, Ohio National Guard troops suppressed the anarchist threat by gunning down
thirteen antiwar protestors and bystanders on the campus of Kent State University, leaving four
students dead.
Three years after Nixon's surprise invasion, Congress passed the War Powers Act which
required the president to get authorization from Congress after committing U.S. troops to any
combat situation that lasted more than 60 days. Congress was seeking to check out-of-control
presidential war-making. But the law has failed to deter U.S. attacks abroad in the subsequent
decades.
In 1998, President Bill Clinton launched a missile strike against Sudan after U.S. embassies
in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed by terrorists. The U.S. government never produced any
evidence linking the targets in Sudan to the terrorist attacks. The owners of the El-Shifa
Pharmaceutical Industries plant -- the largest pharmaceutical factory in East Africa -- sued
for compensation after Clinton's attack demolished their facility. Eleven years later, the U.S.
Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit effectively dismissed the case:
"President Clinton, in his capacity as commander in chief, fired missiles at a target of his
choosing to pursue a military objective he had determined was in the national interest. Under
the Constitution, this decision is immune from judicial review." Presidential determinations
based on secret (and often false) information were sufficient to legally absolve any killings
or calamities abroad.
In 1999, Clinton unilaterally attacked Serbia, killing up to 1,500 Serb civilians in a 78
day bombing campaign justified to force the Serb government to embrace human rights and ethnic
tolerance. Serbia had taken no aggression against the United States, but that did not deter
Clinton from bombing Serb marketplaces, hospitals, factories, bridges, and the nation's largest
television station (which was supposedly guilty of broadcasting anti-NATO propaganda). The
House of Representatives took a vote and failed to support Clinton's war effort, and 31
congressmen sued Clinton for violating the War Powers Act. A federal judge dismissed the
lawsuit after deciding that the congressmen did not have legal standing to sue. Most of the
U.S. media ignored dead Serb women and children and instead portrayed the bombing as a triumph
of American benevolence.
After the 9/11 attacks, President George W. Bush acted entitled to attack anywhere to "rid
the world of evil." Congress speedily passed an Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF)
which the Bush administration and subsequent presidents have asserted authorizes U.S. attacks
on bad guys on any square mile on earth. Congressional and judicial restraints on Bush
administration killing and torturing were practically nonexistent.
Bush's excesses spurred a brief resurgence of antiwar protests which largely vanished after
the election of President Barack Obama, who quickly received a Nobel Peace Prize after taking
office. That honorific did not dissuade Obama from bombing seven nations, often based on secret
evidence accompanied by false denials of the civilian casualties inflicted by American bombings
of weddings and other bad photo ops.
In 2011, Obama decided to bomb Libya because the U.S. disapproved of its ruler, Muammar
Gaddafi. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton notified Congress that the White House "would forge
ahead with military action in Libya even if Congress passed a resolution constraining the
mission." Plagiarizing the Bush administration, the Obama administration indicated that
congressional restraints would be "an unconstitutional encroachment on executive power." Obama
"had the constitutional authority" to attack Libya "because he could reasonably determine that
such use of force was in the national interest," according to the Justice Department's Office
of Legal Counsel. Yale professor Bruce Ackerman lamented that "history will say that the War
Powers Act was condemned to a quiet death by a president who had solemnly pledged, on the
campaign trail, to put an end to indiscriminate warmaking."
On the campaign trail in 2016, Donald Trump denounced his opponent as "Trigger Happy
Hillary" for her enthusiasm for foreign warring. But shortly after taking office, Trump reaped
his greatest inside-the-Beltway applause for launching cruise missile strikes against the
Syrian government after allegations the Assad regime had used chemical weapons.
The following year, the Trump administration joined France and Britain in bombing Syria
after another alleged chemical weapons attack. Several officials with the Organization for the
Prohibition of Chemical Weapons leaked information showing that the chemical weapons
accusations against the Syria government were false or contrived but that was irrelevant to the
legality of the U.S. attack.
Why? Because the Justice Department ruled that President Trump could "lawfully" attack Syria
"because he
had reasonably determined that the use of force would be in the national interest." That
legal vindication for attacking Syria cited a Justice Department analysis on Cambodia from 1970
that stated that presidents could engage U.S. forces in hostilities abroad based on a "long
continued practice on the part of the Executive, acquiesced in by the Congress." The Justice
Department stressed that "no U.S. airplanes crossed into Syrian air-space" and that "the actual
attack lasted only a few minutes." So the bombs didn't count? If a foreign government used the
same argument to shrug off a few missiles launched at Washington D.C., no one in America would
be swayed that the foreign regime had not committed an act of war. But it's different when the
U.S. president orders killings.
In the decades since Nixon's Cambodia speech, presidents have avoided repeating his
reference to America being perceived as "a pitiful, helpless giant." But too many presidents
have repeated his refrain that failing to bomb abroad would mean that "our will and character"
were tested and failed. Unfortunately, the anniversary of Nixon's invasion of Cambodia passed
with little or no recognition that the unchecked power of American presidents remains a grave
threat to world peace.
About Jim Bovard Jim Bovard is the author
of Public Policy Hooligan (2012), Attention Deficit Democracy (2006), Lost Rights: The
Destruction of American Liberty (1994), and 7 other books. He is a member of the USA Today
Board of Contributors and has also written for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal,
Playboy, Washington Post, and other publications. His articles have been publicly denounced by
the chief of the FBI, the Postmaster General, the Secretary of HUD, and the heads of the DEA,
FEMA, and EEOC and numerous federal agencies.
In his rush to accuse Beijing of unleashing the scourge of Covid-19 on an unsuspecting
world, the US Secretary of State said the coronavirus was man-made, before making a U-turn
without even blinking. "The best experts so far seem to think it was man-made. I don't have
reason to disbelieve them at this point," Mike Pompeo told ABC's 'This Week' when
asked about a statement from the US intelligence community that unequivocally said the
opposite.
Host Martha Raddatz twice asked Pompeo to clarify whether his view differed from that of
American intelligence, and he voiced his total support for the spies – though he stopped
short of actually saying "I don't believe the virus was man-made."
"There is a disconnect between what average people feel as threats to their security and
what the Beltway does," said Khanna, "I don't dismiss traditional challenges. Obviously you
have Russian aggression in Ukraine and Georgia, and Russian election interference. Obviously,
you have the rise of China authoritarian capitalism and their foray into Africa and their
potential disruption of the navigation of the seas."
Khanna said his constituents understand the challenges posed by Russia and China, but they
want the country to balance these priorities against the need to prepare for future pandemics,
the effects of climate change and the risks posed by cyberattacks and emerging
technologies.
For years, the former threats have dominated American national security strategy - and
federal spending priorities. "We have a $740 billion Pentagon budget," Khanna said. "That's
$130 billion more than where Obama had it. To put that into context, that $130 billion
could triple the NIH budget" and boost funds for the CDC and FEMA.
"In other words, if Trump had put that money into our public health, we would not have had
this pandemic to the extent that we have," he continued. "We would have had testing earlier. We
possibly could have had a faster track to a cure or to a vaccine."
Concern over this programmatic imbalance could also dog passage of the upcoming National
Defense Authorization Act. Khanna said that progressives are likely to withhold support if the
bill does not "show very compelling reasons" spending increases are tied directly to fighting
the coronavirus pandemic. Asked if he thought moderate Democrats could join with Republicans to
force the bill through the House, Khanna replied that he was "not dismissing" the possibility
but warned that they would be "writing off a lot of the progressive base and the independent
base."
Khanna says that he has learned from last year, when all the measures passed by the House
were stripped out in conference with the Republican-controlled Senate. "Fool me once, shame on
you. Fool me twice, shame on us. We're not going to pass a bill without an iron commitment that
they're going to keep some of those top priorities." Included in his list are
prohibitions for any unauthorized war with North Korea and with Iran, both passed last year
by the House and stripped by the Senate.
Khanna hopes the House will serve as a proving ground for new ideas about the relationship
between military spending and the nation's safety. "We need to have a new approach to national
security in the 21st century," he said. "We need people in our generation who are not
derivative thinkers, recycling what they learned from the Cold War, but who are willing to be
original."
"I don't underestimate the status quo," Khanna concluded. "We can be optimistic and then end
up defaulting to the same thinking and same people. But I'm hopeful that this crisis really
will make us re-examine some of these questions."
"That's our challenge."
The entire interview with Rep. Khanna is available here on Press The Button starting at
10pm tonight.
Joe Cirincione is the president and Zack Brown a policy associate at Ploughshares Fund, a
global security foundation.
Representative Ro Khanna (D.-CA) recently laid down some new rules for the Pentagon budget:
Fund public health over weapons; freeze defense programs at current levels; resist Senate
pressure to cave on House priorities; and develop a "modern, expansive definition of national
security that includes the risk of pandemics and climate change." High on his list of possible
cuts are the massive increases for new nuclear weapons proposed by President Donald Trump,
including a freeze on the new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).
High on his list of
possible cuts are the massive increases for new nuclear weapons proposed by President Donald
Trump, including a freeze on the new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). He will also
press for sound national security policies to be included in the annual Pentagon spending bill
and for the House leadership to defend these priorities.
"One place we're looking is to limit the modernization of ICBMs," he said in an interview on
the national security podcast, Press The Button . Instead, Khanna
wants Congress to "put that money into coronavirus research, or vaccine research, or developing
manufacturing capacity for masks. I think those types of red lines are not only possible but
would be politically very popular."
Khanna's views carry great weight with his colleagues and within national security circles.
Serving his second term in the House, he is the first vice-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus , a member of the
House Armed Services
Committee , and was co-chair for Sen. Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign.
His opposition to the new missile comes just weeks after the U.S. Air Force announced it
seeks to
accelerate the missile program marked by cost overruns and a controversial
bidding process that left Northrop Grumman as the sole contractor. The new missile could
cost as much as
$150 billion . Air Force program managers are speeding "to get things awarded on contract
as quickly as possible,"
noted budget expert Todd Harrison, "so that becomes harder to reverse if there's a new
administration."
Khanna called the land-based leg of the nuclear triad "one of the greatest threats of
nuclear war," noting that former Secretary of Defense James Mattis once
testified to their "false alarm danger." He said he is working with another former defense
secretary, William Perry, who has
termed these missiles "some of the most dangerous weapons in the world," and called for
their phase-out.
Khanna's new rules could thwart the furious lobbying by defense contractors for
billions of dollars in the next COVID aid package. He says these funds should be put into
more critical areas and that defense contractors should get "not a dime." "We should not be
increasing funding for industries that don't need it, that aren't critical to coronavirus, that
aren't critical to our national security, that are just going to the defense industrial base,"
Khanna said. "It's just not the priority right now."
Khanna picked up some heavyweight support for this position when Rep. Adam Smith (D.-WA),
the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee,
announced last Wednesday that he, too, was opposed to new funds for defense
contractors.
"The defense [budget] last year was $738 billion," said Smith. "I'm not saying that there
aren't needs within the Department of Defense, I'm saying they have a lot of money and ought to
spend that money to meet those needs." A letter by 62 national organizations to the House
leadership last week also
opposed any additional funds to the Pentagon this year.
This opposition by a leader of the Progressive Caucus and by the highest-ranking national
security Democrat in Congress, moreover, comes
amid growing calls for a fundamental rethink of U.S. national security in response to the
pandemic.
... ... ...
For years, the former threats have dominated American national security
strategy - and federal spending priorities. "We have a $740 billion Pentagon budget," Khanna
said. "That's
$130 billion more than where Obama had it. To put that into context, that $130 billion
could triple the NIH budget" and boost funds for the CDC and FEMA.
"In other words, if Trump had put that money into our public health, we would not have had
this pandemic to the extent that we have," he continued. "We would have had testing earlier. We
possibly could have had a faster track to a cure or to a vaccine."
Concern over this programmatic imbalance could also dog passage of the upcoming National
Defense Authorization Act. Khanna said that progressives are likely to withhold support if the
bill does not "show very compelling reasons" spending increases are tied directly to fighting
the coronavirus pandemic. Asked if he thought moderate Democrats could join with Republicans to
force the bill through the House, Khanna replied that he was "not dismissing" the possibility
but warned that they would be "writing off a lot of the progressive base and the independent
base."
Khanna says that he has learned from last year, when all the measures passed by the House
were stripped out in conference with the Republican-controlled Senate. "Fool me once, shame on
you. Fool me twice, shame on us. We're not going to pass a bill without an iron commitment that
they're going to keep some of those top priorities." Included in his list are
prohibitions for any unauthorized war with North Korea and with Iran, both passed last year
by the House and stripped by the Senate.
Khanna hopes the House will serve as a proving ground for new ideas about the relationship
between military spending and the nation's safety. "We need to have a new approach to national
security in the 21st century," he said. "We need people in our generation who are not
derivative thinkers, recycling what they learned from the Cold War, but who are willing to be
original."
"I don't underestimate the status quo," Khanna concluded. "We can be optimistic and then end
up defaulting to the same thinking and same people. But I'm hopeful that this crisis really
will make us re-examine some of these questions."
"That's our challenge."
The entire interview with Rep. Khanna is available here on Press The Button starting at
10pm tonight.
Pleonexia is a
concept I introduced into a discussion of a similar topic about 2 or so years ago on this
board as being at the root for the decline and fall of the Outlaw US Empire. Here's what Wiki
says about it at the link:
"Pleonexia, sometimes called pleonexy, originating from the Greek
πλεονεξία, is a philosophical concept
which roughly corresponds to greed, covetousness, or avarice, and is strictly defined as '
the insatiable desire to have what rightfully belongs to others ', suggesting what
Ritenbaugh describes as ' ruthless self-seeking and an arrogant assumption that others and
things exist for one's own benefit '" [My Emphasis]
That trait's shared by all Imperialist nations all of which arose based on the same
Greco-Roman foundations or learned those traits from them as in the case of the Japanese.
Indeed, that such traits aren't recognized speaks to the illiteracy of those rising to or
placed in leadership positions as they seem to be totally unaware of the numerous lessons
within Greek and Roman literature/culture--lessons known by the Founders and others 250 years
ago when to be considered educated you had to know Greek, Latin, and their classical
literature. As Walter says, it's a Greek Tragedy; but the play began in the last quarter of
the 19th Century as has also been written about.
Those running the Outlaw US Empire seem oblivious to the wall they're about to run the
nation into, or we might say it's a cliff that will take the nation into the abyss. The G-20
determined last year that a new global currency to conduct commerce was required to replace
the dollar. A short discussion and linking of articles occurred on that topic yesterday
between me and Likklemore. Bevin insisted we discuss the failure of Capitalism and what needs
to come next as its replacement. I've advocated the need for a steady-state socialist system
as the new global political-economy. As I reported, a prominent Singaporean in promoting his
newest book wrote in The Economist that the advent of the pandemic marks the start of
the Asian Century thanks to the gross Moral Failure of the West and the Outlaw US Empire as
its lead nation.
How does a group of people get cured of Pleonexia? It's likely way too late for the
current crop of oligarchs; but what of their heirs who were presumably schooled in similar
fashion to their elders, and their progeny? I'm with Hudson in that their wealth must be
written down close to zero, and the new system emplaced will not allow a repetition.
Meanwhile, someone needs to get busy writing about the current Tragedy such that future
generations can learn its lessons so they're not repeated.
"... Because behind today's coronavirus-inspired astonishment at conditions in developing or lower income countries, and Trump's authoritarian-like thuggery, lies an actual military and political hegemon with an actual impact on the world; particularly on what was once called the "Third World." ..."
"... In physical terms, the U.S.'s military hegemony is comprised of 800 bases in over 70 nations – more bases than any other nation or empire in history. The U.S. maintains drone bases, listening posts, "black sites," aircraft carriers, a massive nuclear stockpile, and military personnel working in approximately 160 countries. This is a globe-spanning military and security apparatus organized into regional commands that resemble the "proconsuls of the Roman empire and the governors-general of the British." In other words, this apparatus is built not for deterrence, but for primacy. ..."
"... The U.S.'s global primacy emerged from the wreckage of World War II when the United States stepped into the shoes vacated by European empires. Throughout the Cold War, and in the name of supporting "free peoples," the sprawling American security apparatus helped ensure that 300 years of imperial resource extraction and wealth distribution – from what was then called the Third World to the First – remained undisturbed, despite decolonization. ..."
"... In fiscal terms, maintaining American hegemony requires spending more on "defense" than the next seven largest countries combined. Our nearly $1 trillion security budget now amounts to about 15 percent of the federal budget and over half of all discretionary spending. Moreover, the U.S. security budget continues to increase despite the Pentagon's inability to pass a fiscal audit. ..."
"... Foreign policy is routinely the last issue Americans consider when they vote for presidents even though the president has more discretionary power over foreign policy than any other area of American politics. Thus, despite its size, impact, and expense, the world's military hegemon exists somewhere on the periphery of most Americans' self-understanding, as though, like the sun, it can't be looked upon directly for fear of blindness. ..."
"... The shock of discovering that our healthcare system is so quickly overwhelmed should automatically trigger broader conversations about spending priorities that entail deep and sustained cuts in an engorged security budget whose sole purpose is the maintenance of primacy. And yet, not only has this not happened, $10.5 billion of the coronavirus aid package has been earmarked for the Pentagon, with $2.4 billion of that channeled to the "defense industrial base." Of the $500 billion aimed at corporate America, $17.5 billion is set aside "for businesses critical to maintaining national security" such as aerospace. ..."
"... To make matters worse, our blindness to this bloated security complex makes it frighteningly easy for champions of American primacy to sound the alarm when they even suspect a dip in funding might be forthcoming. Indeed, before most of us had even glanced at the details of the coronavirus bill, foreign policy hawks were already issuing dark prediction s about the impact of still-imaginary cuts in the security budget on the U.S.'s "ability to strike any target on the planet in response to hostile actions by any actor" – as if that ability already did not exist many times over. ..."
This March, as COVID-19's capacity to overwhelm the American healthcare system was becoming
obvious, experts marveled at the scenario unfolding before their eyes. "We have Third World
countries who are better equipped than we are now in Seattle,"
noted one healthcare professional, her words echoed just a few days later by a shocked
doctor in New York who described
"a third-world country type of scenario." Donald Trump could similarly only grasp what was
happening through the same comparison. "I have seen things that I've never seen before," he
said
. "I mean I've seen them, but I've seen them on television and faraway lands, never in my
country."
At the same time, regardless of the fact that "Third World" terminology is outdated and
confusing, Trump's inept handling of the pandemic has itself elicited more than one "banana republic"
analogy, reflecting already well-worn, bipartisan comparisons of Trump to a "
third world dictator " (never mind that dictators and authoritarians have never been
confined solely to lower income countries).
And yet, while such comparisons provoke predictably nativist outrage from the right, what is
absent from any of
these responses to the situation is a sense of reflection or humility about the "Third
World" comparison itself. The doctor in New York who finds himself caught in a "third world"
scenario and the political commentators outraged when Trump behaves "like a third world
dictator" uniformly express themselves in terms of incredulous wonderment. One never hears the
potential second half of this comparison: "I am now experiencing what it is like to live in a
country that resembles the kind of nation upon whom the United States regularly imposes broken
economies and corrupt leaders."
Because behind today's coronavirus-inspired astonishment at conditions in developing or
lower income countries, and Trump's authoritarian-like thuggery, lies an actual military and
political hegemon with an actual impact on the world; particularly on what was once called the
"Third World."
In physical terms, the U.S.'s military hegemony is comprised of 800 bases in over 70
nations –
more bases than any other nation or empire in history. The U.S. maintains drone bases,
listening posts, "black sites," aircraft carriers, a massive nuclear stockpile, and military
personnel working in approximately 160 countries. This is a globe-spanning military and
security apparatus organized into regional commands
that resemble the "proconsuls of the Roman empire and the governors-general of the
British." In other words, this apparatus is built not for deterrence, but for primacy.
The U.S.'s global primacy emerged from the wreckage of World War II when the United
States stepped into the shoes vacated by European empires. Throughout the Cold War, and in the
name of supporting "free peoples," the sprawling American security apparatus helped ensure that
300 years of imperial resource extraction and wealth distribution – from what was then
called the Third World to the First – remained undisturbed, despite
decolonization.
Since then, the United States
has overthrown or attempted to overthrow the governments of approximately 50 countries,
many of which (e.g. Iran, Guatemala, the Congo, and Chile) had elected leaders willing to
nationalize their natural resources and industries. Often these interventions
took the form of covert operations. Less frequently, the United States went to war to
achieve these same ends (e.g. Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq).
In fiscal terms, maintaining American hegemony requires spending more
on "defense" than the next seven largest countries combined. Our
nearly $1 trillion security budget now amounts to about 15 percent of the federal budget
and over half of all
discretionary spending. Moreover, the U.S. security budget continues to increase despite the
Pentagon's inability to pass a fiscal audit.
Trump's claim that Obama had
"hollowed out" defense spending was not only grossly untrue, it masked the consistency of the
security budget's metastasizing growth since the Vietnam War, regardless of who sits in the
White House. At $738 billion dollars, Trump's security budget was passed in December with the
overwhelming support of House Democrats.
And yet, from the perspective of public discourse in this country, our globe-spanning,
resource-draining military and security apparatus exists in an entirely parallel universe to
the one most Americans experience on a daily level. Occasionally, we wake up to the idea of
this parallel universe but only when the United States is involved in visible military actions.
The rest of the time, Americans leave thinking about international politics – and the
deaths, for instance, of 2.5 million
Iraqis since 2003 – to the legions of policy analysts and Pentagon employees who
largely accept American military primacy as an "article of faith," as Professor of
International Security and Strategy at the University of Birmingham Patrick Porter has said
.
Foreign policy is routinely the last issue Americans consider when they vote for
presidents even though the president has more discretionary power over foreign policy than any
other area of American politics. Thus, despite its size, impact, and expense, the world's
military hegemon exists somewhere on the periphery of most Americans' self-understanding, as
though, like the sun, it can't be looked upon directly for fear of blindness.
Why is our avoidance of the U.S.'s weighty impact on the world a problem in the midst of the
coronavirus pandemic? Most obviously, the fact that our massive security budget has gone so
long without being widely questioned means that one of the soundest courses of action for the
U.S. during this crisis remains resolutely out of sight.
The shock of discovering that our healthcare system is so quickly overwhelmed should
automatically trigger broader conversations about spending priorities that entail deep and
sustained cuts in an engorged security budget whose sole purpose is the maintenance of primacy.
And yet, not only has this not happened, $10.5 billion of the coronavirus aid package has been
earmarked for the Pentagon, with $2.4 billion of that
channeled to the "defense industrial base." Of the $500 billion aimed at corporate America,
$17.5 billion is
set aside "for businesses critical to maintaining national security" such as
aerospace.
To make matters worse, our blindness to this bloated security complex makes it
frighteningly easy for champions of American primacy to sound the alarm when they even suspect
a dip in funding might be forthcoming. Indeed, before most of us had even glanced at the
details of the coronavirus bill, foreign policy hawks were already
issuing dark prediction s about the impact of still-imaginary cuts in the security budget
on the U.S.'s "ability to strike any target on the planet in response to hostile actions by any
actor" – as if that ability already did not exist many times over.
On a more existential level, a country that is collectively engaged in unseeing its own
global power cannot help but fail to make connections between that power and domestic politics,
particularly when a little of the outside world seeps in. For instance, because most Americans
are unaware of their government's sponsorship of fundamentalist Islamic groups in the Middle
East throughout the Cold War, 9/11 can only ever appear to have come from nowhere, or because
Muslims hate our way of life.
This "how did we get here?" attitude replicates itself at every level of political life
making it profoundly difficult for Americans to see the impact of their nation on the rest of
the world, and the blowback from that impact on the United States itself. Right now, the
outsized influence of American foreign policy is already encouraging the spread of coronavirus
itself as U.S. imposed sanctions on Iran severely hamper that
country's ability to respond to the virus at home and virtually
guarantee its spread throughout the region.
Closer to home, our shock at the healthcare system's inept response to the pandemic masks
the relationship between the U.S.'s imposition
of free-market totalitarianism on countries throughout the
Global South and the impact of free-market totalitarianism on our own welfare state .
Likewise, it is more than karmic comeuppance that the President of the United States now
resembles the self-serving authoritarians the U.S. forced on so many formerly colonized
nations. The modes of militarized policing American security experts exported to those
authoritarian regimes also contributed , on a
policy level, to both the rise of militarized policing in American cities and the rise of mass
incarceration in the 1980s and 90s. Both of these phenomena played a significant role in
radicalizing Trump's white nationalist base and decreasing their tolerance for democracy.
Most importantly, because the U.S. is blind to its power abroad, it cannot help but turn
that blindness on itself. This means that even during a pandemic when America's exceptionalism
– our lack of national healthcare – has profoundly negative consequences on the
population, the idea of looking to the rest of the world for solutions remains unthinkable.
Senator Bernie Sanders' reasonable suggestion that the U.S., like Denmark, should
nationalize its healthcare system is dismissed as the fanciful pipe dream of an aging socialist
rather than an obvious solution to a human problem embraced by nearly every other nation in the
world. The Seattle healthcare professional who expressed shock that even "Third World
countries" are "better equipped" than we are to confront COVID-19 betrays a stunning ignorance
of the diversity of healthcare systems within developing countries. Cuba, for instance,
has responded
to this crisis with an efficiency and humanity that puts the U.S. to shame.
Indeed, the U.S. is only beginning to feel the full impact of COVID-19's explosive
confrontation with our exceptionalism: if the unemployment rate really does reach 32 percent,
as has been predicted,
millions of people will not only lose their jobs but their health insurance as well. In the
middle of a pandemic.
Over 150 years apart, political commentators Edmund Burke and Aimé Césaire
referred to this blindness as the byproduct of imperialism. Both used the exact same language
to describe it; as a "gangrene" that "poisons" the colonizing body politic. From their
different historical perspectives, Burke and Césaire observed how colonization
boomerangs back on colonial society itself, causing irreversible damage to nations that
consider themselves humane and enlightened, drawing them deeper into denial and
self-delusion.
Perhaps right now there is a chance that COVID-19 – an actual, not metaphorical
contagion – can have the opposite effect on the U.S. by opening our eyes to the things
that go unseen. Perhaps the shock of recognizing the U.S. itself is less developed than our
imagined "Third World" might prompt Americans to tear our eyes away from ourselves and look
toward the actual world outside our borders for examples of the kinds of political, economic,
and social solidarity necessary to fight the spread of Coronavirus. And perhaps moving beyond
shock and incredulity to genuine recognition and empathy with people whose economies and
democracies have been decimated by American hegemony might begin the process of reckoning with
the costs of that hegemony, not just in "faraway lands" but at home. In our country.
America was and remains an exceptional nation in terms of the spirit of its people,
creativity of its economic system, and ability to adapt to new circumstances. But
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. The Chinese character for
"crisis" famously carries a second meaning: "opportunity." Although the world currently finds
itself in the center of an existential crisis, a promising opportunity may well rest just over
the horizon.
Uncle Volodya says, "Ignorance is always correctable.
But what shall we do if we take ignorance to be knowledge?"
"There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of
anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by
the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."
―
Issac Asimov
There's a prejudice against making fun of the mad that spans all cultures, all ethnicities; mock the mentally ill
at your peril, for some fair-minded citizen will surely intervene. Possibly many, enough to make you take to your
heels, because those who were born without the ability to reason, or had it and lost it, are perhaps God's most
innocent children. There are few compensations for being born half-a-bubble off plumb, but one of them is
anti-mockery armor. Having a laugh at the expense of the lunatic is bad form; something only dicks do, because it's
cheap and easy.
That's what must be preventing Dmitry Rogozin from roaring with laughter; from falling helplessly to his knees and
collapsing, wheezing, onto his side. If someone smart says something stupid, they are fair game. But laughing when
someone whose openly-stated beliefs suggest they are suffering from dementia is inappropriate. His dilemma is both
obvious, and acute – what to do?
First, some background; who is Dmitry Rogozin? A former Deputy Prime Minister in charge of the Russian
Federation's defense industries, he also served as his country's Ambassador to NATO. He has degrees in philosophy and
technology, and currently serves as the Russian Federation's Special Representative on Missile Defense. He is also
the Director of Roscosmos, the Russian state's Space Industry. Some have talked him up as a possible replacement for
Vladimir Putin, as President of the Russian Federation, but it is in his latter capacity, head of Roscosmos, that we
are most interested today. He knows more about rockets than that they are pointy at one end and have fire at the
other, if you get my drift.
A bit more background, and then I promise we can begin to tie things together; I think I can also promise you are
going to laugh. Not because you're a dick. But I think you will find you do have to kind of snicker. Just be careful
who hears you, okay? It's not as much of an insult if people don't know.
Most who have any understanding of space or rockets or satellites have heard of the
RD-180
.
But in case there are some readers who have never heard of it, it is the Russian Federation's workhorse rocket
engine. Its first flight was 20 years ago, but it was built on the shoulders of the
RD-170
, which has been in service since 1985, making it a Soviet
project. The RD-180 is essentially a two-combustion-chamber RD-170, which has four and remains the most powerful
rocket engine in the world. The RD-180 is used by the United States in its Atlas space vehicles.
For some time, that was a fairly comfortable arrangement. The USA made fun of Russia whenever it wanted to feel
superior, just as it's always done, and made the occasional ideological stab at 'establishing freedom and democracy'
by changing out its leader, but the Russian people were not particularly cooperative, and there were some problems
getting a credible 'liberal opposition' started; even now, the best candidate still seems to be Alexey Navalny, who
is kind of the granite canoe of opposition figures – not particularly well-known, nasty rather than compelling,
spiteful as a balked four-year-old.
But then American ideologues in the US Department of State decided the time was ripe for a coup in Ukraine, and
almost overnight, the United States and Russia were overt enemies. The United States, under Barack Obama,
imposed
sanctions designed to wreck the Russian economy
, in the hope that despairing Russians would throw Putin out of
office. America's European allies went along for the ride, and trade between Russia and its former trade partners and
associates in Europe and the USA mostly dried up.
Not rocket engines, though. America made an exception for those, and continued to buy and stockpile RD-180's. The
very suggestion that RD-180 engines might go on the sanctions list – US Federal Claims Court Judge Susan Braden
postulated that funds used to purchase rocket engines
might end up in Rogozin's pocket
(he being head of the Space Program, and all), and he was under US sanctions – moved the Commander of the United
States Air Force's Space and Missile Systems Center to note that without RD-180 engines, the Atlas program
would have to be grounded
.
All this is by way of highlighting a certain vulnerability. Of course, observers remarked, the United States is a
major technological power – it could easily produce such engines itself. So, why didn't it, inquiring minds wanted to
know.
Enter United Launch Alliance (ULA) CEO Tony Bruno, with what reporters described as a 'novel explanation'. Thanks
much for the link, Patient Observer. The United States buys
Russian
rocket engines
to subsidize the Russian space industry
, so that fired rocket scientists will not pack up the wife and kiddies
and their few pitiful belongings, and depart for Iran or North Korea. You know; countries that
really
hate
the United States. I swear I am not making that up. Look:
"The United States is buying Russian rocket engines not because of any problems with its domestic engine
engineering programmes, but to subsidize Russian rocket scientists and to prevent them from seeking employment in
Iran or North Korea, United Launch Alliance CEO Tory Bruno has intimated.
"The [US government] asked us to buy [Russian engines] at the end of the Cold War in order to keep the Russian
Rocket Scientists from ending up in North Korea and Iran," Bruno tweeted, responding to a question about what
motivates ULA to continue buying the Russian-made RD-180s."
Sadly, I had no Rogozin-like qualms about being thought a dick. I snorted what I was drinking (chocolate milk, I
think) all over my hand, and gurgled with mirth for a good 20 seconds. Holy Moley – what a retarded explanation! How
long did he grope for that, spluttering like Joe Biden trying to remember what office he is currently running for?
Jeebus Cripes, the United States has
no control at all
over what rocket scientists are paid in the Russian
Federation – what do they imagine prevents Putin The Diktator from just pocketing all the money himself, or spending
it on sticky buns to feed to Rogozin, and throwing a few fish heads to the rocket scientists? Do they really believe
some sort of symbiotic relationship exists between Russia's rocket scientists and the US Treasury Department?
Really
? Have things actually gotten that far down the road to Simple? I tell you, I kind of felt a little sorry
for Tony 'Lightning Rod' Bruno. But more sorry for his family, who has to go out and find him when he's wandering in
the park with no pants on again, you know. Humanitarian concerns.
"Under RD AMROSS, Pratt & Whitney is licensed to produce the RD-180 in the United States. Originally,
production of the RD-180 in the US was scheduled to begin in 2008, but this did not happen. According to a 2005 GAO
Assessment of Selected Major Weapon Programs, Pratt & Whitney planned to start building the engine in the United
States with a first military launch by 2012. This, too, did not happen. In 2014, the Defense Department estimated
that it would require approximately $1 billion and five years to begin US domestic manufacture of the RD-180 engine."
Well, no wonder! It's a lot cheaper to slip some bucks to starving Russian rocket scientists than spend a Billion
simoleons on a Pratt & Whitney program that will take
five years
(!!!) minimum to set up before it even
starts producing an engine the Russians have been making for 20 years, and gave Pratt & Whitney the plans for. Seen
in that light, it makes a weird kind of sense, dunnit? Minus the altruism and violins, of course.
Right about then, I made a second discovery that shook the fuzz off my fundament.
Tony Bruno did not make that
shit up
. No, indeedy. It would have been simpler, and I have to say a bit more comforting, to assume Tony Bruno
is the locus of American retardation. But he isn't; the poor bastard was just repeating an American doctrinal
political talking-point.
Behold
!
"When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1989, the US government worried about the possible consequences of lots of
Russian rocket designers getting fired. What if they ended up working for regimes like Iran or North Korea?"
Pretty much word-for-word what poor Tony Bruno said. And that was posted 5 years ago.
But who cares, right? Just some wiggy space-nerd site.
Oh, but wait.
Look at his reference
. It's from NASA.
And it does indeed include the paragraph he quoted.
"Moreover, several on the Space Council, as well as others in the Bush Administration, saw another reason to
engage the post-Soviets in a cooperative space venture: as a way to help hold the Russian nation together at a time
when the Russian economy was faltering and its society was reeling. In the words of Brian Dailey, Albrecht's
sucessor, "If we did not do something in this time of social chaos in Russia, then there would be potentially a
hemorrhaging of technology 'away from Russia' to countries who may not have a more peaceful intention behind the
use of those technologies."
I'm not sure how reliable that is – the Americans still insist, in it, that they landed on the moon, and it points
out that
Dan Quayle
was head of the National Space Council, dear Lord, have mercy. But it's NASA! There was
apparently a school of thought, prevalent in American politics, that America
had to support the Russian economy
,
for fear of its technological proteges high-siding it for Dangerville. Neither North Korea or Iran are mentioned by
name, but they would certainly be easy to infer from the description.
So we could draw one of two conclusions; either (1) Obama was a witless tool who did not read that historical
imperative (probably had his nose in a healthy-greens cookbook, some shit like that) and blundered ahead with a plan
to wreck the Russian economy, loosing a torrent of Russian rocket scientists into a cynical Murka-hatin' world, or
(2) Obama was a genius who applied sanctions with a surgeon's delicacy, avoiding sanctions on the Russian space
program. Although he did apply sanctions directly on its..umm director. Okay, let's go with (1).
Anyway, it's kind of odd, I guess you'd say, to hear that same Brian Dailey, he who blubbered sympathetically (or
so history records) "We have to do something in this time of social chaos in Russia"
say
this:
"The meeting was actually more or less a signing
ceremony, a large event, so to speak, but it was one that was obviously going to be reaching into some very hard
winds that would prevent us from really moving forward. That's a rather obtuse way of saying that we were having
serious problems with the Russians. They wanted a lot of money for doing these things. They wanted to charge us a lot
of money to hook up, and we didn't believe that since this was a government-to-government activity, that money should
be appropriately involved, and it was the intention of the two Presidents to put something together that would be
funded by their respective governments rather than us trying to fund something for Russia."
Say what? You had to do something for the Russian economy without money? Tell me more.
"
At that point, Dan had got very upset with the
Russians and proceeded to tell them that we were not going to do business with Semenov directly, but our opposite
number was Yuri Koptev, and that he ought to start learning how to work with U.S. industry, and that we were not
going to pay for this particular activity and we were not going to be blackmailed into paying them, so to speak, and
insisted that this be taken off the table and we proceed to find ways of making this happen, not ways to slow it down
or charge us for any kind of cooperative activities like this.
"
This all had to do with cooperation on some sort of docking system for the Mir Space Station, nothing to do with
the RD-180, but I think you can see why I would be a bit skeptical regarding Project Payola for the Russian rocket
scientists.
You might be getting a tingly feeling – call it a suspicion – that the USA is kind of pulling our leg on the idea
that it can make a superior multi-chamber rocket engine any time it feels like it, and is just buying the RD-180 on
long-ago government orders to cut the Russians a break. You might suspect the RD-180 is actually a pretty good
engine, but the United States can't make it for that kind of money, and perhaps can't make it at all. I know! Let's
ask
United Launch Alliance
, that company that Tony Bruno is the CEO of.
"The Atlas launch vehicle's main booster engine, the RD-180, has demonstrated consistent performance with
predictable environments over the past decade. The RD-180 has substantially contributed to the established a record
of high reliability on Atlas launch vehicles since its debut on the Atlas III in May of 2000."
You don't say. Tell me more.
"In the early 1990s the closed cycle, LOx rich, staged combustion technology rumored to exist in Russia was
originally sought out by General Dynamics because engines of this kind would be able to provide a dramatic
performance increase over available U.S. rocket technology. Unlike its rocket building counterparts in the United
States, Europe, China, and Japan, Russia was able to master a unique LOx rich closed cycle combustion technology
which delivered a 25% performance increase."
But but I read the George H.W. Bush administration urged America to buy Russian rocket engines because they heard
a rumor there was a suitcase sale on at the Energomash company store. And that, you know, the scientists might be
planning a little trip.
"NPO Energomash, the leading designer of engines in Russia, had gone through hundreds of designs, each an
improvement on the last, to harness the power of LOx rich combustion. This required a very careful approach to how
the fuel is burned in the preburner so that the temperature field is uniform. It also required improvements in
materials and production techniques. They found a way to take the chamber pressures to new limits while protecting
the internal components from fire risks. This required a new class of high temperature resistant stainless steel
invented to cope with the risks of the LOx rich environment."
Oh, seriously, c'mon – is it as good as all that?
"The demonstrated performance established during this process was beyond anything achieved in the United
States. The RD-180 reaches chamber pressures up to 3,722psia which was more than double the chamber pressures
achieved by comparable U.S. engines. Exposure to Russian design philosophy and the success of a high performance
engine made U.S. engine designers question their own methods. This dual sided cross-cultural engineering approach
which has persisted through the life of the RD-180 program adds depth to the understanding of engine capability and
operational characteristics."
Okay, thanks, company that Tony Bruno is the CEO of. Good to know it wasn't just charity.
The EU should reconsider its 'all or nothing' approach on sanctions imposed on Russia for
its role in the ongoing conflict in eastern Ukraine, as well as its annexation of Crimea, a
new report from the International Crisis Group suggests. The Brussels-based think tank calls
for the easing of certain sanctions in exchange for Russian progress towards peace in
Ukraine.
"Inflexible sanctions are less likely to change behaviour," said Olga Oliker, Europe
and Central Asia programme director. "Because of that, we urge considering an approach that
would allow for the lifting of some sanctions in exchange for some progress, with a clear
intent to reverse that rollback of sanctions if the progress itself is reversed."
.A major roadblock in the implementation of the Minsk deal has been the sequence of
events supposed to bring an end to the conflict that has so far claimed more than 13,000
lives.
Kyiv wants to first regain control over its border with Russia before local elections
in the war-torn region can be held, while Moscow believes that elections must come
first
####
Door. Horse. Barn. Bolted.
The Intentional Critics Grope is yet again a $/€ short in the reality department.
You would think the Editor Gotev (the last two paras by him) would mention that the Minsk
agreement clearly states elections come first and that Kiev has singularly refuse the other
conditions of the agreement, but that really would be asking too much. From a professional
journalist.
It's the same shit we got with the US-North Korea 4 point nuclear agreement where
de-nuclearization of the region is the final stage yet it didn't take Washington and
ball-licking corporate media to parrot 'denuclearization' as the first point as suddently
decided by the Ovum Orifice.*
They try it on again about every six months, just to see if the Russian negotiators have
changed and if the new ones are dimwitted. I'm sure it is crystal clear to the Kremlin that
if it gave Ukraine back exclusive control of the border, it would (a) call up troops and set
up a cordon to make it impossible for eastern Ukraine to be reinforced, and (b) launch an
all-out military push to re-take the breakaway regions. The west would then shout "Safe!!!",
and the game would be over – Ukraine is (almost) whole again, praise Jeebus. There
would be a propaganda storm that Russia was 'trying to meddle in the peace process' while
Kuh-yiv rooted out and either imprisoned or executed all the 'rebel' leaders, and the west
– probably the USA – would provide 'peacekeepers' to give Ukraine time to restore
its complete control over the DNR and LPR. Then, presto! no elections required, we are all
happy Ukrainians!
They knew 'inflexible sanctions were less likely to change behaviors' when they first
agreed to impose them – but they were showing their belly to Washington, and don't know
how to stop now. Serves them right if they are losing revenue and market share.
I don't think Russia is very interested, beyond polite diplomatic raising of the eyebrows, in
relaxing of sanctions under conditions the EU is careful to highlight could be reapplied in a
trice, as soon as anyone was upset with Russia's performance. Because that moment would be
literally only a moment away. The UK can be counted on to register blistering outrage at the
drop of a hat, and while its influence on the EU will soon be limited, dogs-in-the-manger
like Poland can always be relied upon to throw themselves about in an ecstasy of victimhood.
It would be impossible to set up any sort of dependable supply chain, as the interval between
orders would never be known with any degree of certainty. Fuck the EU. Russia is better off
to press on as it has been doing. The EU has to buy oil and gas from Russia because the
logistics and price of American supplies make them economically non-competitive, and best to
just leave it there. The EU will bitch, but it will continue to buy, whereas any other
commerce would be subject to theatrical hissy fits.
"... The person trying to tell the truth is forced to defend, 'Communist China' (Tom Cotton thinks that is one word), Russia, or Iran and to the U.S. public this is toxic. ..."
"... Someday it just won't matter anymore. We will have deceived ourselves for so long that we have squandered so much of our power that no one will pay attention to us. ..."
"... Intelligence is a rare commodity in American politics and diplomacy even more elusive so the consequences of malicious rumours are never weighed nor assessed ..."
"... Intelligence is a rare commodity in American politics and diplomacy even more elusive so the consequences of malicious rumours are never weighed nor assessed ..."
For brevity, I always post that our IC (Intelligence Community) is masterful in shaping
U.S. public opinion and causing problems for targeted countries but terrible in collecting
and analyzing Intel that would benefit the U.S. The truth of course, is more complicated.
There is a remnant that is doing their jobs properly but is shut out from higher level
offices. But I cannot give long disclaimers at the start of my posts, (I'm not talking about
the men and women ...) where 50 words later I finally start to make my point. It's boring,
sounds insincere, and defensive.
This is yet another effective defense mechanism that protects the troublemakers in our IC
bureaucracy.
1. The person trying to tell the truth is forced to defend, 'Communist China' (Tom Cotton
thinks that is one word), Russia, or Iran and to the U.S. public this is toxic.
2. These rogues get to use the remaining good people as human shields.
3. They know their customers, it gives the politicians a way to turn themselves into
wartime leaders rather than having to answer for their shortcomings.
Someday it just won't matter anymore. We will have deceived ourselves for so long that
we have squandered so much of our power that no one will pay attention to us.
/div> Intelligence is a rare commodity in American politics and diplomacy even
more elusive so the consequences of malicious rumours are never weighed nor assessed . The
American public are easily enough fooled being constantly fed a racist diet, especially
Sinophobia, Russophopia and Iranophobia and the drumbeats for war, financial or military, are
easily banged to raise the public's blood pressure....but what about the consequences? America
can win neither, even with he assistance of a few vassal states. What happens if, and when,
normal service is resumed? If they managed to succeed with any of their hair-brained ideas,
what are the consequences for American companies in China, rare earth minerals, the IT
industries etc etc. Guard your words wisely for they can never be retracted.
Posted by: Séamus Ó Néill , May 1 2020 13:46 utc |
13
Intelligence is a rare commodity in American politics and diplomacy even more elusive so
the consequences of malicious rumours are never weighed nor assessed . The American
public are easily enough fooled being constantly fed a racist diet, especially Sinophobia,
Russophopia and Iranophobia and the drumbeats for war, financial or military, are easily
banged to raise the public's blood pressure....but what about the consequences? America can
win neither, even with he assistance of a few vassal states. What happens if, and when,
normal service is resumed? If they managed to succeed with any of their hair-brained ideas,
what are the consequences for American companies in China, rare earth minerals, the IT
industries etc etc. Guard your words wisely for they can never be retracted.
Posted by: Séamus Ó Néill | May 1 2020 13:46 utc |
13
I think there is very good intelligence in the US. so much data is collected and there are
many analysts to go over the data and present their forecasts. The World Factbook is an
example of collected intelligence made available to the unwashed masses.
what you are thinking is that this information should be used to your benefit. that is
where it goes wrong. the big players are able to access and exploit that mass of data and use
it to their benefit.
Billmon used to say that this is a feature, not a bug.
"Not precluded" are also a Fort Detrick origin and contagion taken to Wuhan by the US
military, staying at a hotel where most of the first cluster of patients was identified. So
why wouldn't you always mention both in the same breath?
First hollywood movie I am aware of that deals with pandemics and has Fort Detrick front and
center was "Outbreak" 1995. In this film, the "Expert" played by D. Huffman uncovers a plot
by a rogue 2 star general sitting on the serum from another outbreak years ago, and how he
witheld this information and the serum to "protect their bioweapon". There is also a very
overt background sub-plot about Dod and CDC being at odds.
DoD is not listed in the credits for Outbreak. Many of the scenes are supposed to take
place in CDC and Fort Detrick.
--
Last hollywood movie was "Contagion" 2011. In this film, which pretty much anticipates
Covid-19 madness but with an actually scary virus, the "Expert" in charge tells the DHS man
that "Nature has already weaponized them!".
So this lie about the little bitty part "function gain" man-made mutations being the
critical bit for "weaponizing" viruses is turned on its head. It was "Nature" after all. A
wet market, you know.
Contagion does list DoD in its credits. Vincent C. Oglivie as US DoD Liason and Project
Officer.
Just some 'fun' trivia for us to while away our lives. Remember that consipirational
thought is abberational thought. Have a shot of Victory Gin and relex!
"... Albright's original statement was an aggressive assertion that America was both extraordinarily powerful and unusually farsighted, and that legitimized the frequent U.S. recourse to using force. ..."
"... After two decades of calamitous failures that have highlighted our weaknesses and foolishness, even she can't muster up the old enthusiasm that she once had. No one could look back at the last 20 years of U.S. foreign policy and still honestly say that "we see further" into the future than others. ..."
It was 22 years ago when then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright publicly 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."
In a recent
interview with The New York T imes, Albright sounded much less sure of her old
position: "There's nothing in the definition of indispensable that says "alone." It means that
the United States needs to be engaged with its partners. And people's backgrounds make a
difference." Albright's original statement was an aggressive assertion that America was
both extraordinarily powerful and unusually farsighted, and that legitimized the frequent U.S.
recourse to using force.
After two decades of calamitous failures that have highlighted our weaknesses and
foolishness, even she can't muster up the old enthusiasm that she once had. No one could look
back at the last 20 years of U.S. foreign policy and still honestly say that "we see further"
into the future than others. Not only are we no better than other countries at
anticipating and preparing for future dangers, but judging from the country's lack of
preparedness for a pandemic we are actually far behind many of the countries that we have
presumed to "lead." It is impossible to square our official self-congratulatory rhetoric with
the reality of a government that is incapable of protecting its citizens from disaster.
Blobsters are simply prostitute to the military industrial complex. No honesty, no courage required (Courage is replaced with
arrogance in most cases.) Pompeo is a vivid example of this creatures of Washington swamp.
Notable quotes:
"... historically courtiers themselves led their troops on the battlefield and considered it a question of honor for one or both of their oldest sons pursuing a military career, while Renaissance courtesans were among the most intellectual and educated women of their epoch. Neither is true for blobsters and blobstresses. ..."
"... In French and (I think) most other romance languages, the words for courtier and courtesan are the same. Something to think about. ..."
On the other hand, though, historically courtiers themselves led their troops on the
battlefield and considered it a question of honor for one or both of their oldest sons
pursuing a military career, while Renaissance courtesans were among the most intellectual
and educated women of their epoch. Neither is true for blobsters and blobstresses.
The heart of the American exceptionalism in question is American hubris. It is based on the
assumption that we are better than the rest of the world, and that this superiority both
entitles and obligates us to take on an outsized role in the world.
In our current foreign
policy debates, the phrase "American exceptionalism" has served as a shorthand for justifying
and celebrating U.S. dominance, and when necessary it has served as a blanket excuse for U.S.
wrongdoing. Seongjong Song defined it in an 2015 article
for The Korean Journal of International Studies this way: "American exceptionalism is the
belief that the US is "qualitatively different" from all other nations." In practice, that has
meant that the U.S. does not consider itself to be bound by the same rules that apply to other
states, and it reserves the right to interfere whenever and wherever it wishes.
American exceptionalism has been used in our political debates as an ideological purity test
to determine whether certain political leaders are sufficiently supportive of an activist and
interventionist foreign policy. The main purpose of invoking American exceptionalism in foreign
policy debate has been to denigrate less hawkish policy views as unpatriotic and beyond the
pale. The phrase was often used as a partisan cudgel in the previous decade as the Obama
administration's critics tried to cast doubt on the former president's acceptance of this idea,
but in the years since then it has become a rallying point for devotees of U.S. primacy
regardless of party. There was an explosion in the use of the phrase in just the first few
years of the 2010s compared with the previous decades. Song cited a study that showed this
massive increase:
Exceptionalist discourse is on the rise in American politics. Terrence McCoy (2012) found
that the term "American exceptionalism" appeared in US publications 457 times between 1980
and 2000, climbing to 2,558 times in the 2000s and 4,172 times in 2010-12.
The more that U.S. policies have proved "American exceptionalism" to be a pernicious myth at
odds with reality, the more we have heard the phrase used to defend those policies. Republican
hawks began the decade by accusing Obama of not believing in this "exceptionalism," and some
Democratic hawks closed it out by
"reclaiming" the idea on behalf of their own discredited foreign policy vision. There may
be differences in emphasis between the two camps, but there is a consensus that the U.S. has
special rights and privileges that other nations cannot have. That has translated into waging
unnecessary wars, assuming excessive overseas burdens, and trampling on the rights of other
states, and all the while congratulating ourselves on how virtuous we are for doing all of
it.
The contemporary version of American exceptionalism is tied up inextricably with the belief
that the U.S. is the "indispensable nation." According to this view, without U.S. "leadership"
other countries will be unable or unwilling to respond to major international problems and
threats. We have seen just how divorced from reality that belief is in just the last few
months. There has been no meaningful U.S. leadership in response to the pandemic, but for the
most part our allies have managed on their own fairly well. In the absence of U.S.
"leadership," many other countries have demonstrated that they haven't really needed the U.S.
Our "indispensability" is a story that we like to tell ourselves, but it isn't true. Not only
are we no longer indispensable, but as Micah Zenko pointed out
many years ago, we never were.
The numerous foreign misadventures of the US military since 1989 are far from a humiliating
military defeat, they are more of an embarassment for the ruling elites. Take for example
Afganistan - how many soldiers did the US army lose there in 18 years? 2500? That's nothing
compared to the strength and resources available to the Pentagon.
Societal collapse? I admit the living standards of the average working class Joe fell
dramatically compared to the 90's, but you are far from a societal collapse. It won't happen
as long as the US Dollar is the world currency. Believe me :)
The dollars days are numbered. You can't degrade a fiat currency by endless printing with
reckless abandon and expect that the other nations of the planet will retain any trust that
the scrip will remain a reliable store of value.
BTW Afghanistan is an unmitigated DISASTER. The "hyperpower" cannot impose its will on one
of the most backward and impoverised nations on the planet. Heck the Soviets did better in
their day, and they had to face a billion-dollar-a-year foreign-backed insurgency funded by
US & Saudi, and backed to the hilt by Pakistan. By comparison, the Taliban have NO allies
and no foreign funding, yet try as they might, neither the US nor its feckless puppet regime
in Kabul can succeed in grinding them down.
Hmmm... I wouldn't. Who would fight whom? Or would it be a free for all Mad Max style?
You Americans have this weird fascination with the apocalyptic. Seriously, just look at
your movies - each year Hollywood dishes out at least half a dozen blockbusters dealing with
societal collapse - be it due to an alien invasion, zombie plague, impact event or something
else...
I admit, you have problems. The middle class is getting poorer each year, mass imigration
from the southern side of your continent is tearing apart the social fabric and your elite
got richer and more arrogant sice they embraced globalisation in the 90's. But this doesn't
mean that the country is heading towards a civil war.
Well .... I'm not even American so I feel I can look at this somewhat More objectively than a
hardcore blue or red stater. Still hard to tell whether covid will put a wrench in the
trajectory or accelerate it. And if you want apocalypticism, go see Rod.
Vietnam, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan -- how many more humiliating military defeats will
it take for Americans to realize that they are anything but exceptional?
Americans view killing foreign men, women, and children as a successful endeavor of their
efforts to fight for freedom. American also are not bothered if their soldiers torture and
rape foreign men, women and children. So these wars are not seen as failures but successes,
even if actual geopolitical goals are not realized.
"You won't. It always takes a humiliating military defeat or a societal collapse to reevalute
such myths."
I would go a bit further and say that Americans won't reevaluate those myths until they
personally feel the pain from those things and they blame their pain on the government that
caused them. So much of our current policies are guided by the principal of making sure that
Americans do not feel the pain of their government's actions. We eliminated the draft so most
Americans have no skin in the game regarding military conflicts (not to mention no war taxes,
no goods rationing, etc.). We have come to expect bottomless economic "stimulus," borrowed
from our children's future labor, so we feel minimal pain from the poor preparation for the
pandemic. Bread and circuses have proven to be powerful manipulation tools indeed.
The US is remarkably insular, in large part because it is a mostly self-sufficient (or used
to be) nation-continent, but the hubristic idea of exceptionalism also makes us resistant to
good ideas invented elsewhere.
As concerns COVID-19, I have a number of physicians in my family, and it's only on March
16th that they awakened to the crisis, a week after France officially announced it was going
into lockdown or after London basically became a ghost town. One of them even took her kids
to Disneyland around that time, something that seemed the height of irresponsibility to us at
the time. Thus obliviousness is not just a feature of the Trump administration. The lone
exception is tech companies, perhaps because they are more globalized than most, but the
Washington policy navel-gazing circle-jerk is mostly oblivious to the West Coast.
Now the idea that some crises can only be solved with US leadership is not without merit.
Just because we cannot solve all doesn't mean there aren't some important categories where
our military might and logistic prowess carry the day. That COVID-19 would prove to be an
especially tough challenge for the US was entirely predictable. From our fractured
decision-making due to federalism, our abysmally inefficient health-care system with its huge
swathes of uninsured, our ideology of free market solutions to everything, and our polarized
and ineffectual legislature, made this crisis almost tailor-made to expose the fault-lines in
our brittle society in the worst possible light.
I don't think we need to ape the Chinese, but certainly we need to look outward for a
change, shed our not-invented-here mentality and look at how South Korea or New Zealand
succeeded where we failed, despite having a fraction of our resources.
What military might which has not been able to win any war that it started ever? What
logistic prowess that cannot make PPEs for at least the healthcare workers, not to mention
toilet paper for the people?
I would love to see all our political leaders (and their media friends) respond to the
observations by Mr. Bacevich and Mr. Larison. Of course, I agree with both of them. Perhaps
this economic crisis combined with the pandemic will finally break america. It's a shame it
has come to this. Must we endure economic collapse, starvation, and the corruption / looting
by the wealthy in order to finally stop caring about imaginary threats half way around the
world? I suspect the answer is yes. Americans will never abandon their arrogance until they
are laid low by something.
"A wolf, meeting with a Lamb astray from the fold, resolved not to lay violent hands on him,
but to find some plea to justify to the Lamb the Wolf's right to eat him. He thus addressed
him: "Sirrah, last year you grossly insulted me."
"Indeed," bleated the Lamb in a mournful tone of voice, "I was not then born."
Then said the Wolf, "You feed in my pasture."
"No, good sir," replied the Lamb, "I have not yet tasted grass."
Again said the Wolf, "You drink of my well."
"No," exclaimed the Lamb, "I never yet drank water, for as yet my mother's milk is both
food and drink to me."
Upon which the Wolf seized him and ate him up, saying, "Well! I won't remain supperless, even
though you refute every one of my imputations."
Moral: The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny."
**************************
For a few more years, the US will have absolute power over other people and we will use
that power in an absolutely corrupt way at the behest of our overlords in Riyadh and
Jerusalem. When retribution finally comes our way, no one will shed a tear for us.
The US has long been a myth-making factory for the population. The average American has a
pretty rough life. Generally strapped with debt (mortgage, cars), working a dead-end job with
little protection should you lose it. But people are tribal and can get their sense of
self-worth from the tribe. So to be constantly told you are "exceptional" and part of the
"greatest nation the world has ever known" can cover up a lot of pain in real life. See New
England Patriots fans or LSU Tigers fans.
So while being so exceptional, you get to spend hours trying to figure out which Obamacare
policy won't cost so much that it takes up all of your extra monthly cash while
simultaneously leaving you thousands in debt if you actually needed to use it.
I tend to think the psychological decomposition is on-going. Americans know that something is
terribly wrong, but they can't seem to put their collective finger on it. The Trump vote was
a big signal that folks know something is wrong. The hope was that Trump could fix it, but he
just knew something was wrong too. He didn't know how to fix it, but at least he is willing
to talk about it.
But I don't see how you right the ship. What's wrong is that what got us to be a wealthy
powerful country today isn't what is going to keep us that way going forward. That's very
hard for people at all levels of society to understand and accept.
So I expect a continued devolution. Where it gets increasingly "real ugly" for a lot of
people, while a lot of us continue to do fairly well. You have to have a lot of hope your
kids can make it too.
Americans know that something is terribly wrong and getting worse by the day and by the
crisis, but they seems to think that tribal solutions are the answer.
So true. An eye opening set of essays goes to the hart of this: Deer Hunting with Jesus:
Dispatches from America's Class War Paperback by Joe Bageant.
However, that book hasn't received the same fame and traction as this other one (and I am
looking at you TAC and Rod Dreher as well): Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture
in Crisis by J. D. Vance and this is because in the first the author focuses on the system as
the one that produces certain results while on the other the author puts more weight on
individual choices, the darling idea of conservatives, the lifting oneself by bootstraps, the
American success story of rags to riches...
Opium is not native to China. The reason that the British pushed opium on China, in spite of
the strenuous objections of the Chinese governments and officials of the time, is because
before the Opium Wars, trade with China was causing a worldwide shortage of silver. Silver
was about the only thing that non-Chinese had that Chinese wanted. Until opium.
In fact, at least one Chinse official wrote Queen Victoria a letter to the effect that
opium is forbidden in Great Britain, so why are you trying to push it on us here?
"The coronavirus pandemic is a curse. It should also serve as an opportunity, Americans at
long last realizing that they are not God's agents. Out of suffering and loss, humility and
self-awareness might emerge. We can only hope."
Laugh. ohhh you guys need to stop. The virus is not an indication that God is denying an
exceptional role for the US. A star athlete is exceptional and may even be fascinating.
However,
the reality remains that in order to stay exceptional, fascinating and "indispensable"
---- there are things that athelete must do and and there are things that athelete must avoid
doing.
We have engaged in a lot of things we should avoid and neglected some matters that would
be helpful in maintaining our own health and care --- damaging our exceptional
performance.
Jesse Owens and the Bolt, Usain bolt don't participate in every event and they don't run
in every race all the time . . .
It simply is unsustainable.
I of course reject all the whining bout how we, the US, are not exceptional --- and while
dispensable, or value on the planet remains vital.
"value"? more like "impact"... and "vital"? For about 100 years China was an object of
history rather than subject, no biggie. The World would need a breather with a bit of hiatus
concerning the US.
If the virus is not gods curse then the equally foolish notion that Americans are gods agents
ought to be rejected as well. I think you have misunderstood the context of the reference to
gods.
Two constitutional amendment movements must come out of this crisis:
1) Large metropolitan areas must be detached from the states in which they reside. It is
beyond tragic to see civilised people, with deep roots and traditional values, come under the
tyranny of brutal marxist regimes - as we see in so many places from Virginia to NY to
Pennsylvania to Illinois. We have giant colonies of government dependents and cube-dwellers,
which are being used by the Left as vote plantations. The governments they produce are then
inflicted on normal decent innocent people who just happen to live within the same state
lines. This can't be allowed to continue.
2) Anybody (like Bill Gates) who engages in planning or promoting policies that would treat
humans as livestock (e.g., by tracking them with implanted micro-chips) should be charged
with crimes against humanity.
It would be an uphill battle to achieve these goals, but if we do not start right away, the
next crisis could be used by the Left to impose their sick vicious perverted social
engineering programme - which would mean the end of human civilisation and of the human race
as we know it.
Who would want to implant chips in people who willingly pay hundreds of dollars for a
portable device that facilitates tracking the owner?
As far as separating metropolitan areas from surrounding rural areas, it would exacerbate
a problem that is already developing. The structure of Congress is already weighted toward
rural states. Anything that increases that advantage will mean that more people are governed
by fewer people. That's not going to make the US a more stable country.
The readership of TAC are predominantly committed Leftists.
This comment appears to have touched a nerve.
These measures would impede implementation of The Agenda.
Excellent.
While there are certainly leftists (like myself) among TAC readership, the thing that
distinguishes most TAC readers from folks like yourself is that we reside on the left side of
the sanity/insanity divide.
The commenters here seem to feel these two ideas are crazy:
1) Civilised people should not be placed under the power of people they view as primitive
bloodthirsty degenerates.
2) Human beings should not be treated as livestock - tracked and managed by a post-human
ruling class.
If The Left believes these ideas are insane, we have a big problem.
That is confirmation that the chasm between Western Civilisation and the marxist ideology is
absolutely unbridgeable. There is zero overlap - zero common ground. [In fact, the two are so
far apart that one can't see the other with a telescope on a clear day.]
We need to be moving toward some form of separation - whether that means a peaceful partition
like the Soviet Union in the early nineties, a loose confederation like the British
Commonwealth, or maybe a defence/foreign policy alliance based on the NATO model.
"Sane people have crazy ideas. Crazy people have sane ideas."
It's gonna be tough to sell that one.
Are you really just saying that we should submit to an insane ideology because the people
promoting it are just the coolest, most fabulous people ever?
The normal humans are not buying that garbage.
That's why marxism always turns to extreme violence.
Socialism cannot compete, so it must conquer. It cannot persuade, so it must coerce and
terrorise.
Every time I see the "the Left" used as the subject of a sentence, it always seems to follow
that the writer does not know what he's talking about, and probably does not know any actual
leftists who think or do what the writer is claiming they think or do. When you build straw
men from information you get on Fox News, you're not likely to get much more than ill-founded
generalizations.
Any time you see a comment that repeats "the Left/Liberals/Democrats believe X" and "the
Right/Conservatives/Republicans believe Y" you can bet that it will not be insightful.
Our leaders were so preoccupied with remaking the world they failed to see that our country
was falling apart around them. Has the time come to bury the conceit of American
exceptionalism? In an article for the American edition of The Spectator , Quincy
Institute President Andrew Bacevich concludes just that:
The coronavirus pandemic is a curse. It should also serve as an opportunity, Americans at
long last realizing that they are not God's agents. Out of suffering and loss, humility and
self-awareness might emerge. We can only hope.
The heart of the American exceptionalism in question is American hubris. It is based on the
assumption that we are better than the rest of the world, and that this superiority both
entitles and obligates us to take on an outsized role in the world.
In our current foreign policy debates, the phrase "American exceptionalism" has served as a
shorthand for justifying and celebrating U.S. dominance, and when necessary it has served as a
blanket excuse for U.S. wrongdoing. Seongjong Song defined it in an 2015 article
for The Korean Journal of International Studies this way: "American exceptionalism is the
belief that the US is "qualitatively different" from all other nations." In practice, that has
meant that the U.S. does not consider itself to be bound by the same rules that apply to other
states, and it reserves the right to interfere whenever and wherever it wishes.
American exceptionalism has been used in our political debates as an ideological purity test
to determine whether certain political leaders are sufficiently supportive of an activist and
interventionist foreign policy. The main purpose of invoking American exceptionalism in foreign
policy debate has been to denigrate less hawkish policy views as unpatriotic and beyond the
pale. The phrase was often used as a partisan cudgel in the previous decade as the Obama
administration's critics tried to cast doubt on the former president's acceptance of this idea,
but in the years since then it has become a rallying point for devotees of U.S. primacy
regardless of party. There was an explosion in the use of the phrase in just the first few
years of the 2010s compared with the previous decades. Song cited a study that showed this
massive increase:
Exceptionalist discourse is on the rise in American politics. Terrence McCoy (2012) found
that the term "American exceptionalism" appeared in US publications 457 times between 1980
and 2000, climbing to 2,558 times in the 2000s and 4,172 times in 2010-12.
The more that U.S. policies have proved "American exceptionalism" to be a pernicious myth at
odds with reality, the more we have heard the phrase used to defend those policies. Republican
hawks began the decade by accusing Obama of not believing in this "exceptionalism," and some
Democratic hawks closed it out by
"reclaiming" the idea on behalf of their own discredited foreign policy vision. There may
be differences in emphasis between the two camps, but there is a consensus that the U.S. has
special rights and privileges that other nations cannot have. That has translated into waging
unnecessary wars, assuming excessive overseas burdens, and trampling on the rights of other
states, and all the while congratulating ourselves on how virtuous we are for doing all of
it.
The contemporary version of American exceptionalism is tied up inextricably with the belief
that the U.S. is the "indispensable nation." According to this view, without U.S. "leadership"
other countries will be unable or unwilling to respond to major international problems and
threats. We have seen just how divorced from reality that belief is in just the last few
months. There has been no meaningful U.S. leadership in response to the pandemic, but for the
most part our allies have managed on their own fairly well. In the absence of U.S.
"leadership," many other countries have demonstrated that they haven't really needed the U.S.
Our "indispensability" is a story that we like to tell ourselves, but it isn't true. Not only
are we no longer indispensable, but as Micah Zenko pointed out
many years ago, we never were.
It was 22 years ago when then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright publicly 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."
In a recent
interview with The New York T imes, Albright sounded much less sure of her old
position: "There's nothing in the definition of indispensable that says "alone." It means that
the United States needs to be engaged with its partners. And people's backgrounds make a
difference." Albright's original statement was an aggressive assertion that America was both
extraordinarily powerful and unusually farsighted, and that legitimized the frequent U.S.
recourse to using force.
After two decades of calamitous failures that have highlighted our weaknesses and
foolishness, even she can't muster up the old enthusiasm that she once had. No one could look
back at the last 20 years of U.S. foreign policy and still honestly say that "we see further"
into the future than others. Not only are we no better than other countries at anticipating and
preparing for future dangers, but judging from the country's lack of preparedness for a
pandemic we are actually far behind many of the countries that we have presumed to "lead." It
is impossible to square our official self-congratulatory rhetoric with the reality of a
government that is incapable of protecting its citizens from disaster.
The poor U.S. response to the pandemic has not only exposed many of the country's serious
faults, but it has also caused a crisis of faith in the prevailing mythology that American
political leaders and pundits have been promoting for decades. This found expression most
recently in a rather odd
article in The New York Times last week. The framing of the story makes it into a
lament for a collapsing ideology:
The pandemic sweeping the globe has done more than take lives and livelihoods from New
Delhi to New York. It is shaking fundamental assumptions about American exceptionalism -- the
special role the United States played for decades after World War II as the reach of its
values and power made it a global leader and example to the world.
The curious thing about this description is that it takes for granted that "fundamental
assumptions about American exceptionalism" haven't been thoroughly shaken long before now. The
"special role" mentioned here was never going to last forever, and in some respects it was more
imaginary than real. It was a period in our history that we should seek to understand and learn
from, but we also need to recognize that it was transitory and already ended some time ago.
If American exceptionalism is now "on trial," as another recent article put it
, it is because it offered up a pleasing but false picture of how we relate to the rest of the
world. Over the last two decades, we have seen that picture diverge more and more from real
life. The false picture gives political leaders an excuse to take reckless and disastrous
actions as long as they can spin them as being expressions of "who we are" as a country. At the
same time, they remain blind to the country's real vulnerabilities. It is a measure of how
powerful the illusion of American exceptionalism is that it still has such a hold on so many
people's minds even now, but it has not been a harmless illusion.
While our leaders have been patting themselves on the back for the enlightened "leadership"
that they imagine they are providing to the world, they have neglected the country's urgent
needs and allowed many parts of our system to fall into disrepair and ruin. They have also
visited enormous destruction on many other countries in the name of "helping" them. The same
hubris that has warped foreign policy decisions over the decades has encouraged a dangerous
complacency about the problems in our own country. We can't let that continue. Our leaders were
so preoccupied with trying to remake other parts of the world that they failed to see that our
country was falling apart all around them.
American exceptionalism has been the story that our leaders told us to excuse their neglect
of America. It is a flattering story, but ultimately it is a vain one that distracts us from
protecting our own country and people. We would do well if we put away this boastful fantasy
and learned how to live like a normal nation.
The Trump administration has been desperately trying to kill the nuclear deal for the last two years after reneging on it. Now
they will try to kill it by
pretending to
be part of it again:
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is preparing a legal argument that the United States remains a participant in the Iran nuclear
accord that President Trump has renounced, part of an intricate strategy to pressure the United Nations Security Council to extend
an arms embargo on Tehran or see far more stringent sanctions reimposed on the country.
The administration's latest destructive ploy won't find any support on the Security Council. There is nothing "intricate" about
this idea. It is a crude, heavy-handed attempt to employ the JCPOA's own provisions to destroy it. It is just the latest in a series
of administration moves that tries to have things both ways. They want to renege on U.S. commitments while still refusing to allow
Iran to benefit from the agreement, and they ultimately hope to make things difficult enough for Iran that their government chooses
to give up on the agreement. It reeks of bad faith and contempt for international law, and all other governments will be able to
see right through it. Some of our European allies have already said as much:
European diplomats who have learned of the effort maintain that Mr. Trump and Mr. Pompeo are selectively choosing whether
they are still in the agreement to fit their agenda.
It is significant that the Trump administration feels compelled to go through this charade after telling everyone for years that
the U.S. is no longer in the deal. Until now, Trump administration officials have been unwavering in saying that the U.S. is out
of the deal and can't be considered a participant in it:
Can't wait to see the tortured memo out of State/L claiming that somehow the U.S. is still a participant in the JCPOA. The
May 8, 2018 announcement is literally titled "Ceasing U.S. Participation in the JCPOA ."
https://t.co/I5t8LaC7dN
One of trademarks of Trump administration is his that he despises international law and
relies on "might makes right" principle all the time. In a way he is a one trick pony, typical
unhinged bully.
In a way Pompeo is the fact of Trump administration foreign policy, and it is not pretty
It is mostly, though not only, Trump related or libertarian pseudo "alt media" behind "just
the flu" theories or "China unleashed virus to attack US".
There is a small military/zionist cabal at the White House that is pushing for that
information war in order to prop up the dying US empire as well as US oligarhic business
interests, and to secure Trump reelection prospects.
It is enough to see how Zerohedge have been turned into full blown imperialist media with
many "evil China" outbursts every day.
Beware of Trumptards infiltrating alt media to prop up the dying US Empire and its
business interests.
Trump is the biggest US imperialist for the last 30 years. He made a good job at deceiving
many anti-system voices.
His WTO attacks are too part of US efforts to take over the organisation. His has no
problem with international institutions as long as they are US empire controlled (such as
OPCW, WADA, etc.)
Trump-tards and related libertarians (Zerohedge etc.) made their choice on the side
of global US imperialism (driven by their hidden racism, hence the evil "chinks" making a
good enemy) and are now the enemy of the multipolar world.
Trump is scum. He turned on Russia and Assange after he got into the White House and did
far more against Russia than even Obama. I say that as someone who initially made the mistake
to support him.
The rumors of the USA demise, including economic demise are greatly exaggerated. Germany and
Japan -- the USA allies makes stuff, stuff that people all over the world want to buy –
just as the USA did forty years ago. Machine tools, robots, silicon, carbon fibre.
I just wouldn't be so quick to predict the fall of the US visa vis China. The Chinese have
now picked all the low hanging fruit. Now, with the USA awakening to the threat, it will become
harder for them to sustain growth with little natural resources, pressing population problems,
hostility of the USA, and now the spectre of national debt crisis.
Notable quotes:
"... Why Nations Fail ..."
"... Evidence for the long-term decline in our economic circumstances is most apparent when we consider the situation of younger Americans. The national media endlessly trumpets the tiny number of youthful Facebook millionaires, but the prospects for most of their contemporaries are actually quite grim. According to research from the Pew Center, barely half of 18- to 24-year-old Americans are currently employed, the lowest level since 1948, a time long before most women had joined the labor force. Nearly one-fifth of young men age 25–34 are still living with their parents, while the wealth of all households headed by those younger than 35 is 68 percent lower today than it was in 1984. ..."
"... Why Nations Fail ..."
"... Harvard Law Review ..."
"... Wall Street Journal ..."
"... Why Nations Fail ..."
"... Why Nations Fail ..."
"... Ron Unz is publisher of ..."
"... and founder of Unz.org . ..."
"... The state of US politics can only be accurately described as self-destructive. The government's hubris is bringing down the foundations of the economy, and it's only a matter of time before we end up living in the ruins of a dead civilization. ..."
"... The basic fact that supports any capitalist system, is that increasing productivity will increase wealth, that is, real wealth. Huge military expenditures all towards the goal of keeping raw resources a little bit cheaper, and a financial structure increasingly designed to encourage making money from money, are absolutely insane. This is Ancient Rome all over again. ..."
"... I do agree, however with earlier commentators about American lack of discipline. Years ago, cutting through the Engineering School at Rutgers, I was struck that the vast majority of students were foreigners, mostly Asian. Americans at that time just went to school to party. ..."
"... China is not to blame for America's decline, America has to face its own ghosts; the 15 trillion dollars debt, the unemployment, inequality, huge military spending, endless wars that is what you have to confront. ..."
"... Never was a piece written so needed to be read. We are a one party country. We are totally failed by our media for the "most" part. ..."
"... The US is an plutocracy, not a democracy. ..."
"... Mr. Unz said, "And since we live in a entertainment-dominated society, sentiments affirmed on then screen often have direct real-world consequences." ..."
"... In Iceland, it already happened, over a very short span of time. But the Icelandic native populace literally ejected them corporally from the govt. buildings, and now the heads of the major banks have been criminally sentenced and imprisoned, Iceland has the only PM to have been criminally convicted in the financial crisis. Dire predictions by other mafiosi of economic meltdown as a consequence of the "too big to fail" going to jail have yet to materialise, Iceland is doing fine. ..."
"... Far from a great advance for Chinese workers, however, it is the direct result of a consolidation of power in the hands of a small clique of powerful families, families that have actively collaborated with Western financial oligarchs. ..."
These facts do not provide much evidence for the thesis in Why Nations Fail that
China's leaders constitute a self-serving and venal "extractive" elite. Unfortunately, such
indications seem far more apparent when we direct our gaze inward, toward the recent economic
and social trajectory of our own country
Against the backdrop of remarkable Chinese progress, America mostly presents a very gloomy
picture. Certainly America's top engineers and entrepreneurs have created many of the world's
most important technologies, sometimes becoming enormously wealthy in the process. But these
economic successes are not typical nor have their benefits been widely distributed. Over the
last 40 years, a large majority of American workers have seen their real incomes stagnate or
decline.
Meanwhile, the rapid concentration of American wealth continues apace: the richest 1 percent
of America's population now holds as much net wealth as the bottom 90–95 percent, and
these trends may even be accelerating. A recent study revealed that during our supposed
recovery of the last couple of years, 93 percent of the total increase in national income went
to the top 1 percent, with an astonishing 37 percent being captured by just the wealthiest 0.01
percent of the population, 15,000 households in a nation of well over 300 million people.
Evidence for the long-term decline in our economic circumstances is most apparent when
we consider the situation of younger Americans. The national media endlessly trumpets the tiny
number of youthful Facebook millionaires, but the prospects for most of their contemporaries
are actually quite grim. According to research from the Pew Center, barely half of 18- to
24-year-old Americans are currently employed, the lowest level since 1948, a time long before
most women had joined the labor force. Nearly one-fifth of young men age 25–34 are still
living with their parents, while the wealth of all households headed by those younger than 35
is 68 percent lower today than it was in 1984.
ORDER IT NOW
The total outstanding amount of non-dischargeable student-loan debt has crossed the
trillion-dollar mark, now surpassing the combined total of credit-card and auto-loan debt --
and with a quarter of all student-loan payers now delinquent, there are worrisome indicators
that much of it will remain a permanent burden, reducing many millions to long-term debt
peonage. A huge swath of America's younger generation seems completely impoverished, and likely
to remain so.
International trade statistics, meanwhile, demonstrate that although Apple and Google are
doing quite well, our overall economy is not. For many years now our largest goods export has
been government IOUs, whose dollar value has sometimes been greater than that of the next ten
categories combined. At some point, perhaps sooner than we think, the rest of the world will
lose its appetite for this non-functional product, and our currency will collapse, together
with our standard of living. Similar Cassandra-like warnings were issued for years about the
housing bubble or the profligacy of the Greek government, and were proven false year after year
until one day they suddenly became true.
Ironically enough, there is actually one major category in which American expansion still
easily tops that of China, both today and for the indefinite future: population growth. The
rate of America's demographic increase passed that of China over 20 years ago and has been
greater every year since, sometimes by as much as a factor of two. According to standard
projections, China's population in 2050 will be almost exactly what it was in 2000, with the
country having achieved the population stability typical of advanced, prosperous societies. But
during that same half-century, the number of America's inhabitants will have grown by almost 50
percent, a rate totally unprecedented in the developed world and actually greater than that
found in numerous Third World countries such as Colombia, Algeria, Thailand, Mexico, or
Indonesia. A combination of very rapid population growth and doubtful prospects for equally
rapid economic growth does not bode well for the likely quality of the 2050 American Dream.
China rises while America falls, but are there major causal connections between these two
concurrent trends now reshaping the future of our world? Not that I can see. American
politicians and pundits are naturally fearful of taking on the fierce special interest groups
that dominate their political universe, so they often seek an external scapegoat to explicate
the misery of their constituents, sometimes choosing to focus on China. But this is merely
political theater for the ignorant and the gullible.
Various studies have suggested that China's currency may be substantially undervalued, but
even if the frequent demands of Paul Krugman and others were met and the yuan rapidly
appreciated another 15 or 20 percent, few industrial jobs would return to American shores,
while working-class Americans might pay much more for their basic necessities. And if China
opened wide its borders to more American movies or financial services, the multimillionaires of
Hollywood and Wall Street might grow even richer, but ordinary Americans would see little
benefit. It is always easier for a nation to point an accusing finger at foreigners rather than
honestly admit that almost all its terrible problems are essentially
self-inflicted.
The central theme of Why Nations Fail is that political institutions and the
behavior of ruling elites largely determine the economic success or failure of countries. If
most Americans have experienced virtually no economic gains for decades, perhaps we should cast
our gaze at these factors in our own society.
Our elites boast about the greatness of our constitutional democracy, the wondrous human
rights we enjoy, the freedom and rule of law that have long made America a light unto the
nations of the world and a spiritual draw for oppressed peoples everywhere, including China
itself. But are these claims actually correct? They often stack up very strangely when they
appear in the opinion pages of our major newspapers, coming just after the news reporting,
whose facts tell a very different story.
Just last year, the Obama administration initiated a massive months-long bombing campaign
against the duly recognized government of Libya on "humanitarian" grounds, then argued with a
straight face that a military effort comprising hundreds of bombing sorties and over a billion
dollars in combat costs did not actually constitute "warfare," and hence was completely exempt
from the established provisions of the Congressional War Powers Act. A few months later,
Congress overwhelmingly passed and President Obama signed the National Defense Authorization
Act, granting the president power to permanently imprison without trial or charges any American
whom he classifies as a national-security threat based on his own judgment and secret evidence.
When we consider that American society has experienced virtually no domestic terrorism during
the past decade, we must wonder how long our remaining constitutional liberties would survive
if we were facing frequent real-life attacks by an actual terrorist underground, such as had
been the case for many years with the IRA in Britain, ETA in Spain, or the Red Brigades in
Italy.
Most recently, President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder have claimed the inherent
right of an American president to summarily execute anyone anywhere in the world, American
citizen or not, whom White House advisors have privately decided was a "bad person." While it
is certainly true that major world governments have occasionally assassinated their political
enemies abroad, I have never before heard these dark deeds publicly proclaimed as legitimate
and aboveboard. Certainly if the governments of Russia or China, let alone Iran, declared their
inherent right to kill anyone anywhere in the world whom they didn't like, our media pundits
would immediately blast these statements as proof of their total criminal insanity.
These are very strange notions of the "rule of law" for the administration of a president
who had once served as top editor of the Harvard Law Review and who was routinely
flattered in his political campaigns by being described as a "constitutional scholar."
Many of these negative ideological trends have been absorbed and accepted by the popular
culture and much of the American public. Over the last decade one of the highest-rated shows on
American television was "24", created by Joel Surnow and chronicling Kiefer Sutherland as a
patriotic but ruthless Secret Service agent, with each episode constituting a single hour of
his desperate efforts to thwart terrorist plots and safeguard our national security. Numerous
episodes featured our hero torturing suspected evildoers in order to extract the information
necessary to save innocent lives, with the entire series representing a popular weekly
glorification of graphic government torture on behalf of the greater good.
Now soft-headed protestations to the contrary, most governments around the world have at
least occasionally practiced torture, especially when combating popular insurgencies, and some
of the more brutal regimes, including Stalinist Russia and Nazi Germany, even professionalized
the process. But such dark deeds done in secret were always vigorously denied in public, and
the popular films and other media of Stalin's Soviet Union invariably featured pure-hearted
workers and peasants bravely doing their honorable and patriotic duty for the Motherland,
rather than the terrible torments being daily inflicted in the cellars of the Lubyanka prison.
Throughout all of modern history, I am not aware of a single even semi-civilized country that
publicly celebrated the activities of its professional government torturers in the popular
media. Certainly such sentiments would have been totally abhorrent and unthinkable in the
"conservative Hollywood" of the Cold War 1950s.
And since we live in a entertainment-dominated society, sentiments affirmed on the screen
often have direct real-world consequences. At one point, senior American military and
counter-terrorism officials felt the need to travel to Hollywood and urge its screenwriters to
stop glorifying American torture, since their shows were encouraging U.S. soldiers to torture
Muslim captives even when their commanding officers repeatedly ordered them not to do so.
Given these facts, we should hardly be surprised that international surveys over the past
decade have regularly ranked America as the world's most hated major nation, a remarkable
achievement given the dominant global role of American media and entertainment and also the
enormous international sympathy that initially flowed to our country following the 9/11
attacks.
So far at least, these extra-constitutional and often brutal methods have not been directed
toward controlling America's own political system; we remain a democracy rather than a
dictatorship. But does our current system actually possess the central feature of a true
democracy, namely a high degree of popular influence over major government policies? Here the
evidence seems more ambiguous.
Consider the pattern of the last decade. With two ruinous wars and a financial collapse to
his record, George W. Bush was widely regarded as one of the most disastrous presidents in
American history, and at times his public approval numbers sank to the lowest levels ever
measured. The sweeping victory of his successor, Barack Obama, represented more a repudiation
of Bush and his policies than anything else, and leading political activists, left and right
alike, characterized Obama as Bush's absolute antithesis, both in background and in ideology.
This sentiment was certainly shared abroad, with Obama being selected for the Nobel Peace Prize
just months after entering office, based on the widespread assumption that he was certain to
reverse most of the policies of his detested predecessor and restore America to sanity.
Yet almost none of these reversals took place. Instead, the continuity of administration
policy has been so complete and so obvious that many critics now routinely speak of the
Bush/Obama administration.
The harsh violations of constitutional principles and civil liberties which Bush pioneered
following the 9/11 attacks have only further intensified under Obama, the heralded Harvard
constitutional scholar and ardent civil libertarian, and this has occurred without the excuse
of any major new terrorist attacks. During his Democratic primary campaign, Obama promised that
he would move to end Bush's futile Iraq War immediately upon taking office, but instead large
American forces remained in place for years until heavy pressure from the Iraqi government
finally forced their removal; meanwhile, America's occupation army in Afghanistan actually
tripled in size. The government bailout of the hated financial manipulators of Wall Street,
begun under Bush, continued apace under Obama, with no serious attempts at either government
prosecution or drastic reform. Americans are still mostly suffering through the worst economic
downturn since the Great Depression, but Wall Street profits and multimillion-dollar bonuses
soon returned to record levels.
In particular, the continuity of top officials has been remarkable. As Bush's second defense
secretary, Robert Gates had been responsible for the ongoing management of America's foreign
wars and military occupations since 2006; Obama kept him on, and he continued to play the same
role in the new administration. Similarly, Timothy Geithner had been one of Bush's most senior
financial appointments, playing a crucial role in the widely unpopular financial bailout of
Wall Street; Obama promoted him to Treasury secretary and authorized continuation of those same
policies. Ben Bernanke had been appointed chairman of the Federal Reserve by Bush and was
reappointed by Obama. Bush wars and bailouts became Obama wars and bailouts. The American
public voted for an anti-Bush, but got Bush's third term instead.
During the Cold War, Soviet propagandists routinely characterized our democracy as a sham,
with the American public merely selecting which of the two intertwined branches of their single
political party should alternate in office, while the actual underlying policies remained
essentially unchanged, being decided and implemented by the same corrupt ruling class. This
accusation may have been mostly false at the time it was made but seems disturbingly accurate
today.
When times are hard and government policies are widely unpopular, but voters are only
offered a choice between the rival slick marketing campaigns of Coke and Pepsi, cynicism can
reach extreme proportions. Over the last year, surveys have shown that the public non-approval
of Congress -- representing Washington's political establishment -- has ranged as high as
90–95 percent, which is completely unprecedented.
ORDER IT NOW
But if our government policies are so broadly unpopular, why are we unable to change them
through the sacred power of the vote? The answer is that America's system of government has
increasingly morphed from being a representative democracy to becoming something closer to a
mixture of plutocracy and mediacracy, with elections almost entirely determined by money and
media, not necessarily in that order. Political leaders are made or broken depending on whether
they receive the cash and visibility needed to win office.
National campaigns increasingly seem sordid reality shows for second-rate political
celebrities, while our country continues along its path toward multiple looming calamities.
Candidates who depart from the script or deviate from the elite D.C. consensus regarding wars
or bailouts -- notably a principled ideologue such as Ron Paul -- are routinely stigmatized in
the media as dangerous extremists or even entirely airbrushed out of campaign news coverage, as
has been humorously highlighted by comedian Jon Stewart.
We know from the collapsed communist states of Eastern Europe that control over the media
may determine public perceptions of reality, but it does not change the underlying reality
itself, and reality usually has the last laugh. Economics Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz and
his colleagues have conservatively estimated the total long-term cost of our disastrous Iraq
War at $3 trillion, representing over one-fifth of our entire accumulated national debt, or
almost $30,000 per American household. And even now the direct ongoing costs of our Afghanistan
War still run $120 billion per year, many times the size of Afghanistan's total GDP. Meanwhile,
during these same years the international price of oil has risen from $25 to $125 per barrel --
partly as a consequence of these past military disruptions and growing fears of future ones --
thereby imposing gigantic economic costs upon our society.
And we suffer other costs as well. A recent New York Times story described the
morale-building visit of Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta to our forces in Afghanistan and
noted that all American troops had been required to surrender their weapons before attending
his speech and none were allowed to remain armed in his vicinity. Such a command decision seems
almost unprecedented in American history and does not reflect well upon the perceived state of
our military morale.
Future historians may eventually regard these two failed wars, fought for entirely
irrational reasons, as the proximate cause of America's financial and political collapse,
representing the historical bookend to our World War II victory, which originally established
American global dominance.
When parasitic elites govern a society along "extractive" lines, a central feature is the
massive upward flow of extracted wealth, regardless of any contrary laws or regulations.
Certainly America has experienced an enormous growth of officially tolerated corruption as our
political system has increasingly consolidated into a one-party state controlled by a unified
media-plutocracy.
Consider the late 2011 collapse of MF Global, a midsize but highly reputable brokerage firm.
Although this debacle was far smaller than the Lehman bankruptcy or the Enron fraud, it
effectively illustrates the incestuous activities of America's overlapping elites. Just a year
earlier, Jon Corzine had been installed as CEO, following his terms as Democratic governor and
U.S. senator from New Jersey and his previous career as CEO of Goldman Sachs. Perhaps no other
American had such a combination of stellar political and financial credentials on his resume.
Soon after taking the reins, Corzine decided to boost his company's profits by betting its
entire capital and more against the possibility that any European countries might default on
their national debts. When he lost that bet, his multi-billion-dollar firm tumbled into
bankruptcy.
At this point, the story moves from a commonplace tale of Wall Street arrogance and greed
into something out of the Twilight Zone, or perhaps Monty Python. The major newspapers began
reporting that customer funds, eventually said to total $1.6 billion, had mysteriously
disappeared during the collapse, and no one could determine what had become of them, a very
strange claim in our age of massively computerized financial records. Weeks and eventually
months passed, tens of millions of dollars were spent on armies of investigators and forensic
accountants, but all those customer funds stayed "missing," while the elite media covered this
bizarre situation in the most gingerly possible fashion. As an example, a front page Wall
Street Journal story on February 23, 2012 suggested that after so many months, there
seemed little likelihood that the disappeared customer funds might ever reappear, but also
emphasized that absolutely no one was being accused of any wrongdoing. Presumably the
journalists were suggesting that the $1.6 billion dollars of customer money had simply walked
out the door on its own two feet.
Stories like this give the lie to the endless boasts of our politicians and business pundits
that America's financial system is the most transparent and least corrupt in today's world.
Certainly America is not unique in the existence of long-term corporate fraud, as was recently
shown in the fall of Japan's Olympus Corporation following the discovery of more than a billion
dollars in long-hidden investment losses. But when we consider the largest corporate collapses
of the last decade that were substantially due to fraud, nearly all the names are American:
WorldCom, Enron, Tyco, Global Crossing, and Adelphia. And this list leaves out all the American
financial institutions destroyed by the financial meltdown -- such as Lehman, Bear Stearns,
Merrill Lynch, Washington Mutual, and Wachovia -- and the many trillions of dollars in American
homeowner equity and top-rated MBS securities which evaporated during that process. Meanwhile,
the largest and longest Ponzi Scheme in world history, that of Bernie Madoff, had survived for
decades under the very nose of the SEC, despite a long series of detailed warnings and
complaints. The second largest such fraud, that of Allen R. Stanford, also bears the label
"Made in the USA."
Some of the sources of Chinese success and American decay are not entirely mysterious. As it
happens, the typical professional background of a member of China's political elite is
engineering; they were taught to build things. Meanwhile, a remarkable fraction of America's
political leadership class attended law school, where they were trained to argue effectively
and to manipulate. Thus, we should not be greatly surprised that while China's leaders tend to
build, America's leaders seem to prefer endless manipulation, whether of words, money, or
people.
How corrupt is the American society fashioned by our current ruling elites? That question is
perhaps more ambiguous than it might seem. According to the standard world rankings produced by
Transparency International, the United States is a reasonably clean country, with corruption
being considerably higher than in the nations of Northern Europe or elsewhere in the
Anglosphere, but much lower than in most of the rest of the world, including China.
But I suspect that this one-dimensional metric fails to capture some of the central
anomalies of America's current social dilemma. Unlike the situation in many Third World
countries, American teachers and tax inspectors very rarely solicit bribes, and there is little
overlap in personnel between our local police and the criminals whom they pursue. Most ordinary
Americans are generally honest. So by these basic measures of day-to-day corruption, America is
quite clean, not too different from Germany or Japan.
By contrast, local village authorities in China have a notorious tendency to seize public
land and sell it to real estate developers for huge personal profits. This sort of daily
misbehavior has produced an annual Chinese total of up to 90,000 so-called "mass incidents" --
public strikes, protests, or riots -- usually directed against corrupt local officials or
businessmen.
However, although American micro-corruption is rare, we seem to suffer from appalling levels
of macro-corruption, situations in which our various ruling elites squander or misappropriate
tens or even hundreds of billions of dollars of our national wealth, sometimes doing so just
barely on one side of technical legality and sometimes on the other.
Sweden is among the cleanest societies in Europe, while Sicily is perhaps the most corrupt.
But suppose a large clan of ruthless Sicilian Mafiosi moved to Sweden and somehow managed to
gain control of its government. On a day-to-day basis, little would change, with Swedish
traffic policemen and building inspectors performing their duties with the same sort of
incorruptible efficiency as before, and I suspect that Sweden's Transparency International
rankings would scarcely decline. But meanwhile, a large fraction of Sweden's accumulated
national wealth might gradually be stolen and transferred to secret Cayman Islands bank
accounts, or invested in Latin American drug cartels, and eventually the entire plundered
economy would collapse.
Ordinary Americans who work hard and seek to earn an honest living for themselves and their
families appear to be suffering the ill effects of exactly this same sort of elite-driven
economic pillage. The roots of our national decline will be found at the very top of our
society, among the One Percent, or more likely the 0.1 percent.
Thus, the ideas presented in Why Nations Fail seem both true and false. The claim
that harmful political institutions and corrupt elites can inflict huge economic damage upon a
society seems absolutely correct. But while the authors turn a harsh eye toward elite
misbehavior across time and space -- from ancient Rome to Czarist Russia to rising China --
their vision seems to turn rosy-tinted when they consider present-day America, the society in
which they themselves live and whose ruling elites lavishly fund the academic institutions with
which they are affiliated. Given the American realities of the last dozen years, it is quite
remarkable that the scholars who wrote a book entitled Why Nations Fail never glanced
outside their own office windows.
A similar dangerous reticence may afflict most of our media, which appears much more eager
to focus on self-inflicted disasters in foreign countries than on those here at home. Presented
below is a companion case-study, " Chinese
Melamine and American Vioxx: A Comparison ," in which I point out that while the American
media a few years ago joined its Chinese counterparts in devoting enormous coverage to the
deaths of a few Chinese children from tainted infant formula, it paid relatively little
attention to a somewhat similar domestic public-health disaster that killed many tens or even
hundreds of thousands of Americans.
A society's media and academic organs constitute the sensory apparatus and central nervous
system of its body politic, and if the information these provide is seriously misleading,
looming dangers may fester and grow. A media and academy that are highly corrupt or dishonest
constitute a deadly national peril. And although the political leadership of undemocratic China
might dearly wish to hide all its major mistakes, its crude propaganda machinery often fails at
this self-destructive task. But America's own societal information system is vastly more
skilled and experienced in shaping reality to meet the needs of business and government
leaders, and this very success does tremendous damage to our country.
Perhaps Americans really do prefer that their broadcasters provide Happy News and that their
political campaigns constitute amusing reality shows. Certainly the cheering coliseum crowds of
the Roman Empire favored their bread and circuses over the difficult and dangerous tasks that
their ancestors had undertaken during Rome's rise to world greatness. And so long as we can
continue to trade bits of printed paper carrying presidential portraits for flat-screen TVs
from Chinese factories, perhaps all is well and no one need be too concerned about the apparent
course of our national trajectory, least of all our political leadership class.
But if so, then we must admit that Richard Lynn, a prominent British scholar, has been
correct in predicting for a decade or longer that the global dominance of the European-derived
peoples is rapidly drawing to its end and within the foreseeable future the torch of human
progress and world leadership will inevitably pass into Chinese hands.
Ron Unz is publisher of The American Conservative and founder of Unz.org .
Definitely on the money regarding the U.S., I'm not sure the outlook for China though is
quite so rosy. I fear you made a serious mistake of burying the lead. That said, one other
issue you should have mentioned is the way the two major parties monopolize access to the
ballot, as discussed in a recent Al Jazeera series on the frauds of American democracy.
"Certainly America has experienced an enormous growth of officially tolerated corruption as
our political system has increasingly consolidated into a one-party state controlled by a
unified media-plutocracy."
Re: This failure suggests another reason for the decay of US (and Western European) society:
political correctness
Huh? And while demographics may not be destiny, demography should not be ignored either.
The US is likely to have a younger population structure than China which, as others have
noted, is going to grow old without first growing rich– not an enviable situation.
Moreover that population is likely to include a fair number of unmarried men for whom no
women are available. That's pretty muich unprecedented in history (although the reverse has
occasionally happened due to wars), and I have no idea how it will play out, but I suspect it
will not be a mark in China's plus column.
This piece whistewashes China's enormous challenges while exaggerating America's. That's
not to say we have no challenges nor that China does not have its strengths. Still, I would
sooner bet the farm on the US coming through this century without major political calamity
than China doing so. (Note: I said "calamity", I did not say "change". Both countries, will
need to change a lot– something true of the whole world)
America's worse than third world style population growth isn't an advantage in any way, shape
or form. Firstly, energy availability (and not labor) will be the bounding factor for
economic growth over the next few decades, and secondly the only sectors of the population
that are growing are those with the absolute least level of relevant skills that will be
needed in years that are to come.
No other developed nation, save almost empty Canada and Austrailia, have ever seen massive
population growth such as this.
Japan and China is not remotely a fair comparison – Japan has only 127 million people
whereas China has 1331 million people. When China reaches American levels of economic
development, as Japan did in the 1980's, the implications for America, both political and
economic, are going to be vastly more severe than they were when Japan emerged as a developed
nation. Think of 2030 China as being ten and a half 2012 Japans to get an rough idea of
what's coming.
JonF:
A good number of hunter gatherer societies that survived into modern times, such as the
Yanomano in South America, had much more lopsided sex ratios than China does today. This
isn't new.
Yes, some societies have had an excess of women after many men have been killed in
warfare: Germany and France after WWI, or the American South after the Civil War. But an
excess of men is pretty much unprecedented.
America has become the most hated country on earth along with Israel,and the tyranicle
government that controlls the country with all their crimes and lies will make America a
country no smart person would want to be a citizen.America can do better if people wake up to
the coruption and stop spending as much as the rest of the world on their military.It's not a
matter of if but when China becomes the biggest economy,but also the strongest military by
far on earth.I just hope China don't act like the American criminal government wasting tax
payers money on illegal wars baised on lies.It's been happening for over 100 years,but know
they do it in the open and have tottaly ignored the constitution.The 1 thing that made
America great was the constitution and as time goes by it is ignored to the point the rest of
the world and Americans see that America has no high ground,unless you call mudering innocent
civilians in illegal wars.America is bankrupt and when they can no longer afford to bribe
others it will collapes and the hatred it has caused for it'self will turn the entire world
against it.Even Israel will no longer be because of their warmongering and raceist
government.
The subtitle, "Which superpower is more threatened by its "extractive elites"?" reflects what
I believe is the most important political issue of the times. As one commenter pointed out
above, really there is nothing all that different now. I suspect this is largely true in that
'the masses' have usually lived many steps removed from understanding what is 'really going
on.' However today we are all linked on the material plane through electronic communication
and transportation in a way that before was never possible in that most ordinary people lived
nearly all of their lives bounded within a very small geographical, aka 'local' area. They
were place-bound, in other words. Now we are not. And because we are not the opportunity and
scope for mass deception have greatly increased along with the ability of ruling elites to be
more and more extractive.
I suspect you could almost make a mathematical formula out of it along the lines of: S =
F+O * (E/C), where S = Society or Stable & Sane Society, F = Freedom (opportunity,
creativity etc.), O = Organisation (cultural institutions of education, governance, manners,
language, both in terms of efficiency and levels of corruption/deceit etc. ), E =
Elites/Leadership class and C = Checks and Balances.
Something like that. Assuming a scale of 1-100 in each case, in the US I think it is
about: S = 70+50 * (95/35) = 120 * 2.7 = 325.7.
China: S = 45+65(110) * (75/50) = 100* 1.5 = 150.
China has 45 F-freedom to US 70.
China has 65 O-Organisation to US 50.
China has 75 E-Elites to US 95.
China has 50 C-Checks to US 35.
All of these are highly arguable of course but I think most would agree their freedom
quotient is lower, albeit the US has some of the worst upward / class mobility figures in the
West as a 10-year NYT study showed a while back.
China seems to have far greater organisational skills, as witnessed by their development of
high speed rail of late, which the US is incapable of doing.
Because of much greater power on the local level, I have given Chinese Elites a lower score
even though if we were to believe our own media, you would think that the US doesn't really
have any elites and China is a monolithic top-down beast.
For the same reason, I put in more Checks for China since I believe their people demonstrate
and organise far more energetically than those in the West, and that the Elites have to pay
far more attention to them. This is a wild guess.
The notion of "extractive elites" inadvertently wrecking their own country's future prospects
is rich with irony -- of the Alfred E. Neumann kind ("What, me worry?"). What about the
extraction of coal? It is the U.S. that is bribing China with coal exports -- America's
relatively most abundant natural resource -- so that the Chinese will tolerate America's
fiscal irresponsibility by continuing to prop up the dollar. Six months ago I sent a letter
about this to my local county council, which will decide in the next year whether to allow
the largest coal terminal in North America to be built (at the behest of Goldman Sachs, among
others) just a few miles from where I was living until recently, in the idyllic town of
Ferndale, WA. I maintained that one doesn't need to be a Green Party member in order to
oppose the coal terminal project -- any ardent nationalist worth his salt can, and ought to,
oppose it tooth and nail.
Coal terminals which make possible the shipping of millions of tons of coal to China would
be a disaster on several counts. Symbolically and as a matter of policy, the coal exports
would demonstrate America's economic subjection to China, the "Caesar" to whom we would be
paying tribute. Environmentally, the mercury and other pollution will drift back across the
Atlantic to the Pacific Northwest. These are just two of the problems. So why is the
Republican Party bending over backwards to join Peabody Coal and Goldman Sachs in trying to
build the largest coal terminal on the continent in Whatcom County, and other terminals
elsewhere in Washington and Oregon? What besides money, greed, and shortsightedness is behind
conservatives' obliviousness to the long-term dangers, both real and symbolic, of America's
bowing down to China with massive coal exports?
Thank you for an excellent article on what is happening. My only criticism is that it appears
that these things "just happen". With your insight and erudition, could you please address
"why" the situation has arisen. What could be the motivation behind actions and policies
which so clearly will destroy not only the 99% but also the basic wealth of the1%?
This is not something new, but a recurrent theme in world affairs.
" Behind all the governments and the armies there was a big subterranean movement going
on, engineered by very dangerous people."
"Since I entered politics, I have chiefly had men's views confided to me privately. Some
of the biggest men in the United States, in the field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid
of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organised, so subtle, so watchful,
so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they better not speak above their breath when
they speak in condemnation of it." – Woodrow Wilson, 28th President of the United States (1856-1924)
"So you see, my dear Coningsby, that the world is governed by very different personages
from what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes."
– Benjamin Disraeli, British Prime Minister
(1804-1881)
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt wrote in November 1933 to Col. Edward House: "The real
truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the larger centres has
owned the government since the days of Andrew Jackson."
Acemoglu and Robinson "characterize China's ruling elites as "extractive" -- parasitic and
corrupt -- and predict that Chinese economic growth will soon falter and decline" China's ruling elites! China's ruling elites are extractive, parasitic & corrupt!
Bwaaahaaahaaahaaaa
What are Acemoglu and Robinson on? Crack? LSD? Crystal Meth?
China's ruling elites are frigging angels and saints compared to the monsters, maniacs and
morons creating misery amidst colossal wealth (stolen by them) in the USA. The US elite is a
parasite so bloated and stupid it is killing its host and maybe the rest of the planet
too.
The state of US politics can only be accurately described as self-destructive. The
government's hubris is bringing down the foundations of the economy, and it's only a matter
of time before we end up living in the ruins of a dead civilization.
The basic fact that supports any capitalist system, is that increasing productivity will
increase wealth, that is, real wealth. Huge military expenditures all towards the goal of
keeping raw resources a little bit cheaper, and a financial structure increasingly designed
to encourage making money from money, are absolutely insane. This is Ancient Rome all over
again.
The issues of energy and pollution are serious enough to threaten the global economy in
the long-term, but the social system here doesn't sufficiently support innovation to do much
about them. How is America supposed to be competitive in the future if we don't?
For example, we're not going to "run out" of oil any time soon, but when it comes
primarily from tar sands and underwater drilling, it's going to be tremendously expensive,
and with more expensive energy, our standard of living will decline. Other common energy
sources have the same problem. Common sense dictates that we innovate ahead of time. The
possibility of resource substitution doesn't happen by magic. But of course, that would
require an conscious investment in that direction.
And as for pollution, maybe high-speed rail and electric cars are part of a solution,
maybe they're not, as some commenters have suggested, but what's definitely not a solution is
not trying anything all. We need clean air and clean water, or else we'll die. Our food
sources do, too.
And it's not entirely obvious to people who don't read about what makes China attractive
for investment, but it's not solely cheap labor. (In fact, Chinese labor is more expensive
than in, say, India or Bangladesh. Not to mention that Chinese bureaucracy is not all that
easy to deal with!) China has constructed highly attractive logistics systems, and has an
increasingly educated and disciplined labor force. In America, we have infrastructure that's
becoming obsolete, and an education system that produces a lot of stupid citizens who have no
idea how to create value. With the latter, it's no wonder we have an "entitlement
culture."
If this all doesn't change, I'm not sticking around, waiting for this ship to sink.
Finally! A Conservative who tells the truth. Sir, you and Paul Craig Roberts are just the men
to lead the GOP out of the wilderness and back to sanity.
Your words coincide with the words of pissed off Progressives (such as myself) and the
youth at OWS movements.
We need more honesty from your side, such as Buddy Roehmer offered before the recent GOP
primary devolved into the Clown Reality Show which avoided hard topics such as these you've
addressed head on in "China's Rise, America's Fall".
If the GOP has no room for you, Mr. Unz, maybe you should join the Green Party or help
concerned Americans from both sides start a new party. Just a thought.
Your honesty is courageous. And I believe when the Neo-Cons and Oligarchs on the Right
read your words, you'll be in for a rough ride with Rush and Faux News. Stay the course. Stay
true to what you have written here. Courage.
Just this one piece you have written will move me to subscribe to your magazine, a first
for me, subscribing to a magazine with the word "Conservative" in it.
Teddy Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, Abraham Lincoln and Barry Goldwater would be proud of
what you wrote, Sir. As would Martin Luther King, John F. Kennedy, and Franklin D.
Roosevelt.
Hopefully China will continue to improve and the people there get more freedom. However, the
Tienanmen Square incident is not a small thing. I suspect the elites in China have no more
respect for their people than ours do. Infanticide, forced abortion and summary execution are
not policies to emulate. What the west has, the importance of the individual, the idea that
the State is supposed to be subservient to a higher law are not ideas to trade away for a
mess of pottage.
I do agree, however with earlier commentators about American lack of discipline. Years
ago, cutting through the Engineering School at Rutgers, I was struck that the vast majority
of students were foreigners, mostly Asian. Americans at that time just went to school to
party.
With her extractive elites America has taken a different path but has, ironically, arrived at
the same terminus as the old Soviet Union: Too much economic power in the hands of too few.
I find it amazing what is not mentioned here: that the dynamic of extractive elites being
described started its rapid upward trajectory at exactly the time that Reagan "conservative"
policies came to dominate public policy discourse.
To some extent, the relative decline of the US economically owes a good deal to idiotic
levels of spending on "defence". Trillions of dollars have been squandered over the past two
or three decades.
The author has forgotten to mention race and diversity as a factor that ensures
America will not rise again. China is an homogeneous country with no need of a parasitic
diversity industry hovering overhead trying to enforce its ideas of what any given activity
should 'look like'. Chinese have an average intelligence above that of whites and are not
saddled with untold millions of low IQ third world people hanging like a millstone round
their necks. An entirely white America might have had half a chance of keeping pace with
Chinese growth, but today's America has no chance at all.
Calgacus, you're right on the money with that comment of yours! A lot of wealthy Americans
now live in Costa Rica, HK, Thailand and Malaysia and AUS/NZ. Donald Trump has been investing
in Costa Rica very heavily ..and there are probably thousands of other billionaires doing the
same.
In case people here haven't noticed, a lot of our super elites have been leaving the U.S.
in droves, due to the disproportionally high taxes levied on them now. They are doing this
because they are smarter than the rest of us. This started 5 years ago just before the
housing crash. Probably has accelerated since 2010 where this article is from.
It's becoming a joke Calgacus ..you're right some of these comments here seem to be
absolutely retarded!
A good reality check on the economic situation is to ask around your friends and relatives
on whose making the big money now! ..The answer will be pretty obvious.
Even if China's economy outgrows ours, it would have to be 4x as large as the US economy to
match it's per capita income. The Chinese know that they are running against the clock to
modernize it's economy.
They're nowhere near as energy efficient in their manufacturing
processes and they are burning through their profits to build a big enough energy
infrastructure to meet the economic growth needs.
SinoPec is already partnered with ArAmCo
and Exxon to build refineries in China which means those Western Companies are already
raiding the Chinese treasure chest. GM and Walmart aren't selling their products for free,
either. In other words, China has been caught in the global economic web and they're going to
get played just like everybody else.
Does the US not suffer a serioius political Catch 22? You could clean up much of the
excessive influence of money for campaigning and the targeting of self-interest simply to get
people to bother to vote by adopting the compulsory voting which means that, in Australia,
about 90 per cent of those eligible do vote. But what would it do to actual policy when you
have such a high proportion of poorly educated and ethnically disaffected poor people with
existing entitlements which cause resentment amongst what was once middle America?
And here is an issue for serious empirical study. Why should a great concentration of
wealth in the hands of the 1 per cent, or 5 per cent, or 0.1 per cent matter? It is perfectly
clear that the very very rich don't consume significantly more of anything scarce or
particularly valuable unless one counts the economically painless transfer or Titians and
Tintorettos from one billionaired to another before ending up in a public gallery. It is
obviously not impossible for a large super-rich class to so indulge themselves in competitive
display by building palatial residences, private airstrips and golf courses and so on, that
their country's economy is starved of attention and capital. But any suggestion that such a
situation is to be found in the US needs to be demonstrated. It seems more likely that high
taxes and regulatory burdens are adding so much to the cost of doing business in the US and
even driving entrepreneurs to set up elsewhere, so that the owners of capital are not
deploying it to the greatest advantage of US citizens. Yet that hypothesis doesn't stand well
with the number of Australian software entrepreneurs who leave a country where it is very
easy and quick to start a business doesn't have too punitive a tax regime to start or restart
in California where public finances are such a threatening mess.
If the US then is still a good place to deploy one's capital in order to make a lot of
money (and not do it entirely by Wall Street fiddles) and there are large concentrations of
wealth which means large concentrations of investable capital what is the problem? Clearly it
is what is being done to the average American of no special talent, intelligence, education
or skill whose income is no longer supported by the advantages America had for many years
after WW2 and is being suppressed by high immigration. To an outsider it is slightly less
clear that the situation is made almost intolerable for the squeezed middle classes by tax
burdens which are not fairly born by the very rich. It is perhaps a little more certain that
the cost of living of the squeezed middle, including the absurdly high costs of health care,
are inflated damagingly by the transfer payments to the under classes and elderly poor which
don't give much benefit to the working poor unless one puts a high value on the contribution
of their state sales taxes to the keeping of aggressive or hopeless young males in prison
..
China is not to blame for America's decline, America has to face its own ghosts; the 15
trillion dollars debt, the unemployment, inequality, huge military spending, endless wars that
is what you have to confront.
Blaming others for Americas decline is not the solution. Be A man america and pick
yourself,learn from your mistakes and move on
Another blogger jumping on the bandwagon. So easy to say using numbers without any
understanding that numbers don't rule the world – to the dismay of mathematicians
everywhere.
None of this takes into account that most of China's population lives in poverty. And if
our own "War on Poverty" taught us anything is that their poor will remain poor for a very
long time.
There's also no consideration that China is [still] a Communist country. This
experiment simply gained them a bypass in the militarization highway. They needed to up their
might quicker.
It doesn't take into consideration that their 5,000yo culture doesn't
celebrate individuality -never has- and this means the creativity needed to push forth on the leaderboard is nonexistent. In fact, the most creative Chinese are those that come to the
USA. You can't lead by proxy.
I am not amazed that the China-uber-allez belief is a conservative thing. Just by
definition they cannot forecast the future. The future is full of X factors. X is at the core
of America. Your insular perspective of what this nation is all about and what makes it tick
make you the LAST ones who will decide where this country goes. I know you're just dying to
sell it to someone else before the price goes down. But you, and some of your commentors,
have no idea the self-contained power America holds.
PS: having lived in third world countries I can give you a warning if you're thinking of
moving to Costa Rica or similar places. The people there don't like loaded-freeloaders. Most
of your retirement will be spent on security. And just wait 'til you get your first
emergency. Seriously, you're going to be waiting a good while. America still has the best
GOVERNMENTAL services in the WORLD. Ouch I said the "G" word. Little known secret:
Libertarians don't turn down fast rides to the hospital.
Never was a piece written so needed to be read. We are a one party country. We are totally
failed by our media for the "most" part. God how is Corzine walking around . Why did no one
on MSNBC challenge Obama on pulling out of Iraq. The Democratic Party promised in 96 if they
got control of both Houses of Congress they would end Iraq. Where are you MSNBC, Ed, Rachel,
"Mathews forget Mathews he's been in ther tank for either Party in the White House for years"
and the loser on at 10 I can't even remember his name.
Then the Attorney General has he arrested anybody? His only claim to work is the ridiculous
suit again Sheriff Arpaio. Holder is beyond doubt the worst AG in decades.
Also finally again
someone stated the wealth of the upper 1% compared to the bottom 95% . It is time to throw
the bums out in both parties. Obama has got to go we need change even if it fails like him. We
are in sad shape how many know friends working endless hours of over time not to be payed for
it or hanging on not sure if their job will be there next Monday. It's sad how did they
ruined our Country. Buchanan is canned for his book, because it's racist give me a break.
Pathetic!!!
Interesting comments from folks. As one who left the U.S. in dismay and disgust at the depths
to which the George W. Bush administration dragged the U.S. and at his election (not
re-election since he was not elected in 2000 but appointed by the Supreme Court) in 2004 and
one who returned a year ago mostly due to the hope engendered by Obama's election, I tend to
be more optimistic about the U.S. but only if we are able to challenge the dark forces that
keep the majority of U.S. voters in a state of ignorance and anxiety.
The main challenge
right now, as I see it, is to get a constitutional amendment passed that overturns the
"Corporations are people, money is free speech" absurd court rulings as, if these are left to
stand, will destroy the U.S. faster than a thermonuclear attack. The U.S. has overcome
adversity before. We tend to solve problems pretty well when we know what they are and when
we're agreed upon what they are. Right now, folks are puzzled and confused about the way
forward. And the small size of Obama's successes are a testament not to failings on his part
but to the appalling state of the system in which he's forced to operate and the enormous
power of forces much bigger than he is. We are ruled by unelected corporations whose Boards
pre-select candidates from whom we elect 'freely'.
We are all responsbible for allowing the
system to deteriorate this far and for allowing its continuation. But America has come
through before why all the doom and gloom now? As an aside, I agree with those who see our
continuing and increasing diversity and large-scale immigration as our greatest strengths and
these should be nurtured and treasured, not feared. Nobody ever moved forward from a position
of fear. Fear can only lead us backward.
Funnily enough, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and and a score of European nations managed to build
First World economies with negligible diversity. It's also rather peculiar that the much less
diverse "America" of decades past had a much stronger economy than does modern day America,
or that non-diverse China is progressing economically much, much faster than insanely diverse
India.
It's almost as if diversity is utterly and completely worthless. I wonder why that is
China 91% "Han", 9% Other (Korean, TIbetan, & 53 others comprising a total population
of 105 million people)
Languages: 7 major language groups (Jin, Wu, Yue, Min, Xiang, Hakka, Gan) comprising hundreds
of dialects and sub-languages
USA 80% White, 12% Black, 8% Other
Languages: 82% English, 10% Spanish, 8% Other
So it seems to me that the USA is only slightly more "diverse" than China in percentage
terms when you spell things out in terms of Black and White. However, looking at the cultural
variations and especially language, it becomes quite clear that the designation of "Han
Chinese" is as meaningful or meaningless as the designation "White American."
I agree however that a nation unable to cope with its own diversity and the challenges it
presents by discarding bigotry is doomed to failure.
You might be interested to mention next time that China has overtaken the United States in
patent filings, utility model patents, industrial design patents, trade mark filings, as well
as scientific paper publications.
Hi Ron. That was yet another outstanding overview and analysis. Well done!
You have provided your readers a very nuanced view of the countless variables – some
intangible, many virtually invisible – that propel a civilization forward, or even over a
cliff. There's much to contemplate here. Thank you!
What makes a state fall is well described in "the rise and decline of great powers" and it is
related with spending money on missiles and the like.
When a state or country begins to spend
more money than the amount she gets in return for the expenses, she is doomed. perhaps America will retain much of her power but she is doomed as far as i understand.
A great analysis. The decline of the US and the rest of the west reminds me of the Fall of
the Roman Empire, but I'll have to a little bit more reading to back that up.
And by the way: Remember to be a little bit proud every day of the way you are spending
your money. Sites like this is increasingly important in the Age of Misinformation.
Wow! only four comments! This is an eye opening essay.
Our elite are lawyers and they manipulate, China's elite are engineers and they build
things.
Three trillion on Bush's stupid wars('fought for completely irrational reasons") and our non
participating(no draft) populace quietly went along with the entire show!
Why?
Mr. Unz said, "And since we live in a entertainment-dominated society, sentiments affirmed on
then screen often have direct real-world consequences."
Double Wow or bow-wow, great point!
I also think we are encouraged NOT to participate in the Democratic process as that seems
'angry.' We are shown that in our entertainment.
People who complain about the way-things-are-now are party p0opers and impolite. The first
media approved reaction is to scoff and then shun them.
I also think the only safe topic 0f conversation around the water cooler is sports. Again, no
politics allowed, unless you are an approved victim. But generally the major league sports of
baseball, football and basketball are THE only thing you can talk about publicly, on which
you can safely agree. The racial divisions we have created with our blessed multiculturalism,
have starkly different interests and the differences are too real in the workplace to discuss
them so we all act like Putnam's turtles and talk NFL training camp lingo.
As long as our GDP increases one per cent a year and six-packs of beer are available for Joe
Six-pack, everything will be fine, but if the increase turns to a decrease watch out!
"Sweden is among the cleanest societies in Europe, while Sicily is perhaps the most corrupt.
But suppose a large clan of ruthless Sicilian Mafiosi moved to Sweden and somehow managed to
gain control of its government. On a day-to-day basis, little would change, with Swedish
traffic policemen and building inspectors performing their duties with the same sort of
incorruptible efficiency as before, and I suspect that Sweden's Transparency International
rankings would scarcely decline. But meanwhile, a large fraction of Sweden's accumulated
national wealth might gradually be stolen and transferred to secret Cayman Islands bank
accounts, or invested in Latin American drug cartels, and eventually the entire plundered
economy would collapse."
It's happening in Sweden, unfortunately.
In Iceland, it already happened, over a very short span of time. But the Icelandic native
populace literally ejected them corporally from the govt. buildings, and now the heads of the
major banks have been criminally sentenced and imprisoned, Iceland has the only PM to have
been criminally convicted in the financial crisis. Dire predictions by other mafiosi of
economic meltdown as a consequence of the "too big to fail" going to jail have yet to
materialise, Iceland is doing fine.
Some of the sources of Chinese success and American decay are not entirely mysterious.
As it happens, the typical professional background of a member of China's political elite
is engineering; they were taught to build things. Meanwhile, a remarkable fraction of
America's political leadership class attended law school, where they were trained to argue
effectively and to manipulate. Thus, we should not be greatly surprised that while China's
leaders tend to build, America's leaders seem to prefer endless manipulation, whether of
words, money, or people.
Great stuff.
It's also noticeable that when China creates a "crisis" it's by building new land, whereas
the US creates crises by fomenting strife and bombing. Construction versus destruction seems
to be a theme.
The "Chinese dragon" of the last two decades may be faltering but it is still hailed by
many as an economic miracle.
Far from a great advance for Chinese workers, however, it is the
direct result of a consolidation of power in the hands of a small clique of powerful
families, families that have actively collaborated with Western financial oligarchs.
"The Rockefellers and Rothschilds in China :a long intimate relationship" :
"The history of Wall Street and Anglo-American finance in China is one that is rarely
discussed in Western media or even academia , whereas knowing it would explain much about
both China's stunning economic rise over the past 70 years ,as well as seemingly rising
tensions between China and the US today."
I must say Ron made many good points and predictions in his article of several years ago.
America has been a clown world of a one-party political system since the end of WWII.
Never before has it been so obvious we have a government of, by, and for the rich
corporate kleptocrat's who control every aspect of life in this country.
As far as Europe is concerned, the differentiation between the two sides of imperialism
looks relevant. However, with respect to the third world, such as India, the Middle East
and Central and South America, do you think the difference between the two types of
imperialism is valid?
It looks as if every Empire has a different history and characteristics.
The British Empire didn't even regard itself as an empire until the 19th century. Before
that, it was a mixed bag of territories and trading posts around the world with plenty of
alliances with local leaders. British settlers went to America, Canada, Australia, South
Africa and New Zealand, but few went to India, Africa or the Middle East (mostly only
administrators in these places).
The thirteen American colonies were concerned with settlement, looking for "Lebensraum" in
the south and west while eliminating native Indian tribes. This was the same as Hitler's
"drive to the east" but as far as I can see, the idea of the USA being an Empire didn't
arrive until after WW2 when Anglo-Americans found that they were the world's premier
industrial and financial power (it helped that everywhere else was destroyed).
The Zionist Empire (1985+?) exists in the shell of the Anglo-American Empire, and exerts
its power through having subverted the power structure. It now directs US financial affairs,
the US media, controls politics and directs foreign policy. Israel on its own is not much
(about the same population as Scotland). The Zionist US empire also includes settlements. The
6 million Jews in the US regard themselves as permanent US settlers (the US is their country)
and don't have plans to move to Israel when they retire.
Both the Anglo-US empire and the Zionist-US empire are/were harsh in enforcing their
interests on less developed nations and the 3rd world (organizing coups etc.).
The British Empire was less aggressive (after its settlement phase), and it's
administrators were also notably uncorrupt, learnt local languages and made a genuine effort
to develop native administrative skills – although it's very unfashionable to say so
nowadays.
This is part of Tom's description of the Article on Pompeo, Esper and the gang of 1986
(west pointers). They are well embedded. In fact, one class from West Point, that of 1986, from which both Secretary of Defense
Mark Esper and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo graduated, is essentially everywhere in a
distinctly militarized (if still officially civilian) and wildly hawkish Washington in the
Trumpian moment.
In case you missed it the first time, I repeat this link from the beginning of April,
-----------------
Red Ryder | Apr 27 2020 17:07 utc | 14
One addition there. The EU lost "market share" in Iran due to US sanctions. (As
they did with Russia). What they would like to do is to get it back. (France was one
of the bigger losers)
The US is very good at making enemies and loosing friends, simply due to their treatment of
other nations in the same manner they treat their domestic population.
The United States announced its withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action
(JCPOA), also known as the "Iran nuclear deal" or the "Iran deal", on May 8, 2018.
This document discusses the legal rationale for the US withdrawal from tje JCPOA in
detail:
"... I guess when an administration has shown over and over again that it does not respect, international law, domestic law, the US constitution, logic, meaning or the English Language then it can say anything and do anything. ..."
"... The power of the United States is rapidly fading. The country is on the eve of a massive social crisis, as its ruling class fails even to understand the extent of the system's failure. ..."
"... Israel is nobody's real need. Zionism is a philosophical oddity stranded by the tides of history, a mid Victorian nonsense entirely composed of racism and silly ideas about human inequality. ..."
... is that akin to the portion of a George Carlin comedy sketch ?
"From 1778 to 1871, the United States government
entered into more than 500 treaties with
the Native American tribes; all of these treaties have since been violated
in some way or outright broken by the US government,
while at least one treaty was violated
or broken by Native American tribes."
The EU rapprochement with Iran is all about the huge market the EU wants. Their interest in
the JCPOA was always about Iran developing, and the EU benefiting for its trade and
investment potential.
Crippling Iran again with snapback sanctions certainly would end Iran-EU relations for a
decade or longer.
With the EU economy in the toilet due to the pandemic, now more than ever the EU needs
Iran free of sanctions, not laden with crippling new ones.
Only one country benefits from the economic strangulation of Iran--Israel.
In these times of memory holes, sometimes it pays to remember:
As much as I'd like to be optimistic that justice might actually be served for both
Epstein and his myriad clients/co-conspirators, I think the powers-that-be will again
squash this - or liquidate Epstein - before things get out of hand for them.
The American justice system has been corrupted in much the same way the political
system has been, and it's primary objective is to protect the rulers from the common
folk, not to actually deliver true justice.
I'll watch with anticipation, but I haven't had any satisfaction from either a
political or justice perspective since at least the 2000 coup d'etat, so I won't hold my
breath this time.
Economist Michael Hudson explains how American imperialism has created a global free lunch,
where the US makes foreign countries pay for its wars, and even their own military
occupation.
This is part of Tom's description of the Article on Pompeo, Esper and the gang of 1986
(west pointers). They are well embedded. In fact, one class from West Point, that of 1986, from which both Secretary of Defense
Mark Esper and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo graduated, is essentially everywhere in a
distinctly militarized (if still officially civilian) and wildly hawkish Washington in the
Trumpian moment.
In case you missed it the first time, I repeat this link from the beginning of April,
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/176686/tomgram%3A_danny_sjursen%2C_trump%27s_own_military_mafia_/
-----------------
Red Ryder | Apr 27 2020 17:07 utc | 14
One addition there. The EU lost "market share" in Iran due to US sanctions. (As
they did with Russia). What they would like to do is to get it back. (France was one
of the bigger losers)
Before any aggression, the United States want Iran to be hermetically sealed with sanction
just like Iraq was before our invasion. Everybody knows the US's intentions because we've
seen it before. There will be NO domestic support for war on Iran as Americans die due to
no public healthcare and massive unemployment and poverty. Iran and the Middle East view a
war on Iran as an Israeli wet dream. Israel is viewed as the intellectual author of
aggression against Iran, and Iran will respond appropriately. So, is AIPAC willing to get
Israel destroyed? Is AIPAC on a suicide mission? Looks that way.
Israel and Saudi Arabia are de facto allies aiming to carve up the entire Middle East
between them. Forget about Sunni / Shia / Hebrew, that is a manufactured excuse to war for
resources (oil first, then water).
Proof? Mutual "enemies" (oil-rich Iran and Syria, which is the nexus for pipelines) and
mutual ally (Uncle Sam). Also not a single complaint from Israel over the $100b US-Saudi
Arms deal. As to Palestine, that is a human rights issue and has no weight because water is
not recognized as a strategic resource (yet).
I guess when an administration has shown over and over again that it does not respect,
international law, domestic law, the US constitution, logic, meaning or the English
Language then it can say anything and do anything.
"The Iranians are not helping the Palestinians one iota. They are splitting the
opposition."
Glasshopper@29
Whoever has been helping Hezbollah has been helping the Palestinians. And whoever has
been holding Syria together, despite the pressure of the imperialists and their sunni-state
puppets, has also been helping the Palestinians by bringing some kind of balance into
regional power calculations.
It is imperative that Iran continues not only to provide political support to the
Palestinian cause but to democratise the Gulf, to the extent of bringing about the demise
of the autocracies, and the Arabian world generally.
Israel has already exerted its maximum influence. The power of the United States is
rapidly fading. The country is on the eve of a massive social crisis, as its ruling class
fails even to understand the extent of the system's failure. (There will be no war to
divert attention from the crisis.) And Israel will be left to solve its own problems as its
'allies' find themselves increasingly pre-occupied with real problems.
Supporting Israel and building it up as an imperialist base has been part of an era in
which the empire was hegemonic and thus able to define international events in terms of
domestic politics.
That era has ended. The USA is still powerful but it is no longer anything more than one
of the major participants in geopolitical competition. Even to maintain its position it is
going to have to do, what other powers have done and concentrate its resources on its real
needs.
Israel is nobody's real need. Zionism is a philosophical oddity stranded by the
tides of history, a mid Victorian nonsense entirely composed of racism and silly ideas
about human inequality. Israel has one choice, to divest itself of its fascist
government and its fascistic culture and seek accommodation within the neighbourhood or to
wither away as its population emigrates leaving only the committed fascists to play with
Armageddon.
Long before that happens the imperialists will have taken its weapons away from it.
It may very well be the case that the ordinary Iranian is no more committed to fighting
on behalf of Palestinians than the average American is committed to risking all, or
anything, for the sake of Israel. But Iran's commitment to Palestine is a powerful
political statement and one that counters the divisive tactics of the wahhabis and their
imperial friends. Iran has taken up the mantle that Nasser briefly wore, in the vanguard of
a muslim and Arab nationalist movement. This makes it very difficult for the sunni tyrants
actually to commit forces to defend Israel or attack Iran. Their duplicity is a measure of
their own weakness.
Does anyone imagine that the pro-Israeli policies pursued by the Sauds are actually
popular? The Gulf and Saudi policies of sucking up to Israel are far more damaging to them
than Iran's stance is to it.
The United States announced its withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action
(JCPOA), also known as the "Iran nuclear deal" or the "Iran deal", on May 8, 2018.
This document discusses the legal rationale for the US withdrawal from tje JCPOA in
detail:
Iran should sign a peace deal with the Israelis.
Posted by: Glasshopper | Apr 27 2020 16:42 utc | 8
Some people should stick to what they do well, like hopping on glass. A simple
observation: peace deal with "the Israelis" is not possible. Gulfie princes tried. No
cigar. They genuinely tried to be nice with Israel, out of "anti-Semitic delusion that Jews
control USA". I conjecture that Glasshopper made a similar assumption -- why would Iran
consider a "peace deal with the Israelis" if its direct conflict is with USA (and the
Gulfies)? How it would help them unless "Jews control USA"?
As a mental experiment, let Grasshopper sketch a putative "deal with Israelis". Kushner
plan?
@70 BraveNewWorld, you haven't added up the numbers correctly. Take China, Russia and Iran
out of the equation leaves you with five (including the EU as a whole, which is not a
given). Take the USA out as well and it doesn't matter how sycophantic the Europeans are,
Pompeo can only muster four votes.
And he needs five to refer the issue to the UNSC.
That's why Pompous wants to waddle his way back in: no matter which way he looks at
this, without the USA sitting at the table he is one-short.
Actually, I've just read the JCPOA and UNSC Resolution 2231 and neither has any mention of
a "majority vote" requirement for a referral to the UNSC for a vote on "snapping back"
sanctions. It appears that any one JCPOA participant can refer the issue of alleged
non-compliance to the UNSC, provided that they first exhaust the Joint Commission dispute
mechanism.
But I do note this in the JCPOA (my bold): "Upon receipt of the notification from the
complaining participant, as described above, including a description of the good-faith
efforts the participant made to exhaust the dispute resolution process specified in this
JCPOA , the UN Security Council, in accordance with its procedures, shall vote on a
resolution to continue the sanctions lifting"
Seems to me that there is a procedural "out" there for the UN Secretariat i.e. it may
use that highlighted section to decide that the participant is a vexatious litigant whose
participation in the Joint Commission was not in good faith, ergo, the UN can refuse to
even take receipt of the complaint.
Everything else then becomes moot.
The USA would raise merry-hell, sure, it would. But that would be no more outrageous a
ploy by the UN than was the USA's own argument that it can have its cake and eat it
too.
After all, if a participant to the JCPOA referred its complaint to the UNSC without
first going through the Joint Commission then it is a given that the UNSC is under no
obligation to receive that complaint. No question.
So why can't the UNSC also refuse to accept a complaint when it is clear that the
complainant has not gone through the Joint Commission process in "good faith"?
One for the lawyers and ambassadors to argue, I would suggest, but it is not a given
that the USA can ram this through even if everyone were to agree that it were still a
participant in the JCPOA.
@61 Arch: "This document discusses the legal rationale for the US withdrawal from tje JCPOA
in detail"
Arch, the crux of that CRS legal paper boils down to this:
.."under current domestic law, the President may possess authority to terminate U.S.
participation in the JCPOA and to re-impose U.S. sanctions on Iran, either through
executive order or by declining to renew statutory waivers"..
All the other fluff in that paper is inconsequential compared to this question posed by
that quote: can the US claim to be half-pregnant?
I suspect not.
Note that at the time the CRS paper was written (May 2018) it did have a valid point
i.e. while Trump *had* refused to re-certify Iranian compliance, he had *not* reimposed US
sanctions on Iran, and so the CRS paper could credibly argue that Trump wasn't pregnant, he
just talking dirty to the Congress.
But that was then, and this is now, and - as b points out - Executive Order 13846 is the
smoking gun because in it Trump is OFFICIALLY stating that he has decided to " cease the
participation of the United States in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action ".
That EO is clearly the killing blow to Pompeo's nonsense, and even the CRS legal paper
you linked to would agree.
As I see it, the historical problem with European fascism has been that when push comes to
shove the knife comes out and its either give in to enforced collaboration or take a
stabbing, it's your choice. Even if that means helping murder millions of your neighbours
or being murdered. As Celan said "Der Tod ist ein Meister aus Deutschland."
The US has been enforcing a morally sanitised Disney Adult version of this old world
order since at least the 2003 Supreme Crime of Aggression against Iraq. Sooner or later as
this global pandemic, political, and financial crisis unfolds, the US leaders will be
forced to choose whether or not the UN is a viable vehicle through which to continue the
elite lunatic project for planetary full spectrum dominance of 21st C financial and
military affairs.
So I reckon the Pentagon at some point either gets to finally execute the long awaited
'Operation Conquer Persia' or the politicians and their chickenhawk ideologues will back
off again and continue the death by a thousand cuts of the last 40 years. I'd probably bet
the latter but that's the trouble with genuine psychopaths, push comes to shove they will
go for it if they think they'll get away with it.
This last 2 decades has been like watching a reality TV series about a fat drunken
psychopath with a bloody knife going around and stabbing people at a party, but now the
psycho is starting to stagger and everyone in the house is watchful trying to keep their
distance. House rules are that anyone starts an actual fight to the death with the psycho
then everyone dies!
I more or less trust that if we ever get there, a multipolar world order won't collapse
into outright fascism but we're closer to collapse every year, especially from this year
on, and most especially in the Persian Gulf.
In current US political system, it is not necessary to propose a valid claim, or proposal
or argument - they intend to act from a position of authority. They know where you live.
I am a retired Teamster in Syracuse, New York, who joined the civil rights, antiwar, and
environmental movements as a teenager in the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1960s. In 1984, I
co-founded the Green Party. In 2010, I was the first U.S. candidate to campaign for a Green
New Deal in the first of three campaigns for New York governor that won Green Party ballot
lines.
To end the climate crisis, I have detailed an Ecosocialist Green New Deal to create 38
million new jobs, 100% clean energy, and zero carbon emissions by 2030.
To end poverty and economic insecurity, I propose an Economic Bill of Rights: job
guarantee, guaranteed minimum income, affordable housing, improved Medicare for all,
tuition-free public education pre–K to college, and secure retirement by doubling
Social Security.
To end endless wars, I support 75% military spending cuts, U.S. troops home, diplomacy,
international law, human rights, and a Global Green New Deal.
To end the new nuclear arms race, I favor no first use, minimum credible deterrent, and
ratification of the new Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty.
I support unions, $20 minimum wage, worker co-ops, public banks, public energy, public
railroads, progressive taxation, net neutrality, internet privacy, ending mass surveillance,
no nukes, no fracking, abortion rights, student and medical debt relief, decriminalizing
drugs, ending mass incarceration, police under community control, immigrant amnesty,
African-American reparations, Indian and Mexican-American treaty rights, whistleblower and
political prisoner pardons, and presidential elections by National Popular Vote using
Ranked-Choice Voting. [Ranked Choice Voting is a huge fraud -- which many well-meaning people
fall for]
// ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Economist Michael Hudson explains how American imperialism has created a global free lunch,
where the US makes foreign countries pay for its wars, and even their own military
occupation.
Max Blumenthal and Ben Norton discuss the economics of Washington's empire, the role of the
IMF and World Bank, attempts to create alternative financial systems like BRICS, and the new
cold war on China and Russia.
PART 2 OF 2 (Interview recorded on April 13, 2020)
MICHAEL HUDSON: The World Bank has one primary aim, and that's to make other countries
dependent on American agriculture. This is built into its articles of agreement. It can only
make foreign-currency loans, so it will only make loans to countries for agricultural
development, roads, if it is to promote exports.
So the United States, through the World Bank, has become I think the most dangerous,
right-wing, evil organization in modern history -- more evil than the IMF. That's why it's
almost always been run by a Secretary of Defense. It has always been explicitly military. It's
the hard fist of American imperialism.
Its idea is to make Latin American, and African, and Asian countries export plantation crops
, especially plantations that are U.S.- or foreign-owned. The primary directive of the World
Bank to countries is: "You must not feed yourself; you must not grow your own grain or your own
food; you must depend on the United States for that. And you can pay for that by exporting
plantation crops."
(Intro – 1:45)
BEN NORTON: Here at Moderate Rebels we talk a lot about imperialism. I mean it's really the
main point of this show. This program explores how US imperialism functions, how it works on
the global stage, how neoliberal policies of austerity and privatization are forced at the
barrel of a gun through the US military, through invasion and plunder.
We talk about it in Venezuela, Iraq, Syria and so many countries. But we often don't talk
about the specific economic dynamics of how it works through banks, loans, and bonds.
Well, today we are continuing our discussion with the economist Michael Hudson, who is
really one of the best experts in the world when it comes to understanding how US imperialism
functions as an economic system, not just through a system of military force. Of course the
economics are maintained and undergirded by that military force. And we talk about how the
military force is expressed through regime-change wars and military interventions.
But Michael Hudson also explains how the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, the
US financial system, banks and Wall Street all work together, hand in glove with the military
to maintain that financial chokehold.
He spells this all out brilliantly in a book called Super Imperialism: The Economic
Strategy of American Empire . He began to write that book in 1968, and then recently
updated it in 2002, published again in 2003 with the war in Iraq and the war in Afghanistan,
and kind of updated and showed how, even though the system that he detailed 50 years ago hasn't
really changed, it has shifted in some ways.
So today we're gonna talk about how that international imperialist system dominated by the
US works.
Michael Hudson, who in the first part of this talked about the scheme that is the
coronavirus bailout -- if you want to watch the first part you can go find that at moderaterebels.com ; it's on YouTube, Spotify,
iTunes, any other platform.
Michael Hudson is an economist and he's also a longtime Wall Street financial analyst. He is
also a professor of economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, and you can find his
work at michael-hudson.com , which I
will link to in the show notes for this episode.
So without further ado, here is the second part of our interview with Michael Hudson.
(4:37)
MAX BLUMENTHAL: I think it's a good transition point to talk about another kind of scam
you've identified. There's a really hilarious aside in the second preface to your book "Super
Imperialism," where Herman Kahn, who is, I think a founder of the Hudson Institute, which you
went to work for. He was also the inspiration for the Dr. Strangelove character and Stanley
Kubrick's film.
There's an award that the neocons give out every year named for him; Benjamin Netanyahu is a
recent award winner.
But Herman Kahn was he was on a panel for one of your talks, where you laid out your theory
of "Super Imperialism," and how the United States actually gets other countries to subsidize
its empire, and is able to expand and carry out this massive imperial project without having to
impose austerity on its own population, as other countries have to do under IMF control.
So Herman Kahn comes up to you after the talk and says, "You actually identified the rip-off
perfectly." And your book starts selling like hotcakes in DC, I guess among people who work for
the CIA, and people who work in the military-intelligence apparatus.
MICHAEL HUDSON: What he said was, "We've pulled off the greatest ripoff in history. We've
gone way beyond anything that British Empire ever thought of." He said, "That's a success
story. Most people think imperialism is bad; you've shown how it's the greatest success story
-- we get a free lunch forever!"
MAX BLUMENTHAL: Right. So explain the ripoff you identified there, and how it is being
perpetuated under the Trump administration in ways that I think are pretty amazing, including
through the imposition of unprecedented sanctions on something like one-third of the world's
population.
(6:40)
ORDER IT NOW
MICHAEL HUDSON: Well I wrote "Super Imperialism" in 1972, and it was published exactly one
year after President Nixon took America off gold in August of 1971. he reason he took America
off gold was that the entire balance-of-payments deficit from the Korean War to the Vietnam War
was military in character.
Especially in the '60s, the money that America was spending in Vietnam and Southeast Asia
had to be spent locally. And the banks were French banks, because it was French Indochina. So
all the money would be sent to Paris, to the banks' head offices, turned over from dollars into
francs, and General de Gaulle would end up with these dollars. Then every month he would send
the dollars and want payment in gold. And Germany would do the same thing.
So the more America fought militarily, it depleted its gold stock, until finally, in August
1971, it said, "We've been using gold as the key to our world power ever since World War I,
when we put Europe on rations. So we're going to stop paying gold."
They closed the gold window. And most of the economists were all saying, "Oh my heavens, now
it's going to be a depression." But I said, "Wait a minute, now that other countries can no
longer get gold from all this military spending" -- and when you talk about the
balance-of-payments deficit, it's not the trade deficit, it's not foreign investment; it's
almost entirely military in character.
So all this money that wasspent abroad, how are we ever going to get it back? Well, these
dollars we spend around the world, mainly for the 800 military bases and the other activities
we have, these dollars end up in foreign central banks.
The question is, what are these foreign central banks going to do with these dollar inflows?
Well we wouldn't let foreign central banks buy American industries. We would let them buy
stocks, but not become a majority owner.
A former mentor, the man who taught me all about the oil industry at Standard Oil, became
undersecretary of the Treasury for international affairs. When Herman Kahn and I went to the
White House, he said, "We've told the Saudi Arabians that they can charge whatever they want
for their oil, but all the money they get, they have to recycle to the United States. Mostly
they can buy Treasury bonds, so that we'll have the money to keep on spending." They could also
buy stocks, or they can do what the Japanese did and buy junk real estate and lose their
shirts.
So basically, when America spends money abroad, central banks really don't speculate. They
don't buy companies. They buy Treasury bonds. So we run a monetary deficit; the dollars are
spent abroad; the central banks lend them back to the Treasury; and that finances the budget
deficit, but it also finances the balance-of-payments deficit. So we just keep giving paper
IOUs, not gold
I think President George W. Bush said, "We're never really going to repay this. They get
counters, but we're not going to repay it." And then, as a matter of fact, you have Tom Cotton
a senator from [Arkansas] saying, "Well you know China holds savings of $2 trillion or so in US
Treasury bonds. Why don't we just not pay them? They gave us the virus; let just grab it and
nullify it."
We can nullify Iranian assets, Venezuelan assets -- it's like a bank can just wipe out other
deposits you have, if it wants militarily. So the United States doesn't have any constraint on
military spending, as it did uner the gold standard.
Now Herman Kahn and I on another occasion went to the Treasury Department, and we talked
about what the world would look like on a gold standard. I said, "Gold is a peaceful metal. If
you have to pay in gold, no country with a gold standard can afford to go to war anymore.
Because a war would entail a foreign exchange payment, and you'd have to pay this foreign
exchange in gold, not IOUs, and you would end up going broke pretty quickly."
Needless to say, someone from the Defense Department said, "That's why we're not going to do
it."
Here's an example: Let's suppose that you go to the grocery store and you buy food and then
sign an IOU for everything that you buy. You go to a liquor store, IOU. You buy a car, IOU.
You get everything you want just for an IOU. But when people try to collect the IOUs, you
say, "That IOU isn't for collecting from me. Trade it among yourselves. Think of it as your
savings, and trade it among yourselves. Treat it as an asset, just as you treat a dollar bill
saved in a cookie jar and not spent."
Well you'd get a free ride. You'd be allowed to go and write IOUs for everything, and nobody
could ever collect. That's what the United States position is, and that's what it wants to
keep.
And that's why China, Russia, and other countries are trying to de-dollarize, trying to get
rid of the dollar. They are buying gold so that they can settle payments deficits among
themselves in their own currency, or currencies of friendly countries, and avoid dollars
altogether.
(12:21)
BEN NORTON: Michael, in the first part of this interview, when we were talking about the
coronavirus bailout and the $6 trillion that were just basically given to Wall Street, you
mentioned that basically just a con scheme. But you said, really, that a lot of people are
surprised, that they don't think the system can work this way, because it just seems so
blatantly stacked against them, so blatantly unfair.
Your book Super Imperialism is so mind-blowing because, in simplistic terms to
someone who is definitely a non-expert like me, it just becomes so clear that, as you put it,
the US for decades, since the end of World War Two, has been really obtaining "the largest free
lunch ever achieved in history," the way you put it.
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I'm gonna read just two paragraphs here really quickly from your book, and then maybe ask
you to unpack exactly how this works. But right at the beginning -- and this is the updated
version of your book, and we'll link to your book in the show notes for this show. So anyone, I
would highly recommend anyone listening could go buy Super Imperialism .
MICHAEL HUDSON: I'm going to be republishing it through my own institute. It's very hard to
get the book; that's why I'm buying the rights back. It's really not marketed in this country
very much. So at any rate it's on my website, and you don't have to buy the book. You can go to
my website and get many of the chapters.
BEN NORTON: Excellent, well I'm gonna link to your website in the show notes that's
michael-hudson.com . And thank you for
putting that up, because I've been reading the PDF, and it's incredible.
So you write in the the introduction to the new updated version, which you wrote in 2002, on
the eve of the invasion of Iraq, you wrote:
"The Treasury bonds standard of international finance has enabled the United States to
obtain the largest free lunch ever achieved in history. America has turned the international
financial system upside down, whereas formerly it rested on gold, central bank reserves are now
held in the form of US government IOUs, that can be run up without limit.
"In effect America has been buying up Europe, Asia, and other regions with paper credit, US
Treasury IOUs that it has informed the world it has little intention of ever paying off.
"And there is little Europe or Asia can do about it except to abandon the dollar and create
their own financial system."
So this seems to me as an outsider to be totally insane, to be a total con scheme. Can you
explain how that scheme works, and especially in light of neoliberal economics?
I took, just in college, basic introductory economics classes that were mandatory,
especially microeconomics, and in those classes they teach you this neoliberal, libertarian
form of economics, and they teach you the famous Milton Friedman quote, "There is no such thing
in economics as a free lunch." But you're pointing out that actually, on the international
stage, this whole thing is a giant free lunch for the US empire.
(15:53)
MICHAEL HUDSON: The financial economy is basically a free lunch. And if you're going to get
a free lunch, then you protect yourself by saying there is no such thing as a free lunch.
Obviously it does not want to make itself visible. It wants to make itself as invisible as
possible.
Most of these countries in Asia get dollars from US military spending. They say, "What are
we going to do with the dollars?" They buy US Treasury bonds, which finance the military
spending on the military bases that encircle them. So they're financing their own military
encirclement!
It's a circular flow. The United States spends dollars in these countries; the local
recipients turn them over for local currency; the local currency recipients, the food sellers
and the manufacturers, turn the dollars over to the banks for domestic currency, which is how
they operate; and the dollars are sent back to the United States; and it's a circular flow that
is basically military in character.
The gunboats don't appear in your economics textbooks. I bet your price theory didn't have
gun boats in them, or the crime sector. And probably they didn't have debt in it either.
So if you have economics talking as if the whole economy consists of workers spending their
wages on goods and services; government doesn't play a role except to interfere. But government
is 40 percent of GDP, mainly military in character. So obviously, economics doesn't really talk
about what you think of the economy. It doesn't talk about society.
It talks about a very narrow segment that it isolates, as if we're talking about a small
organ in the body, without seeing the body as a whole economic system, an interrelated system
that is dominated and controlled by the finance and real estate sector, which also has gained
control of the government.
And the finance, insurance, and military-industrial complex make themselves invisible and
absent from the textbook, then people are not going to look there and ask, "How did that affect
our life? How does that affect the economy?" And they're not going to see what's making the
economy poor and pushing it into depression.
(18:11)
MAX BLUMENTHAL: Well I can't give out IOUs on everything, on my own debts, because when the
debt collector comes, I don't have gunboats; I don't have machine guns; I don't have any
gun.
I mean if I wanted to get a gun I couldn't get one, because they're all bought up in
Virginia, across the river, because you know everyone's panicking. And I'm sure they're
defending themselves by like having their guns accidentally go off and shoot their dogs.
But that's kind of what's missing as well from this theory is that, if people try to collect
their debt on the US, the US can do severe damage to them, militarily or otherwise.
Let's game this out. I mean how do you see this playing out in Venezuela, where the
Venezuelan government has tried to go around US sanctions, has tried to to work with Russia and
China to sell gold; it's had something like $5 billion of assets stolen by the US through sheer
piracy in the past year.
And now the US has dispatched I think more naval ships than we've seen in Latin America or
in South America at any time in the last 30 years.
(19:27)
MICHAEL HUDSON: Well that's the other part of "Super Imperialism": debt bondage. Venezuela
had a US-installed dictator, a right-winger, some years ago, and changed the law in Venezuela
so that Venezuela's sovereign debt, borrowsedin dollars, is backed by the collateral of its oil
reserves. And it has the largest oil reserves in South America.
So the United States wants to grab the oil reserves. Just as Vice President Cheney said
we're going into Iraq and Syria to grab the oil, America would like all these oil reserves in
Venezuela.
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How does it get them? Well, it doesn't have to technically invade. Finance is the new mode
of warfare. The US tried to grab these reserves by saying, "Let's block Venezuela from earning
the money by exporting the oil and earning the money from its US investments to pay the foreign
debt. So we're just going to grab the investment, and we're going to select a mini dictator.
We're going to give designate Mr. Guaidó as their head of state, and say, "This oil and
bank deposits don't belong to Venezuela; we're arbitrarily taking it away and we're giving the
oil distribution assets in North America to Guaidó. We're going to block Venezuela from
paying the debt."
That means it'll default on a foreign debt, so the vulture funds and bondholders can now
grab Venezuelan oil, anywhere, under international law, because it is pledged as collateral for
its debt, just as if you'd borrowed a mortgage debt and you'd pledged your home and the
creditor could take away your home, like Obama had so many people lose their homes.
But Venezuela still is managing to scrape by. So they may need a military force to invade
Venezuela, like Bush invaded Panama or Grenada. It's an oil grab. So what finance couldn't
achieve, finally you really do need the military fist. Finance is basically backed by military,
and domestically by force, by the sheriff, by the police department. It's the force needed to
kick you out of the house.
So the question is, what is the defense by the indebted people in America? Does there have
to be an armed revolution here to cancel the debts? Do they have to eat the rich? That's the
question shaping today's politics in America.
I don't see it being solved. If it is not solved by the indebted people simply starving to
death, committing suicide, getting sick or emigrating, then there will have to be a revolution.
Those are the choices in America.
Venezuela said, "We're not going to starve quietly in the dark." So there's a military
buildup pretending that it's all about drugs, when Venezuela is threatening to interrupt the
CIA's drug trade. I mean that's the irony of this! It's the CIA that's the drug dealer, not the
Venezuelan government. So we're in the Orwellian world that works through the organs or the New
York Times, the Washington Post, MSNBC, National Public Radio, the real right-wing of
America.
(23:00)
MAX BLUMENTHAL: I'm so glad you boiled it down like that. Because so much of what we do at
The Grayzone is to punch holes in the propaganda constructs that are used to basically provide
liberal cover for what is sheer gangsterism.
MICHAEL HUDSON: It's much more black and white than gray.
MAX BLUMENTHAL: Yeah well, we should call it The Black and White Zone.
We're seeing it as well in Syria, where we've had one kind of human rights propaganda
construct after another. And now at the end of the line, as the whole proxy war ends, Trump
says, "We have to keep the troops there because of oil. We need them to guard the oil
fields."
So it all becomes clear. But it's unclear to everyone who's been confused for the past
years, following the way that the war has been marketed to them through these corporate media
and US government publications that you just named. It's just, we're there for the oil.
BEN NORTON: Michael, I mean there are so many ways we could explore this topic further, and
hopefully we can have you back more often in the future, because we definitely need more
economics coverage. We frequently talk about the political side of a lot of these issues of US
imperialism, but of course the economic element is absolutely integral to understand what's
happening.
I'm also very interested, you mentioned before we started this interview, that your book
"Super Imperialism" is very popular in China, and that even in schools there people are reading
it. The question of China I think is the central question of this century -- the rise of China,
the so-called "threat" that China poses, in scare quotes, to the US. Of course China doesn't
threaten the American people, but rather the chokehold that the US has on the international
financial system.
And we have seen under Trump -- I mean it's been happening for years. It really actually
began under Obama with the "Pivot to Asia," and that was Hillary Clinton's State Department
strategy – to move toward the encirclement of China.
But now under Trump it has become the main foreign policy bogeyman of the Trump White House.
And especially now with coronavirus, every day the corporate media is full of non-stop
anti-china propaganda -- "China is the evil totalitarian regime that's going to take over the
world, and we have to unite with the Republicans in order to fight against China."
And we now even see figures openly defending the "new cold war," as they call it. They say
we're in a new Cold War, as the right-wing historian from Harvard Niall Ferguson put it in the
New York Times recently.
So I'm wondering, your book I think is even more relevant now than it was when you first
wrote it, it's so, so relevant. But what about the question of China? And what about the
question of this new cold war? Do you think that could challenge the US-dominated financial
system that was created after World War II, using the weapons of the World Bank and the IMF, as
you spell out? Are we heading maybe toward the creation of a new international financial
system?
(26:24)
MICHAEL HUDSON: What makes China so threatening is that it's following the exact, identical
policies that made America rich in the 19th century. It's a mixed economy. Its government is
providing basic infrastructure at subsidized prices to lower the cost of living and doing
business, so that its export industry can make money. It's subsidizing research and
development, just like the United States did in the 19th century and early 20th century.
So America basically says to the rest of the world, "Do as we say, not as we do, and not as
we've done."
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China has a mixed economy that is working very well. You can just see the changes occurring
there. It realizes that the United States is trying to disable it, that that the United States
wants to control all the sectors of production that have monopoly pricing -- information
technology, microchip technology, 5G communications, military spending.
The United States wants to be able to pay for goods from the rest of the world with
overpriced exports, American movies, anything that has a patent that yields a monopoly
price.
America, in the 1950s tried to fight China by sanctioning grain exports to China. You
mentioned sanctions earlier, the first sanctions were used against China, trying to starve them
with grain. Canada broke that embargo, and China was very friendly to Canada, until Canada's
prime minister now takes his orders from a small basement office in the Pentagon, and has
agreed to grab Chinese officials. Canada is not a country anymore. So China does not feel so
friendly towards Canada now that it's become a US satellite.
China realized that it can't depend on America for anything. The US can cut it off with
sanctions like it has tried to do with Iran, with Venezuela, with Cuba. So the idea of China,
Russia and other countries in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization has been: "We have to be
independent within ourselves, and make a Eurasian trading area, and we will take off because we
are successful industrial capitalism, evolving into socialism, into a mixed economy, with the
government handling all of the monopoly sectors to prevent monopoly pricing here."
"And we don't want American banks to come in, create paper dollars, and buy out all of our
industries. We're not going to let America do that."
(29:29)
I have gone back to China very often. I'm a professor at Peking University, and I have
honorary professorships in Wuhan.. There are a number of articles on my website from the
Chinese Academy of Social Sciences on de-dollarization, essentially how China can avoid the use
of the dollar by becoming independent in agriculture, technology, and banking.
China's threat of is that it will not be a victim. Victimizers always look at the victims as
vicious attackers of themselves. So America says China is a vicious threat because it's not
letting us exploit them and victimize them. This is the Orwellian rhetoric of the bully. The
bully always believes that the person he's attacking is a threat. Just like in Germany,
Goebbels said that their surefire way to mobilize the population behind any attack was to say,
"We're defending ourselves against foreign attack."
So you have the American attack on China pretending to be defense against their wanting to
be just as independent as the United States always has been. The United States doesn't want any
other country to have any leverage to use over the United States. The United States insists on
veto power in any organization that it'll join -- the World Bank, the IMF, the United
Nations.
And China essentially says, ok, this is the very definition of national independence, to be
independent from other countries able to choke us, whether it's a grain that we need, or
technology, or the SWIFT interbank clearing system to make our financial system operate, or the
internet system.
By waging this economic warfare against China to protect America monopolies, America is
integrating China and Russia. And probably the leading Chinese nationalist in the world, the
leading Russian nationalist, is Donald Trump. He's saying, "Look boys, I know that you're
influenced by American neoliberals. I'm gonna help you. I believe that you should be
independent. I'm gonna help you Chinese, Russians and Iranians to be independent. I'm going to
keep pushing sanctions on agriculture to make sure that you're able to feed yourself. I'm gonna
push sanctions on technology, to make sure that you can defend yourself." So he obviously is a
Chinese and Russian agent, just like MSNBC says.
(32:09)
BEN NORTON: Yeah and Michael, this actually reminds me, I used to follow you regularly at
The Real News, and I worked there for a bit, and unfortunately there was kind an internal coup
there, and it has moved to the right a bit.
But the point is, a few years ago at The Real News, I remember you did an amazing debate
between you and the Canadian economist Leo Panitch, and it was about the nature of the BRICS
system.
This was before the series of coups that that overthrew the left in Brazil and installed the
fascist government now of Jair Bolsonaro, a right-wing extremist. And at the time there was
Dilma Rousseff, a progressive from the Workers' Party. Brazil and Russia were helping to take
the lead in the BRICS system. This is Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa.
And of course the series of coups in Brazil, kind of ended that project of South-South
regional integration. And also the rise of the right-wing, the far-right, in India with
Narendra Modi.
But there was a moment there when the BRICS community, these countries were trying to build
their own bank. China of course has a series of banks. You mentioned the Shanghai Cooperation
Organization. So there have been these international institutions, multilateral institutions,
created to kind of challenge the hegemony of the World Bank and the IMF.
I remember in that debate, Leo Panitch was arguing that, "Oh, the BRICS system and the
Shanghai Cooperation Organization, all these institutions are just going to be the new form of
neoliberalism. They're just going to replace the World Bank and implement many of the same
policies." You disagreed with that.
So maybe can you kind of relitigate that debate here a little bit and just kind of
articulate your position for our viewers?
(34:08)
MICHAEL HUDSON: The World Bank has one primary aim, and that's to make other countries
dependent on American agriculture. This is built into its articles of agreement. It can only
make foreign currency loans, so it will only make loans to countries for agricultural
development, roads, if it is to promote exports.
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So the United States, through the World Bank, has become I think the most dangerous,
right-wing, evil organization in modern in history -- more evil than the IMF. That's why it's
almost always been run by a secretary of defense. It has always been explicitly military. It's
the hard fist of American imperialism.
Its idea is to make Latin American, and African, and Asian countries export plantation crops
, especially plantations that are US or foreign owned. The primary directive of the World Bank
to countries is: "You must not feed yourself; you must not grow your own grain or your own
food; you must depend on the United States for that. And you can pay for that by exporting
plantation crops that can't be grown in temperate zones like the United States."
So China and Russia are not really agricultural economies. The buttress of America's trade
balance has been agriculture, not industry. Obviously, we de-industrialized. Agriculture, since
World War II, has been the foundation of the trade balance.
The US demands foreign dependency on its grain, technology and finance. The purpose of the
World Bank is to make other countries' economies distorted and warped to a degree that they are
dependent on the United States for their trade patterns.
BEN NORTON: Well Michael, isn't it also true though that China has massive agricultural
production, and Russia produces a lot of wheat, right?
(36:14)
MICHAEL HUDSON: Sure, but it doesn't have to base its exports on agriculture to African
countries. It can afford having African countries growing their own food supply so that they
won't have to buy American food.
Imagine, if China helps other countries grow their own food and grain, then America's trade
surplus evaporates. Because that's the main advantage that America has, agribusiness.
BEN NORTON: Yeah it's like that famous quote: If you give a man a fish, he'll eat for one
day; if you teach a man to fish, he'll eat for the rest of his life. And then I think Marx,
didn't Marx complicate that?
MICHAEL HUDSON: But if you lend them the money to buy a fish, then he ends up bankrupt and
you get to grab up all his property.
MAX BLUMENTHAL: Yeah I mean we saw this play out clearly in Haiti.
MICHAEL HUDSON: Yeah, that's the typical -- what America has when it has a free a reign,
that's exactly the Haiti story. That's absolutely terrible. It's depressing to read.
I get cognitive dissonance, because it's just so unfair. It's so awful to read; I avert my
eyes from the page.
MAX BLUMENTHAL: Yeah I mean just observing all of this is what kind of brought me to the
point where I concluded that there had to be another international financial system, when I saw
how Haiti was brought to its knees. First with the School of the Americas graduates staging a
coup, and Bill Clinton reinstalls Jean-Bertrand Aristide. It all takes place under the guise of
goodwill by Washington. But Aristide is forced to sign off, basically sign away Haiti's
domestic agricultural production capacity. And the next thing you know, their rice economy's
wiped out, and they're importing rice from Louisiana.
And the only economy left, the only economic opportunity left, is to work in these free
trade zones for US companies. That's just the model writ large. It helped lead to the next
coup, that removed Aristide, and look where Haiti is today.
MICHAEL HUDSON: Right, it means, you must not protect your own economy; only America can
protect its own economy. But you must not. That's free trade, US-style.
(38:45)
MAX BLUMENTHAL: Right, going back to the JFK Seeds of Peace program. It's big agro
subsidies, and then you bomb the Third World with cheap seeds and cheap goods, and then you
have a migration crisis.
MICHAEL HUDSON: Seeds for Starvation is what the program is known as. Because by giving a
low price of foreign aid to these countries, they prevented domestic agricultural development,
because no farmer could compete with free crops that America was giving. The purpose of the
Seeds for Starvation program was to prevent countries from feeding themselves, and to make them
dependent.
MAX BLUMENTHAL: Yeah, when I lived in LA I would meet families who had initially come across
the border because of the program -- they would point the finger directly at Seeds for
Starvation. They'd say, "We came from rural Mexico, and our livelihood was wiped out."
So this is a long-standing program. And we've seen in the coronavirus bailout five times
more money provided to USAID for so-called stabilization programs than for hospital workers.
That's exactly what you just described: USAID is the spearhead of these programs which aim to
wipe out land reform programs, and replace them with US aid in the form of these cheap seeds
and so on, cheap bananas to Burundi, and everywhere else.
So do you see, through your experience in China, that Belt and Road is a genuine alternative
to this model?
(40:27)
MICHAEL HUDSON: Well they're certainly trying to make it so. By the way, what you've just
described, it's not a bug; it's a feature. When you have the same problem occurring after 50
years, it's either insanity -- and we know it's not -- or it's the intent. You have to assume
at a certain point that the results of these aid programs are the intended results. And
certainly if you look at the congressional testimony, Congress knows this, but the media don't
pick it up.
In China, they're really trying to create an alternative. They want to break free from the
United States. And if Trump's policies of "America First" continue, and as he said, "We have to
win every deal," this means that any deal we make with the foreign country, that country has to
lose.
So he's integrating the whole world, and isolating the United States. When you isolate the
United States, China realizes that what will be isolated is the neoliberal philosophy that is
the cover story, the junk economics that justifies these destructive policies.
BEN NORTON: Well Michael, this was I think one of our most interesting episodes. We want to
more economics coverage, so hopefully we can talk more with you and get some more of your
analysis.
I guess just concluding here, I mentioned that the term Cold War has been thrown around a
lot. And of course, the New Cold War is going to be different from the old cold war in a lot of
different ways.
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And of course Russia is not the Soviet Union at all. Russia does not have a socialist
system. China's system as you mentioned is mixed, there are still socialist elements, but even
China's economy is not nearly as state controlled as the Soviet Union was at the peak of the
Cold War. So I'm wondering, it's pretty clear if you listen to the rhetoric coming from the
Pentagon, that "great power competition," as they refer to it, is now the undergirding
philosophy of US foreign policy. What is the economics of that?
Because the economics of neoliberalism, after the destruction of the Socialist Bloc, and
George H. W. Bush's declaration of a "New World Order," which is of course just neoliberalism
and US hegemony -- in that period, the clear economic philosophy, the kind of guiding foreign
policy, was destruction of independent socialist-oriented states and forcible integration of
those countries into the international neoliberal economy. We saw that with Iraq; we saw that
with former Yugoslavia; we saw that with Libya -- which is really just a failed state.
So now I think we're in a kind of new phase. The Pentagon released two years ago its
national defense security strategy saying that the new goal of the Pentagon and US foreign
policy is to contain China and Russia. That is the stated, professed goal. What does that look
like economically going forward?
(43:31)
MICHAEL HUDSON: I think that's quite right. It'll contain Russia and China, and there's
nothing that Russia and China want more than to be contained.
In other words, they're talking about decoupling from the US economy. And the US will say,
"Well we're not going to let them have access to the US market, and we're not going to have
anything to do with them." And Russia and China say, "Boy that's wonderful, OK, we're on the
same wavelength there. You can contain us; we will contain you. You go your way; we'll go our
way."
So basically the Cold War was an attempt at neoliberalism and privatization. It's
Thatcherism. It's, "How do we make China and Russia look like Margaret Thatcher's England, or
Russia in the 1990s under Yeltsin?"
"How do we prevent other countries from protecting their industry and their financial system
from the United States financial system and US exports? How do we prevent other countries from
doing for themselves what America does for itself? How do we make a double standard in world
finance, and world trade, and world politics?"
The result of trying to prevent other countries from doing this is simply to speed the
parting guest, to accelerate their understanding that they have to make a break. They have to
create their own food supply, not rely on American food exports. They have to create their own
5G system, not let America's 5G with its spy portals built in. They have to create their own
society, and go their own way.
That was China's philosophy before the 16th century. It was always the "Central Kingdom"; it
always looked at itself as being independent from the rest of the world. It's going back to
that, except it realizes that it needs raw materials from Africa and other countries.
The question is, what is Europe going to do? Is Europe going to just follow the Thatcher
right-wing deflationary Eurozone policies and end up looking like Greece? Or is it going to
join with Eurasia, with Russia and China, and make a whole Asiatic continent?
The Cold War really is about what is going to happen to Europe. Because we have already
isolated China and Russia and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
The question is what will happen to Europe, and what will happen to Africa?
The USA spends so much that foreigners cannot buy all our debt, so now we have the Fed buying
it with fiat money. This will not end well.
" the United States wants to grab the oil reserves. Just as Vice President Cheney said
we're going into Iraq and Syria to grab the oil, America would like all these oil reserves
in Venezuela
"
That is true. Oil was the primary reason to seize and colonize Iraq. Yes, Israel wanted it
destroyed too. Just look at who is exporting Iraqi oil now.
At last, an idiot's guide to Super-imperialism. I, er, found it very helpful, but Hudson
hurts his credibility when he pretends that China is some kind of international mutual aid
society just because they are not part of the US system. I am afraid the aftermath of
establishing close links with China such as Italy opened up by being the first to join the
the belt and road initiative or Boris saying he loved China on the phone to Xi a couple of
months ago have been not been reassuring.
We will never know what China knew about the Wuhan disease or when they knew it but the
current covid pandemic being caused or at least greatly exacerbated by China's
vagueness–not to say dissimulation–about the highly infectious nature of a
certain pathogen means the level of trust necessary to tie an economy to China rather than
the US has been shattered and will take a long time to reestablish.
Moreover, the rich make a lot of money from their investments in and technology transfer
and outsourcing to China. That US capital is the fuel for China to blast past the US in
another generation of so makes one wonder if what Hudson is complaining about is US
hypercapitalism that will hollow out the state that practices it. China may act differently
when it has the power, but the evidence so far hardly suggests it.
I would also note the Vulture funds like Elliot capital notorious for buying written off
debt owed by Argentina ect and demanding payment are the same ones doing domestic US
corporate raids and forcing CEO to increase shareholder value by asset stripping and getting
replacement workers from India
They closed the gold window. And most of the economists were all saying, "Oh my heavens,
now it's going to be a depression." But I said, "Wait a minute, now that other countries
can no longer get gold from all this military spending" -- and when you talk about the
balance-of-payments deficit, it's not the trade deficit , it's not foreign
investment; it's almost entirely military in character.
Most of these countries in Asia get dollars from US military spending. They say, "What
are we going to do with the dollars?" They buy US Treasury bonds, which finance the
military spending on the military bases that encircle them. So they're financing their own
military encirclement!
It's a circular flow. The United States spends dollars in these countries; the local
recipients turn them over for local currency; the local currency recipients, the food
sellers and the manufacturers, turn the dollars over to the banks for domestic currency,
which is how they operate; and the dollars are sent back to the United States; and it's a
circular flow that is basically military in character.
Sorry but Michael Hudson is wrong. This is political rhetoric not economic analysis. Ever
heard of Japan, Inc.? Mr. Hudson seems to believe that US spending on its military bases in
Japan accounts for the balance-of-payments deficit with that East Asian country. Not true at
all. It's the trade deficit in the form of Toyotas, Hondas, Acuras, Mazdas, Nissans, etc.
that account for the bulk of the trade deficit between the USA and Japan, not the tens of
billion dollars spent on approximately 100,000 US military/civilian personnel and their
dependents in Japan.
The Treasury bonds standard of international finance has enabled the United States to
obtain the largest free lunch ever achieved in history. America has turned the
international financial system upside down, whereas formerly it rested on gold, central
bank reserves are now held in the form of US government IOUs, that can be run up without
limit. In effect America has been buying up Europe, Asia, and other regions with paper
credit, US Treasury IOUs that it has informed the world it has little intention of ever
paying off. And there is little Europe or Asia can do about it except to abandon the dollar
and create their own financial system. .
US Treasuries are indeed the "gold standard" in the USD international financial system.
That's why export economies such as industrial powerhouses (Germany, Japan, China, etc.) do
buy US Treasuries with their trade surplus dollars, as do OPEC countries with their
Petrodollars. But foreign holdings of US Treasuries account for only about $6T which is 16%
of the $23T in US public debt while the rest are owned by private or public entities in the
USA. These US Treasuries are traded in the secondary markets because they are highly liquid
financial assets which are redeemed at the US Treasury upon maturity. Europe has already
created the Euro which is an alternative reserve currency to the USD.
"The multiple and coordinated arrests of pro-democracy figures in Hong Kong on Saturday
demand close scrutiny," said Virginie Battu-Henriksson, an EU spokeswoman for foreign
affairs. "An independent judicial system, operating free of political influence and
consideration, is a cornerstone of Hong Kong's autonomy under the one country, two systems
principle and is protected by the Basic Law."
Has the EU spokeswoman checked how many people lost their eyes and lives during
Gilets Jaunes protests in France? How about the absence of "an independent judicial system,
operating free of political influence and consideration" in the case of Julian Assange? The
EU "democrats" to China: 'Law for thee but not for me.'
The US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo: "Arrests of pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong
are deeply concerning -- politicized law enforcement is inconsistent with universal values
of freedom of expression, association, and peaceful assembly."
On Nov 22, 2019, we, a group of more than 60 medical doctors, wrote to the UK Home
Secretary to express our serious concerns about the physical and mental health of Julian
Assange. In our letter, we documented a history of denial of access to health care and
prolonged psychological torture . We requested that Assange be transferred from
Belmarsh prison to a university teaching hospital for medical assessment and treatment.
The case of Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, relates to law, freedom of speech,
freedom of the press, journalism, publishing, and politics.
Empires forcing those they've conquered to pay for their having been conquered and
administrated by the Empire is far from new. Americans have a great deal of trouble accepting
that Uncle Sam does the same raping to pay for its previous rapes because we also have been
taught that the English also somehow were immaculately conceived and so did not rape and
plunder and then rape more to pay for both previous rape and future rape.
Man, does this guy ever have a dry sense of humor!
Yes, Haiti! Dey was kangz, donchaknow?
Hudson raises lots of valid points but he sadly doesn't factor HBD in his analyses.
Haiti's woes began when it got of the French. I kid you not today they eat mud cakes
living on just over US$2 per day. In comparison, each person in equally majority-black the
Bahamas in the same region is 37 times richer. The difference is solely down to white expats
who set up the Bahamas tourism and offshore banking sectors.
@Sean
Wasn't one of the justifications (beside the obvious one of profit) for shutting-down
American factories and means of production and shipping them to China was that once Chinese
citizens became wealthy they'd magically throw off Communism and become a Democratic society?
Wasn't that the tiny fig leaf industrialist and their political apologists hid behind when
they justified the closing of factories in the American towns that had relied on those
factories for the work to support the town's familys for generations?
I've seen the well off Chinese tourists in Paris standing in line (a line made up only of
Chinese) outside the Prada store waiting their turn to buy their thousand dollar purse;
meanwhile China remains as communist as ever.
If this latest Pandemic exported from China doesn't cause a shake up in the world's
relationship with China (the same place that gave the world the Black Death that killed off
half of Europe in the 1300's) then nothing, short of China declaring war on Japan, will.
The Chinese play the intelligent, strategic, slow game ( they are currently gathering all
of Africa's resources for example) while US policy lurches about like an epileptic from
election to another; just compare Trump's and Obama's US policy towards Iran.
China will become the world's dominate power by the end of this century unless the West
unites against a China that it becoming more powerful with each passing day. The West can
start its rebalance with China with a group demand that China (who has the money) pays all
the West's financial costs stemming from their exported pandemic. If China refuses this
demand the West should simply stop buying all products made in China once it has first
quickly reestablished its own key industries, like pharmaceuticals, that are currently in the
hands of China.
This Pandemic is the world's great chance of a lifetime to justifiably turn current
Chinese policy on its head.
Multinational organizations owned and operated by the SJW Globalist 1% Elites act *against*
the Citizens of the U.S., not for them. The IMF has long been an Elite Globalist institution
dominated by Germany: (1)
The head of the IMF has traditionally been a European since the IMF was created in
1945.
Mutti Mullah Merkel wields the IMF as an instrument of power trying to suppress democracy.
She successfully used German Austerity economics to break elected governments in
Cyprus and Germany. Will Germany's IMF 1% Elites be able to break Italy's democracy?
Attempts at misdirection, such as blaming the U.S. will not work. The scourge of Globalist
Germany's super SJW imperialism via IMF Austerity is real. And, the villain is das Fuhrer
Merkel.
You do know the American dairy farmer has never recovered from Russian sanctions. The "trade
-whatever- it – is" with has damaged the pork and grain farmers bottom-line. But yeah,
blame farmers. God only knows how with all his educated professionals and chosen people out
there, it is the lowly farmers owns all that property. The horrors! It's just not fair.
PS. How is all that Reagan-economics' agriculture efficiency and economy of scale working
out for your grocery store supplies? Don't worry they will all be plowed under in soon to be
fallow fields. Milton Friedman was yet another privileged, academic quack.
Trump-Pomepo team with inserted or placed advisors inside are helping craft an argument that
US never left the Iran nuclear deal so that the administration can destroy the deal which US
openly telegraphed 2 yrs ago to the world that it was withdrawing from the deal .
The interesting argument if succeeds in acceptance by US citizen, America could always
claim that it has always been against sanction wars and regime changes operations
particularly against Cuba ,Iran,Syria and Russia.
@Current
History I guess an alternative to your binary vision is that the US could actually start
to act as a moral player on the world stage rather than the temperamental tyrant who
alienates everybody. But that would require an entire empire built on corruption to decide to
reform itself. Jack the Ripper experiencing an epiphany leading to an intentional personality
shift (after realizing that he was hated and feared) has never been a sequel for a reason.
The global expanse of US military bases is well-known; but it's actual territorial empire
is largely hidden. The true map of America is not taught in our schools.
What's wrong with the United States using all the means at it's disposal to leverage and
strip power from other countries in world? Then use that power for our own benefit?
Call the United States corrupt if you want. Are the African nations not corrupt? Is any
government in the world not corrupt? Well, Godfree will say China isn't but we can laugh at
that!
To sit in judgement of the World Bank tells me maybe you have a better idea. Get it up and
running, buddy.
"Oil was the primary reason to seize and colonize Iraq."'
– Nope. The big Iraqi oil contracts generally did not go to US companies, as shown
in your own link.
– You're just reciting the laughable ' No Blood For Oil ' nonsense that the
Israelis were so careful to nurture as a distraction.
the United States wants to grab the oil reserves. Just as Vice President Cheney said
we're going into Iraq and Syria to grab the oil, America would like all these oil reserves
in Venezuela
– "Wants to grab"?
Please show us the oil reserves that the US has 'grabbed'.
The important thing to realize about free-market economics and libertarianism, is
libertarians advocate central planning; the Chicago School of monetarists advocate central
planning; the free marketers want central planning. The banks are the planners, not the
government. They want to exclude the government from planning, except to the extent that
they can take over the government, as Trump has done, and plan all of the income to be
transferred to themselves from the rest of the economy.
Indeed! Mises walked out on this group at the Mt. Pelerin conference in 1947 , famously
calling them "all a bunch of socialists", "all" meaning Friedman and Hayek who were in
attendance, along with many others. The Mises/Rothbard/Hoppe wing is not monetarist, and
frequently critique the Friedman/Sowell/Koch industries camp from the right. This is intended
as an embellishment of Hudson's point, not a refutation.
So the United States, through the World Bank, has become I think the most dangerous,
right-wing, evil organization in modern history -- more evil than the IMF. That's why it's
almost always been run by a Secretary of Defense. It has always been explicitly military.
It's the hard fist of American imperialism.
I am hardly an expert on the World Bank, but it has had thirteen presidents (including
acting presidents) in its history, and only two served as Secretary of Defense, Robert
McNamara, and Paul Wolfowitz. You might also count John McCloy, who was an Assistant
Secretary of War under Roosevelt and Truman. But that's three out of thirteen, hardly
"always". However, Lewis Preston was president from '91-95, and was a former marine, as was
Barber Conable, who served from '86-'91. Eugene Black's tenure was from '49-'63 and he was
apparently very influential in the creation of World Bank policy; he had served in the Navy
during WWI. So the point is well taken. The rest have been mainly high ranking executives
from large banks and investment firms. A notable exception is the second Obama appointee Jim
Yong Kim, who was a doctor and president of Dartmouth college.
I think President George W. Bush said, "We're never really going to repay this. They get
counters, but we're not going to repay it." And then, as a matter of fact, you have Tom
Cotton a senator from [Arkansas] saying, "Well you know China holds savings of $2 trillion
or so in US Treasury bonds. Why don't we just not pay them? They gave us the virus; let
just grab it and nullify it."
"This oil and bank deposits don't belong to Venezuela; we're arbitrarily taking it away
and we're giving the oil distribution assets in North America to Guaidó. We're going
to block Venezuela from paying the debt."
Can someone elaborate on what he means by "distribution assets" here? Is it: "The USA has
the most reliable and consumptive market [in this case for oil] on earth, and if you want to
sell things in it, that comes at a price, and that price is your military encirclement and
compliance with World Bank policy. If you don't comply, prepare for a collapse of your
industries through restriction of access to our market and/or sanctions." Do I understand the
leverage correctly?
I mean if I wanted to get a gun I couldn't get one, because they're all bought up in
Virginia, across the river, because you know everyone's panicking. And I'm sure they're
defending themselves by like having their guns accidentally go off and shoot their dogs
An outrageously imbecilic aside.However, I've always appreciated people like Hudson and
Chomsky for talking to whomever wants to listen, regardless of the interviewer's
cringe-worthy prejudice.
@Gyre07
Hudson emphasises finance over productive capacity in key areas. According to him the answer
to everything is the debts being written off.
THE
government of China began issuing bonds to foreign investors and governments for
infrastructure work to modernize the country. In April 1938, the Nationalist government of
China began to issue U.S.-dollar denominated bonds to finance the war against Japan's
brutal invasion. As part of its wartime financial aid, the U.S. government further provided
a $500 million credit to China in March 1942, shipping gold there and helping to
stabilize the currency . In return, it appears that the U.S. government redeemed some
of these dollar-denominated bonds. But China doesn't appear to have repaid this debt
either.Today, the Chinese bonds held by U.S. investors may be worth as much as $750
billion.
Japan and China are now economical and political pals, Japan can feel secure getting close
to China because Japan is defended by the US at great cost to US taxpayers, while at the same
time calls for to Japan to cease its protectionism are nullified by them emphasising how they
are facing a regional threat from burgeoning China. While a parasitic class of US super rich
are indeed prospering it is just as much at the expense of America and average Americans as
resource rich underdeveloped countries. Hence the White Death, and the relative decline of US
power.
Sorry but Michael Hudson is wrong. This is political rhetoric not economic analysis.
Ever heard of Japan, Inc.? Mr. Hudson seems to believe that US spending on its military
bases in Japan accounts for the balance-of-payments deficit with that East Asian
country
He's not wrong the quote is in context of the years prior to 1971. Imbalance of trade was
due to military spending. The rest of the trade pattern was in balance.
After the TBill economy came into being, some countries became more mercantile. Japan and
Germany especially exported goods to acquire dollars to then acquire TBills. Having TBills
then shored up their FX position. These countries having FX could then always have access to
energy, especially oil, and survive any sort of bear-raiders who would try to short their
currency.
Wealth is more than just money, it is also capital equipment in the form of industry, and
know how. Japan being an island economy must import raw materials to make finished goods, to
then take the increment of production.
Japan and Germany wisely worked within the Tbill system as those were the only cards in
their hands. You don't play, and there is a military base on your soil, or you get locked out
of access to raw materials. Their mercantilism has the knock on effect of destroying U.S.
mainstreet labor and goods producers.
TBills today reflect more than just military balance of payments, they also reflect
petrodollar accumulations as well as FX, and are being held in bank reserve loops, being held
in shadow banks, etc.
China and wall street gambit also took advantage of TBill economy, where China recycled
dollars won in mercantile trade imbalance back to the U.S., thus screwing over main-street
labor and producers. This accelerated de-industrialization of American heart-land.
Military spending on some 800 overseas bases is funded by deficit spending and recycled
dollars, not with goods exchange.
A gold trading standard as in post Bretton Woods to 1971, (not gold standard) would
prevent mercantilism AND prevent spending dollars on foreign bases and military
adventurism/wars.
To understand the plight for all of Humanity today, one must take an impartial look at
history in understanding the shunned truth about both World Wars.Archives from censored
aspects of human history for educational purposes not shown in the facet of society. From all
categories such as Science, War, Political, Media, Medicine etc.
"The Impartial Truth" (ImpartialTruth.com ) is a web portal to historical and
current Truth. The main aim of the project is to preserve and provide public with videos,
documentaries, articles and opinions from various sources within one web platform.
History is written by victors. We are here to show you the other side of it – The
Impartial Truth. https://www.impartialtruth.com/
What Europe (Germany/France) will do is indeed essential, see a history of that here: Brendan
Simms – Europe – The Struggle for Supremacy.
While European Corporate Elites would stay happily in the US orbit, politicians ,
especially up-and coming, might have other things in mind. and this is still something of
beauty, there is no two party system in any country in Europe, that it is easily to
control.
It is true that Macron and En Marche shows how the bankers can create from thin air (are
used with that) a candidate and a party, but even in this case due to political
considerations (and not only), given the very competitive nature of politics in Europe, the
US lead is not guaranteed.
And without Europe on its side, the US will go bust.
I haven't seen any indication of that. Mises wing doesn't really understand credit or
money and how it should channel Mises is silent on state credit, or demeans it.
An economy needs both money and credit. Money floats and is not under time pressure, and
can be used for savings and to pay interest. Money reflects past accumulations of wealth.
Credit pops into existence with a debt instrument. Properly used, credit channels into
industry and production, and is not used for speculation. Credit improves the future. Money
has to be available to pay the interest on Credit. (Making credit or money have exponential
claims on the future with usury is a separate issue.)
Lolbertarianism in all its guises is junk economics. Junk economics cannot discern when a
money or credit system is being mal-adapted for sordid gain. It also has no mechanisms to
understand rents, unearned income and usury.
The gloves are now off as China has called out Pompeo quite correctly saying, "Pompeo an enemy to world
peace" --and we ought to expect more disruptions here at MoA. Here's just one of several
slaps in Pompeo's face:
"The former top intelligence official is steering the US Department of State into becoming
the Central Intelligence Agency. He is playing with fire, making the 21st century an era of
major power confrontation and undermining the foundations for peace. Despite being the chief
diplomat of the US, he totally betrayed the basic responsibility with which he is entrusted
to promote international understanding. He has become the enemy of world peace."
What's most unfortunate is few seem to consult Global Times , as I was rather
surprised this major editorial wasn't already linked. Here's yet another slap:
"Geopolitics cannot dominate the world anymore. Pompeo and his like are desperately
pulling the world backwards. They are unable to handle a diverse and complicated new century
and so they attempt to resume the Cold War. They can only 'realize their ambition' in
polarized confrontation."
And that clearly wasn't enough as yet another slap's delivered in the closing two
sentences:
"Lies may fulfill Pompeo's personal ambition, but they will never accomplish the US dreams
to be "great again." Pompeo is not only a figure harmful to world peace, but also should be
listed as the worst US secretary of state in its history."
Hmm... Don't know if he qualifies as "worst" yet as he must still top Ms. Clinton, but she
certainly didn't treat China as has Pompeo.
Yep. The Southern firewall is such an absurd phenomenon. Use a bunch of states that will
not influence the general election to winnow the candidates in the primary election.
Same
thing in reverse with California -- IT DOESN'T MATTER THAT SANDERS WON CALIFORNIA because
California is going to vote blue in the fall.
If the Democrats want to win (which is not a foregone conclusion), then they need to
structure the primaries around the swing states.
"... Booker played a character (they all do, but some are polished versions of themselves) for so long, I'm not sure he is real. He played Obama, the servant of the men in suits, before Obama but less cool. ..."
Booker played a character (they all do, but some are polished versions of themselves) for
so long, I'm not sure he is real. He played Obama, the servant of the men in suits, before
Obama but less cool. I haven't watched "Streetfight" in ages, but he had the vibe of a Booker
T Washington follower if there was more than a character there.
Adolph Reed was clearly referring to Obama way back in 1997, but Booker fit most of the
description of a "new black" politician.
Many defenders of U.S. hegemony insist that the "liberal international order" depends on
it. That has never made much sense. For one, the continued maintenance of American hegemony
frequently conflicts with the rules of international order. The hegemon reserves the right
to interfere anywhere it wants, and tramples on the sovereignty and legal rights of other
states as it sees fit. In practice, the U.S. has frequently acted as more of a rogue in its
efforts to "enforce" order than many of the states it likes to condemn. The most vocal
defenders of U.S. hegemony are unsurprisingly some of the biggest opponents of
international law -- at least when it gets in their way.
Except that it depends on it. And the quoted paragraph itself explains why: the USA is
capitalism's HQ, it is the financial superpower. The fiat currency system can only exist
because the USA exists. And a universal fiat currency can only exist if there's one
nation-state which can control the main commercial routes - in this case, the USN does this
job.
The USA is the cornerstone of the "liberal international order". That's why the European
powers, Japan et al still do everything within their reach to protect the USA. If the USD
Standard (and, therefore, the USA) falls, capitalism as we know it will disappear; what will
come next, we can't know for sure with the information we have now. But yes, there is a
"liberal international order", and the USA is at its center.
"The relative decline of the U.S. is not a new development. It has been visible to outside
observes for more than 20 years. But it is only now that some of the delusions that
Hollywood, main stream media and the establishment have held up for the last 20 years are
finally falling away."
You won't credit him but thanks to Trump and his Qanon henchmen, a lot of people have had
their eyes opened to 'Hollywood, main stream media and the Establishment'.
Just look at how a lot of media folk were hysterical
We live at a time when the terrors of life suggests the world has descended into darkness.
The COVID-19 crisis has created a dystopian nightmare which floods our screens and media with
images of fear. Bodies, doorknobs, cardboard packages, plastic bags, and the breath we exhale
and anything else that offers the virus a resting place is comparable to a bomb ready to
explode resulting in massive suffering and untold deaths. We can no longer shake hands, embrace
our friends, use public transportation, sit in a coffee shop, or walk down the street without
experiencing real anxiety and fear. We are told by politicians, media pundits, and others that
everyday life has taken on the character of a war zone.
The metaphor of war has a deep sense of urgency and has a long rhetorical history in times
of crisis. Militarization has become a central feature of the pandemic age and points to the
dominance of warlike values in society. More specifically, Michael Geyer defines it as the
'contradictory and tense social process in which civil society organizes itself for the
production of violence' (Geyer, 1989: 9). Geyer was writing about the militarization of Europe
between 1914-1945, but his description seems even more relevant today. This is clear in the way
right-wing politicians such as Trump promote the increasing militarization of language, public
spaces, and bodies. Terms such as 'war footing', 'mounting an assault', and 'rallying the
troops' have been normalized in the face of the pandemic crisis. At the same time,
the language of war privileges the proliferation of surveillance capitalism, the defense of
borders, and the suspension of civil liberties.
As the virus brings the engines of capitalism to a halt, the discourse of war takes on a new
significance as a medical term that highlights the struggles to grapple with underfunded public
health care systems, the lack of resources for testing, the surge towards downward mobility,
expanding unemployment and the ongoing, heart-wrenching, efforts to provide protective
essentials for front line and emergency workers. At the heart of this epic tragedy is an
understated political struggle to reverse and amend decades of a war waged by neoliberal
capitalism against the welfare state, essential social provisions, public goods, and the social
contract. The failure of this oppressive death-dealing form of casino capitalism can be heard
as Arundhati Roy observes
in:
the stories of overwhelmed hospitals in the US, of underpaid, overworked nurses having to
make masks out of garbage bin liners and old raincoats, risking everything to bring succor to
the sick. About states being forced to bid against each other for ventilators, about doctors'
dilemmas over which patient should get one and which left to die.
The language of war is used by the mandarins of power to both address the indiscriminate
viral pandemic that has brought capitalism to its knees and to reinforce and expand the
political formations and global financial system that are incapable of dealing with the
pandemic. Rather than using rage, emotion, and fear to sharpen our understanding of the
conditions that abetted this global plague and what it might mean to address it and prevent it
in the future, the ruling elite in a number of right wing countries such as the U.S. and Brazil
use the discourse of war either to remove such questions from public debate or dismisses them
as acts of bad faith in a time of crisis. Amartya Sen is right in
arguing that '[o]vercoming a pandemic may look like fighting a war, but the real need is
far from that'.
Instead the language of war creates an echo chamber produced in both the highest circles of
power and the right-wing cultural apparatuses that serve to turn trauma, exhaustion, and
mourning into a fog of conspiracy theories, state repression, and a deepening abyss of darkness
that ' serves the
ends of those in power' . Edward Snowden is right in warning that governments will use the
pandemic crisis to expand their attack on civil liberties, roll back constitutional rights,
repress dissent and create what he calls an '
architecture of oppression' . He
writes :
As authoritarianism spreads, as emergency laws proliferate, as we sacrifice our rights, we
also sacrifice our capability to arrest the slide into a less liberal and less free world. Do
you truly believe that when the first wave, this second wave, the 16th wave of the
coronavirus is a long-forgotten memory, that these capabilities will not be kept? That these
datasets will not be kept? No matter how it is being used, what' is being built is the
architecture of oppression.
There is no doubt that the Covid-19 crisis will test the limits of democracy worldwide.
Right-wing movements, neo-Nazis, authoritarian politicians, religious fundamentalists and a
host of other extremists are energized by what Slavoj Zizek
calls the 'ideological viruses [lying] dormant in our societies'. These include closing of
borders, the quarantining of so-called enemies, the claim that undocumented immigrants spread
the virus, the demand for increased police power, and the rush by religious fundamentalists to
relegate women to the home to assume their 'traditional' gendered role.
On the economic level and under the cover of fear, the U.S. in particular, is transferring
what Jonathan
Cook refers to as:
huge sums of public money to the biggest corporations. Politicians controlled by big
business and media owned by big business are pushing through this corporate robbery without
scrutiny – and for reasons that should be self-explanatory. They know our attention is
too overwhelmed by the virus for us to assess intentionally mystifying arguments about the
supposed economic benefits, about yet more illusory trickle-down.
This constitutes a politics of 'opportunistic authoritarianism' and is already in play in a
number of countries that are using the cover of enforcing public health measures to enforce a
range of anti-democratic policies and wave of repression. The pandemic has made clear that
market mechanisms cannot address the depth and scope of the current crisis. The failure of
neoliberalism not only reveals a profound sense of despair and moral void at the heart of
casino capitalism, but also makes clear that the spell of neoliberalism is broken and as such
is in the midst of a legitimation crisis. The coronavirus pandemic has both made clear that the
neoliberal notion that all problems are a matter of individual responsibility and that each of
us are defined exclusively by our self-interest has completely broken down as the effects of
neoliberalism's failure to deal with the pandemic unfold in shortages in crucial medical
equipment, lack of testing, and failed public health services, largely due to austerity
measures.
One consequence the failed neoliberal state is an uptake in levels of oppression in order to
prevent the emergence of massive protests movements and radical forms of collective resistance.
The suspension of civil rights, repression of dissent, upending of constitutional liberties,
and the massive use of state surveillance in the service of anti-democratic ends has become
normalized. Many of the countries driven by austerity policies and a culture of cruelty are
using the pandemic crisis as a way shaping their modes of governance by drawing from what
activist Ejeris Dixon calls elements of a '
fascist emergency playbook' . These
include :
Use the emergency to restrict civil liberties -- particularly rights regarding movement,
protest, freedom of the press, a right to a trial and freedom to gather. Use the emergency to
suspend governmental institutions, consolidate power, reduce institutional checks and
balances, and reduce access to elections and other forms of participatory governance. Promote
a sense of fear and individual helplessness, particularly in relationship to the state, to
reduce outcry and to create a culture where people consent to the power of the fascist state;
Replace democratic institutions with autocratic institutions using the emergency as
justification. Create scapegoats for the emergency, such as immigrants, people of color,
disabled people, ethnic and religious minorities, to distract public attention away from the
failures of the state and the loss of civil liberties .
The evidence for the spread of this ideological virus and its apparatuses and polices of
repression are no longer simply dormant fears of those fearful of the rise of authoritarian
movements and modes of governance. For instance, Viktor Orbán, Hungary's prime minister
passed
a bill that gave him 'sweeping emergency powers for an indefinite period of time .The
measures were invoked as part of the government's response to the global pandemic'. What is
becoming obvious is that the pandemic crisis produces mass anxiety that enables governments to
turn a medical crisis into a political opportunity for leaders across the globe to push through
dictatorial powers with little resistance.
For instance, as Selam
Gebrekidan observes : 'In Britain, ministers have what a critic called 'eye-watering' power
to detain people and close borders. Israel's prime minister has shut down courts and begun an
intrusive surveillance of citizens. Chile has sent the military to public squares once occupied
by protesters. Bolivia has postponed elections'. In the Philippines, President Rodrigo Duterte,
who has flagrantly violated civil rights in the past, was given emergency powers by the
congress. Under the cloak of invoking public health measures because of the threat posed by the
coronavirus plague, China has broken up protests in Hong Kong and arrested many of its leaders.
In the United States, Trump's Justice Department has asked
Congress 'for the ability to ask chief judges to detain people indefinitely without trial
during emergencies -- part of a push for new powers that comes as the coronavirus spreads
through the United States'.
In the U.S. Trump blames the media for spreading fake news about the virus, attacks
reporters who ask critical questions, packs the courts with federal sycophants, dehumanizes
undocumented immigrants by labeling them as carriers of the virus, and claims that he has
'total authority' to reopen the economy, however dangerous the policy, in the face of the
coronavirus pandemic. In this instance, Trump markets fear to endorse elements of white
supremacy, ultra-nationalism, and social cleansing while unleashing the mobilizing passions of
fascism. He supports voter suppression and has publicly stated that making it easier to vote
for many Americans such as blacks and other minorities of color would
mean 'you would never have a Republican elected in this country again'. In the midst of
economic hardships and widespread suffering due to the raging pandemic, Trump has tapped into a
combination of fear and a cathartic cruelty while emboldening a savage lawlessness aimed at the
most vulnerable populations. How else to explain his calling the coronavirus the '
Chinese virus' , regardless of the violence it enables by right wingers against
Asian-Americans, or his call to reopen the economy to hastily knowing that thousands could die
as a result, mostly the elderly, poor, and other vulnerable.
Militarizing the Media and the Politics of Pandemic Pedagogy
In the age of the pandemic, culture has been militarized. Donald Trump and the right-wing
media in the United States have both politicized and weaponized the coronavirus pandemic. They
have weaponized it by using a state of emergency to promote Trump's political attacks on
critics, the press, journalists, and politicians who have questioned his bungling response to
the pandemic crisis. They have politicized it by introducing a series of policies under the
rubric of a state of exception that diverts bailout money to the ruling elite, militarizes
public space, increases the power of the police, wages attacks on undocumented immigrants as a
public health threat, and promotes voter suppression. In addition Trump has further
strengthened the surveillance state, fired public servants for participating in the impeachment
process, and initially claimed that the virus was a hoax perpetuated by the media and Democrats
who were trying to undermine Trump's re-election.
Trump's language of dehumanization coupled with his appalling ignorance and toxic
incompetence appears as a perfect fit for the media spectacle that he has made a central
feature of his presidency. Trump's 'anti-intellectualism has been simmering in the United
States for decades and has now fully boiled over' and when incorporated as a central feature of
the right-wing social media becomes 'a tremendously successful tool of hegemonic control,
manipulation, and false consciousness'. Trump's apocalyptic rhetoric appears to match the tenor
of the moment as there is a surge in right-wing extremism, anti-Semitism, explosive racism, and
a culture of lies, immediacy, and cruelty. What we are witnessing as the pandemic intensifies
in the United States, and in some other countries across the globe, is the increasing threat of
authoritarian regimes that both use the media to normalize their actions and wage war against
dissidents and others struggling to preserve democratic ideas and principles.
Given his experience in the realms of Reality TV and celebrity culture,
Trump is driven by mutually reinforcing registers of spectacular fits of self-promotion,
joy in producing troves of Orwellian doublespeak, and the ratings his media coverage receives.
One of the insults he throws out at reporters in his coronavirus
briefings is that their networks have low ratings as if that is a measure of the relevance
of the question being asked. Unlike any other president, Trump has used the mainstream media
and social media to mobilize his followers, attack his enemies, and produce a twitter universe
of misinformation, lies, and civic illiteracy. He has championed the right-wing media by both
echoing their positions on a number of issues and using them to air his own. The conservative
media such as Fox News has been enormously complicitous in justifying Trump's call for the
Justice Department to dig up dirt on his political rivals, including the impeachable offense of
extorting the Ukrainian government through the promise to withhold military aid if they did not
launch an investigation into his political rival, Joe Biden. Moreover, they have supported his
instigation of armed rebellions via his tweets urging his followers to liberate Minnesota,
Michigan, and Virginia by refusing to comply with stay-at-home orders and
social distancing restrictions . Ironically, he is urging anti-social distancing protests
that violate his own federal guidelines.
Trump has used the police powers of the state, especially ICE to round up children and
separate them from their parents at the border. Placing loyalty above expertise, he surrounds
himself with incompetent sycophants, and makes policy decisions from his gut, often in
opposition to the advice of public health experts. All of this is echoed and supported by the
conservative and right wing eco-system, especially Fox News, Breitbart News, and what appears
to be a legion of right wing commentators such as Rush Limbaugh, who falsely claimed the virus
is a common cold and Laura Ingraham, who deceitfully compared Covid-19 to the flu. Fox News not
only produced conspiracy theories such as the claim the virus was the product of the 'deep
state' and was being used by Democrats to prevent Trump from being re-elected, it also produced
misinformation about the virus and represented what 74 journalism professors and leading
journalists described as ' a danger to
public health' . Like most authoritarians, Trump does everything to control the truth by
flooding the media with lies, denouncing scientific evidence, and critical judgment as fake
news. The latter is a direct attack on the free press, critical journalists, and the notion
that the search for the truth is crucial to any valid and shared notion of citizenship.
The crisis of politics is now matched by a mainstream and corporate controlled digital media
and screen culture that revels in political theater, embraces ignorance, fractured narratives,
and racial hysteria (cf. Butsch, 2019). In addition, it authorizes and produces a culture of
sensationalism designed to increase ratings and profits at the expense of truth. As a
disimagination machine and form of pandemic pedagogy, it undermines a complex rendering of
social problems and suppresses a culture of dissent and informed judgments. This pandemic
pedagogy functions so as to shape human agency, desire, and modes of identification both in the
logic of consumerism while privileging a hyper form of masculinity and legitimating a
friend/enemy distinction. We live in an age in which theater and the spectacle of performance
empty politics of any moral substance and contribute to the revival of an updated version of
fascist politics. Thoughtlessness has become a national ideal as the corporate controlled media
mirror the Trump administration demand that reality be echoed rather than be analyzed,
interrogated and critically comprehended. Politics is now leaden with bombast, words strung
together to shock, numb the mind, and images overwrought with self-serving sense of riotousness
and anger. Trump shamelessly reinforces such a politics by showing propaganda videos at
presidential news conferences.
What is distinct about this historical period, especially under the Trump regime, is what
Susan Sontag has called a form of aesthetic fascism with
its contempt of 'all that is reflective, critical, and pluralistic'. One distinctive element of
the current moment is the rise of what we call hard and soft disimagination machines. The hard
disimagination machines, such as Fox News, conservative talk radio, and Breitbart media,
function as overt and unapologetic propaganda machines that trade in nativism,
misrepresentations, and racist hysteria, all wrapped in the cloak of a regressive view of
patriotism.
As
Joel Bleifuss points out , Fox News , in particular, is 'blatant in its contempt for
the truth, and engages nightly in the 'ritual of burying the truth in 'memory holes' and
spinning a new version of reality [that keeps] the spirit of 1984 alive and well . This, the
most-watched cable news network, functions in its fealty to Trump like a real-world Ministry of
Truth from George Orwell's 1984 , where bureaucrats 'rectify' the historical record to
conform to Big Brother's decrees'. Trump's fascist politics and fantasies of
racial purity could not succeed without the disimagination machines, pedagogical
apparatuses, and the practitioners needed to make his 'vision not merely real but grotesquely
normal'. What Trump makes clear is that the weaponization of language into a discourse of
racism and hate is deeply indebted to a politics of forgetting and is a crucial tool in the
battle to undermine historical consciousness and memory itself.
The soft disimagination machines or liberal mainstream media such as NBC Nightly News,
MSNBC, and the established press function largely to cater to Trump's Twitter universe,
celebrity culture, and the cut throat ethos of the market, all the while isolating social
issues, individualizing social problems, and making the workings of power superficially
visible. This is obvious in their mainstream's continuous
coverage of his daily press briefings, which as Oscar Zambrano puts it 'is like watching a
disease in progress that is infecting us all: a parallel to coronavirus' (Zambrano, 2020).
Unfortunately, high ratings are more important than refusing to participate in Trump
disinformation spectacles. Politics as a spectacle saturates the senses with noise, cheap
melodrama, lies, and buffoonery. This is not to suggest that the spectacle that now shapes
politics as pure theater is meant merely to entertain and distract.
On the contrary, the current spectacle, most recently evident in the midst of the
coronavirus crisis functions as a war machine, functioning largely to nurture the notion of war
as a permanent social relation, the primary organizing principle of society and politics merely
one of its means or guises. War has now become the operative and defining feature of language
and the matrix for all relations of power.
The militarization of the media, and culture itself, now function as a form of social and
historical amnesia. That is, in both form and content it separates the past from a politics
that in its current form has turned deadly in its attack on the values and institutions crucial
to a functioning democracy. In this instance, echoes of a fascist past remain hidden, invisible
beneath the histrionic shouting and disinformation campaigns that rail against alleged 'enemies
of the state' and 'fake news', which is a euphemism for dissent, holding power accountable, and
an oppositional media. A flair for the overly dramatic eliminates the distinction between fact
and fiction, lies and the truth.
Under such circumstances, the spectacle of militarization functions as part of a culture of
distraction, division, and fragmentation, all the while refusing to pose the question of how
the United States shares elements of a fascist politics that connects it to a number of other
authoritarian countries such as Brazil, Turkey, Hungary, and Poland. All of these countries in
the midst of the pandemic have embraced a form of fascist aesthetics and politics that combines
a cruel culture of neoliberal austerity with the discourses of hate, nativism, and state
repression. The militarization of culture and the media in its current forms can only appeal to
the state of exception, death, and war. Under such circumstances, the relationship between
civil liberties and democracy, politics and death, and justice and injustice is lost. War
should be a
source of alarm, not pride , and its linguistic repositories should be actively
demilitarized.
Conclusion
Under the Trump regime, historical amnesia is used as a weapon of (mis)education, politics,
and power and is waged primarily through the militarization and weaponization of the media.
This constitutes a form of pandemic pedagogy -- a pedagogical virus that erodes the modes of
agency, values, and civic institutions central to a robust democracy. The notion that the past
is a burden that must be forgotten is a center piece of authoritarian regimes, one that allows
public memory to wither and the threads of fascism to become normalized. While some critics
eschew the comparison of Trump with the Nazi era, it is crucial to recognize the alarming signs
in this administration that echo a fascist politics of the past. As
Jonathan Freedland points out , 'the signs are there, if only we can bear to look'.
Rejecting the Trump-Nazi comparison makes it easier to believe that we have nothing to learn
from history and to take comfort in the assumption that it cannot happen once again. Democracy
cannot survive if it ignores the lessons of the past, reduces education to mass conformity,
celebrates civic illiteracy, and makes consumerism the only obligation of citizenship. Max
Horkheimer added a more specific register to the relationship between fascism and capitalism in
his
comment 'If you don't want to talk about capitalism then you had better keep quiet about
fascism.'
The lessons to be learned from the pandemic crisis have to exceed making visible the lies,
misinformation, and corruption at the heart of the Trump regime. Such an approach fails to
address the most serious of Trump's crimes. Moreover, it fails to examine a number of political
threads that together constitute elements common to a global crisis in the age of the pandemic.
The global response to the pandemic crisis by a number of authoritarian states when viewed as
part of a broader crisis of democracy needs to be analyzed by connecting ideological, economic,
and cultural threads that weave through often isolated issues such as white nationalism, the
rise of a Republican Party dominated by right-wing extremists, the collapse of the two party
system, and the ascent of a corporate controlled media as a disimagination machine and the
proliferation of corrosive systems of power and dehumanization.
Crucial to any politics of resistance is the necessity to take seriously the notion that
education is central to politics itself, and that social problems have to be critically
understood before people can act as a force for empowerment and liberation. This suggests
analyzing Trump's use of politics as a militarized spectacle not in isolation from the larger
social totality -- as simply one of incompetence, for instance- but as part of a more
comprehensive political project in which updated forms of authoritarianism and contemporary
versions of fascism are being mobilized and gaining traction both in the United States and
across the globe. Federico Mayor, the former director general of UNESCO once stated that 'You
cannot expect anything from uneducated citizens except unstable democracy'. In the current
historical moment and age of Trump, it might be more appropriate to say that what can be
expected from a society in which ignorance is a virtue and civic literacy and education are
viewed as a liability, one cannot expect anything but fascism.
The pandemic crisis should be a rallying cry to create massive collective resistance against
both the Republican and Democratic Parties and the naked brutality of the political and
economic system they have supported since the 1970s. That is, the criminogenic response to the
crisis on the part of the Trump administration should become a call to arms, if not a model on
a global level, for a massive protest movement that moves beyond the ritual of trying Trump and
other authoritarian politicians for an abuse of power. Instead, such a movement should become a
call to put on trial a capitalist system while fighting for structural and ideological reforms
that will usher in a radical and socialist democracy worthy of the struggle.
What is crucial to remember is no democracy cannot survive without an informed citizenry.
Moreover, solidarity among individuals cannot be assumed and must fought for as part of a wider
struggle to break down the walls ideological and material repression that isolate,
depoliticize, and pit individuals and groups against each other. Community and a robust public
sphere cannot be built on the bonds of shared fears, isolation, and oppression. Authoritarian
governments will work to contain both any semblance of democratic politics and any attempts at
large scale transformations of society. Power lies in more than understanding and the ability
to disrupt, it also lies in a vision of a future that does not imitate the present and the
courage to collectively struggle to bring a radical democratic socialist vision into
fruition.
References.
Butsch, R. (2019). Screen Culture: A Global History . London: Polity.
Geyer, M. (1989). 'The Militarization of Europe, 1914-1945', in J. R. Gillis (ed)
Militarization of the Western World . New Brunswick: NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Zambrano. O. (2020). Personal correspondence. March 20.
This article first appeared on E-International Relations .Join the debate on
Facebook More articles by: Henry Giroux –
Ourania FilippakouHenry A. Giroux currently holds the McMaster University Chair for
Scholarship in the Public Interest in the English and Cultural Studies Department and is the
Paulo Freire Distinguished Scholar in Critical Pedagogy. His most recent books include
American
Nightmare: Facing the Challenge of Fascism (City Lights, 2018), On Critical Pedagogy , 2nd
edition (Bloomsbury, 2020); The Terror of the
Unforeseen (Los Angeles Review of books, 2019), and Neoliberalism's
War on Higher Education , 2nd edition (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2020).Ourania
Filippakou is Reader and Director of Teaching and Learning in the Department of Education at
Brunel University London. Her most recent book, co-authored with Ted Tapper, is '
Creating the Future? The 1960s New English Universities ' (Dordrecht: Springer, 2019). Her
forthcoming books are: 'Higher education and the Crisis of Europe' (2021) and 'Restructuring
Knowledge in Higher Education' (with Ted Tapper) both to be published by Routledge. She is
co-editor of the British Educational Research Journal
Dangerous pathogens are captured in the wild and made deadlier in government biowarfare labs. Did that happen here?
There has been no scientific finding that the novel coronavirus was bioengineered, but its origins are not entirely clear. Deadly
pathogens discovered in the wild are sometimes studied in labs – and sometimes made more dangerous. That possibility, and other plausible
scenarios, have been incorrectly dismissed in remarks by some scientists and government officials, and in the coverage of most major
media outlets.
Regardless of the source of this pandemic, there is considerable documentation that a global biological arms race going on outside
of public view could produce even more deadly pandemics in the future.
While much of the media and political establishment have minimized the threat from such lab work, some hawks on the American right
like Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark ., have singled out Chinese biodefense researchers as uniquely dangerous.
The current dynamics of the biological arms race have been driven by US government decisions that extend back decades. In December
2009, Reuters
reported that the Obama administration was refusing even to negotiate the possible monitoring of biological weapons.
Much of the left in the US now appears unwilling to scrutinize the origin of the pandemic – or the wider issue of biowarfare –
perhaps because portions of the anti-Chinese right have been so vocal in making unfounded allegations.
Governments that participate in such biological weapon research generally distinguish between "biowarfare" and "biodefense,"
as if to paint such "defense" programs as necessary. But this is rhetorical sleight-of-hand; the two concepts are largely indistinguishable.
"Biodefense" implies tacit biowarfare, breeding more dangerous pathogens for the alleged purpose of finding a way to fight
them. While this work appears to have succeeded in creating deadly and infectious agents, including deadlier flu strains, such "defense"
research is impotent in its ability to defend us from this pandemic.
The legal scholar who drafted the main US law on the subject, Francis Boyle, warned in his 2005 book "
Biowarfare and Terrorism " that an "illegal biological arms
race with potentially catastrophic consequences" was underway, largely driven by the US government.
For years,
many scientists have raised concerns regarding bioweapons/biodefense lab work, and specifically about the fact that huge increases
in funding have taken place since 9/11. This was especially true after the anthrax-by-mail attacks that killed five people in the
weeks after 9/11, which the FBI ultimately blamed on a US government biodefense scientist. A 2013 study found that biodefense funding
since 2001 had totaled at least $78 billion
, and more has surely been spent since then. This has led to a
proliferation of laboratories , scientists and new organisms,
effectively setting off a biological arms race.
Following the Ebola outbreak in west Africa in 2014, the US government
paused
funding for what are known as "gain-of-function" research on certain organisms. This work actually seeks to make deadly pathogens
deadlier, in some cases making pathogens airborne that previously were not. With little notice outside the field,
the pause on such research was lifted
in late 2017 .
During this pause, exceptions for funding were made for dangerous gain-of-function lab work. This included work jointly done by
US scientists from the University of North Carolina, Harvard and the Wuhan Institute of Virology. This work – which had funding from
USAID and EcoHealth Alliance not originally acknowledged – was published in
2015 in Nature Medicine .
A different Nature Medicine article about the origin of the current pandemic, authored by five scientists and
published on March 17, has been touted by major media
outlet and some officials – including current National Institutes of Health director Francis Collins – as definitively disproving
a lab origin for the novel coronavirus. That journal article, titled "The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2," stated unequivocally: "Our
analyses clearly show that SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus." This is a subtly misleading
sentence. While the scientists state that there is no known laboratory "signature" in the SARS-Cov-2 RNA, their argument fails to
take account of other lab methods that could have created coronavirus mutations without leaving such a signature.
Indeed, there is also the question of conflict of interest in the Nature Medicine article. Some of the authors of that article,
as well as a February 2020
Lancet letter condemning
"conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin" – which seemed calculated to minimize outside scrutiny
of biodefense lab work – have troubling ties to the biodefense complex, as well as to the US government. Notably, neither of these
articles makes clear that a virus can have a natural origin and then be captured and studied in a controlled laboratory setting before
being let loose, either intentionally or accidentally – which is clearly a possibility in the case of the coronavirus.
Facts as "rumors"
This reporter raised questions about the subject at a news conference with a Center for Disease Control (CDC) representative
at the now-shuttered National Press Club on Feb. 11. I asked if it was a "complete coincidence" that the pandemic had started in
Wuhan, the only place in China with a declared biosafety level 4 (BSL4) laboratory. BSL4 laboratories have the most stringent safety
mechanisms, but handle the most deadly pathogens. As I mentioned, it was odd that the ostensible origin of the novel coronavirus
was bat caves in Yunnan province – more than 1,000 miles from Wuhan. I noted that "gain-of-function" lab work can results in more
deadly pathogens, and that major labs, including
some in the US, have had accidental releases .
CDC Principal Deputy Director Anne Schuchat said that based on the information she had seen, the virus was of "zoonotic origin."
She also stated, regarding gain-of-function lab work, that it is important to "protect researchers and their laboratory workers as
well as the community around them and that we use science for the benefit of people."
I followed up by asking whether an alleged natural origin did not preclude the possibility that this virus came through
a lab, since a lab could have acquired a bat virus and been working on it. Schuchat replied to the assembled journalists that "it
is very common for rumors to emerge that can take on life of their own," but did not directly answer the question. She noted that
in the 2014 Ebola outbreak some observers had pointed to nearby labs as the possible cause, claiming this "was a key rumor that had
to be overcome in order to help control the outbreak." She reiterated: "So based on everything that I know right now, I can tell
you the circumstances of the origin really look like animals-to-human. But your question, I heard."
This is no rumor. It's a fact: Labs work with dangerous pathogens. The US and China each have dual-use biowarfare/biodefense programs.
China has major facilities at Wuhan – a biosafety level 4 lab and a biosafety level 2 lab. There are leaks from labs. (See "
Preventing a Biological Arms Race ,"
MIT Press, 1990, edited by Susan Wright; also, a partial review in
Journal of International Law from October 1992.)
Much of the discussion of this deadly serious subject is marred with snark that avoids or dodges the "gain-of-function" question.
ABC
ran a story on March 27 titled "Sorry, Conspiracy Theorists. Study Concludes COVID-19 'Is Not a Laboratory Construct.'" That
story did not address the possibility that the virus could have been found in the wild, studied in a lab and then released.
On March 21, USA Today
published a piece headlined "Fact Check: Did the Coronavirus Originate In a Chinese Laboratory?" – and rated it "FALSE."
That USA Today story relied on the Washington Post, which published a widely cited article on
Feb. 17 headlined,
"Tom Cotton keeps repeating a coronavirus conspiracy theory that was already debunked." That article quoted public comments from
Rutgers University professor of chemical biology Richard Ebright, but out of context and only in part. Specifically, the story quoted
from Ebright's tweet that the coronavirus was not an "engineered bioweapon." In fact, his full quote included the clarification that
the virus could have " entered human population
through lab accident ." (An email requesting clarification sent to Post reporter Paulina Firozi was met with silence.)
Bioengineered ≠ From a lab
Other pieces in the Post since then (
some heavily sourced to
US government officials ) have conveyed Ebright's thinking, but it gets worse. In a private exchange, Ebright – who, again, has
said clearly that the novel coronavirus was not technically bioengineered using known coronavirus sequences – stated that other forms
of lab manipulation could have been responsible for the current pandemic. This runs counter to much reporting, which is perhaps too
scientifically illiterate to perceive the difference.
The genome sequence of SARS-CoV-2 has no signatures of human manipulation.
This rules out the kinds of gain-of-function (GoF) research that leave signatures of human manipulation in genome sequences
(e.g., use of recombinant DNA methods to construct chimeric viruses), but does not rule out kinds of GoF research that do not leave
signatures (e.g., serial passage in animals). [emphasis added]
Very easy to imagine the equivalent of the Fouchier's "10 passages in ferrets" with H5N1 influenza virus, but, in this case,
with 10 passages in non-human primates with bat coronavirus RaTG13 or bat coronavirus KP876546.
That last paragraph is very important. It refers to virologist Ron Fouchier of the Erasmus Medical Center in Rotterdam, who performed
research on intentionally increasing rates of viral mutation rate by spreading a virus from one animal to another in a sequence.
The New York Times wrote about this in an
editorial in January 2012,
warning of "An Engineered Doomsday."
"Now scientists financed by the National Institutes of Health" have created a "virus that could kill tens or hundreds of millions
of people" if it escaped confinement, the Times wrote. The story continued:
Working with ferrets, the animal that is most like humans in responding to influenza, the researchers found that a mere five
genetic mutations allowed the virus to spread through the air from one ferret to another while maintaining its lethality. A separate
study at the University of Wisconsin, about which little is known publicly, produced a virus that is thought to be less virulent.
The word "engineering" in the New York Times headline is technically incorrect, since passing a virus through animals is
not "genetic engineering." This same distinction has hindered some from understanding the possible origins of the current pandemic.
Fouchier's flu work, in which an H5N1 virus was made more virulent by transmitting it repeatedly between individual ferrets, briefly
sent shockwaves through the media. "Locked up in the bowels of the medical faculty building here and accessible to only a handful
of scientists lies a man-made flu virus that could change world history if it were ever set free," wrote Science magazine
in 2011 in a
story
titled "Scientists Brace for Media Storm Around Controversial Flu Studies." It continues:
The virus is an H5N1 avian influenza strain that has been genetically altered and is now easily transmissible between ferrets,
the animals that most closely mimic the human response to flu. Scientists believe it's likely that the pathogen, if it emerged in
nature or were released, would trigger an influenza pandemic, quite possibly with many millions of deaths.
In a 17th floor office in the same building, virologist Ron Fouchier of Erasmus Medical Center calmly explains why his team
created what he says is "probably one of the most dangerous viruses you can make" – and why he wants to publish a paper describing
how they did it. Fouchier is also bracing for a media storm. After he talked to ScienceInsider yesterday, he had an appointment
with an institutional press officer to chart a communication strategy.
Fouchier's paper is one of two studies that have triggered an intense debate about the limits of scientific freedom and that
could portend changes in the way U.S. researchers handle so-called dual-use research: studies that have a potential public health
benefit but could also be useful for nefarious purposes like biowarfare or bioterrorism.
Despite objections, Fouchier's article was published by Science
in June 2012 . Titled "Airborne Transmission
of Influenza A/H5N1 Virus Between Ferrets," it summarized how Fouchier's research team made the pathogen more virulent:
Highly pathogenic avian influenza A/H5N1 virus can cause morbidity and mortality in humans but thus far has not acquired the
ability to be transmitted by aerosol or respiratory droplet ("airborne transmission") between humans. To address the concern that
the virus could acquire this ability under natural conditions, we genetically modified A/H5N1 virus by site-directed mutagenesis
and subsequent serial passage in ferrets. The genetically modified A/H5N1 virus acquired mutations during passage in ferrets, ultimately
becoming airborne transmissible in ferrets.
In other words, Fouchier's research took a flu virus that did not exhibit airborne transmission, then infected a number
of ferrets until it mutated to the point that it was transmissible by air.
In that same year, 2012, a similar study by Yoshihiro
Kawaoka of the University of Wisconsin was published in Nature :
Highly pathogenic avian H5N1 influenza A viruses occasionally infect humans, but currently do not transmit efficiently among
humans. Here we assess the molecular changes that would allow a virus to be transmissible among mammals. We identified a virus with
four mutations and the remaining seven gene segments from a 2009 pandemic H1N1 virus – that was capable of droplet transmission in
a ferret model.
Recent experiments that create novel, highly virulent and transmissible pathogens against which there is no human immunity
are unethical they impose a risk of accidental and deliberate release that, if it led to extensive spread of the new agent, could
cost many lives. While such a release is unlikely in a specific laboratory conducting research under strict biosafety procedures,
even a low likelihood should be taken seriously, given the scale of destruction if such an unlikely event were to occur. Furthermore,
the likelihood of risk is multiplied as the number of laboratories conducting such research increases around the globe.
Given this risk, ethical principles, such as those embodied in the
Nuremberg Code , dictate that such experiments would be
permissible only if they provide humanitarian benefits commensurate with the risk, and if these benefits cannot be achieved by less
risky means.
We argue that the two main benefits claimed for these experiments – improved vaccine design and improved interpretation of
surveillance – are unlikely to be achieved by the creation of potential pandemic pathogens (PPP), often termed "gain-of-function"
(GOF) experiments.
There may be a widespread notion that there is scientific consensus that the pandemic did not come out of a lab. But in fact many
of the most knowledgeable scientists in the field are notably silent. This includes Lipsitch at Harvard, Jonathan A. King at MIT
and many others.
Just last year, Lynn Klotz of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation wrote a
paper
in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists entitled "Human Error in High-biocontainment Labs: A Likely Pandemic Threat." Wrote
Klotz:
Incidents causing potential exposures to pathogens occur frequently in the high security laboratories often known by their
acronyms, BSL3 (Biosafety Level 3) and BSL4. Lab incidents that lead to undetected or unreported laboratory-acquired infections can
lead to the release of a disease into the community outside the lab; lab workers with such infections will leave work carrying the
pathogen with them. If the agent involved were a potential pandemic pathogen, such a community release could lead to a worldwide
pandemic with many fatalities. Of greatest concern is a release of a lab-created, mammalian-airborne-
transmissible, highly pathogenic avian influenza virus, such as the airborne-transmissible H5N1 viruses created in the laboratories
of Ron Fouchier in the Netherlands and Yoshihiro Kawaoka in Madison, Wisconsin.
"Crazy, dangerous"
Boyle, a professor of international
law at the University of Illinois , has condemned Fouchier, Kawaoka and others – including at least one of the authors of the
recent Nature Medicine article in the strongest terms, calling such work a "criminal enterprise." While Boyle has been embroiled
in numerous controversies, he's been especially dismissed by many on this issue. The "fact-checking" website
Snopes has described him as "a lawyer with
no formal training in virology" – without noting that he wrote the relevant U.S. law.
The law Boyle drafted states: "Whoever knowingly develops, produces, stockpiles, transfers, acquires, retains, or possesses any
biological agent, toxin, or delivery system for use as a weapon, or knowingly assists a foreign state or any organization to do so,
shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for life or any term of years, or both. There is extraterritorial Federal jurisdiction
over an offense under this section committed by or against a national of the United States."
Boyle also warned:
Russia and China have undoubtedly reached the same conclusions I have derived from the same open and public sources, and have
responded in kind. So what the world now witnesses is an all-out offensive biological warfare arms race among the major military
powers of the world: United States, Russia, Britain, France, China, Israel, inter alia.
We have reconstructed the Offensive Biological Warfare Industry that we had deployed in this county before its prohibition
by the Biological Weapons Convention of 1972, described by Seymour Hersh in his groundbreaking expose "
Chemical
and Biological Warfare: America's Hidden Arsenal ." (1968)
Boyle now states that he has been "blackballed" in the media on this issue, despite his having written the relevant statute. The
group he worked with on the law, the Council for Responsible Genetics, went under several years ago, making Boyle's views against
"biodefense" even more marginal as government money for dual use work poured into the field and critics within the scientific community
have fallen silent. In turn, his denunciations have grown more sweeping.
In the 1990 book " Preventing a Biological
Arms Race ," scholar Susan Wright argued that current laws regarding bioweapons were insufficient, as there were "projects in
which offensive and defensive aspects can be distinguished only by claimed motive." Boyle notes, correctly, that current law he drafted
does not make an exception for "defensive" work, but only for "prophylactic, protective or other peaceful purposes."
While Boyle is particularly vociferous in his condemnations, he is not alone. There has been irregular, but occasional media attention
to this threat. The Guardian ran a piece in 2014, "
Scientists
condemn 'crazy, dangerous' creation of deadly airborne flu virus ," after Kawaoka created a life-threatening virus that "closely
resembles the 1918 Spanish flu strain that killed an estimated 50m people":
"The work they are doing is absolutely crazy. The whole thing is exceedingly dangerous," said Lord May, the former president
of the Royal Society and one time chief science adviser to the UK government. "Yes, there is a danger, but it's not arising from
the viruses out there in the animals, it's arising from the labs of grossly ambitious people."
Boyle's
charges
beginning early this year that the coronavirus was bioengineered – allegations recently mirrored by French virologist and
Nobel laureate Luc Montagnier – have not been corroborated by any publicly produced findings of any US scientist. Boyle even
charges that scientists like Ebright, who is at Rutgers, are compromised because the university got a
biosafety level
3 lab in 2017 – though Ebright is perhaps the most vocal eminent critic of this research, among US scientists. These and other
controversies aside, Boyle's concerns about the dangers of biowarfare are legitimate; indeed, Ebright shares them.
Some of the most vocal voices to discuss the origins of the novel coronavirus have been eager to minimize the dangers of lab work,
or have focused almost exclusively on "wet markets" or "exotic" animals as the likely cause.
The media celebrated Laurie Garrett, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author and former senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations,
when she declared on Twitter on March 3 (in a since-deleted tweet) that the origin of the pandemic was discovered: "It's pangolins.
#COVID19 Researchers studied lung tissue from 12 of the scaled mammals that were illegally trafficked in Asia and found #SARSCoV2
in 3. The animals were found in Guangxi, China. Another virus+ smuggled sample found in Guangzhou."
She was swiftly corrected by Ebright:
"Arrant nonsense. Did you even read the paper? Reported pangolin coronavirus is not SARS-CoV-2 and is not even particularly close
to SARS-CoV-2. Bat coronavirus RaTG13 is much closer to SARS-CoV-2 (96.2% identical) than reported pangolin coronavirus (92.4% identical)."
He added: "No reason to invoke pangolin as intermediate. When A is much closer than B to C, in the absence of additional data, there
is no rational basis to favor pathway A>B>C over pathway A>C." When someone asked what Garrett was saying, Ebright
responded : "She is saying she is scientifically
illiterate."
The following day, Garrett corrected herself (
without acknowledging Ebright ): "I blew
it on the #Pangolins paper, & then took a few hours break from Twitter. It did NOT prove the species = source of #SARSCoV2. There's
a torrent of critique now, deservedly denouncing me & my posting. A lot of the critique is super-informative so leaving it all up
4 while."
At least one Chinese government official has
responded to the allegation that the labs in Wuhan could be the source for the pandemic by alleging that perhaps the US is responsible
instead. In American mainstream media, that has been reflexively treated as even
more ridiculous
than the original allegation that the virus could have come from a lab.
Obviously the Chinese government's allegations should not be taken at face value, but neither should US government claims – especially
considering that US government labs were the apparent source for the
anthrax attacks in 2001 . Those attacks sent panic through
the US and shut down Congress, allowing the Bush administration to enact the
PATRIOT Act and ramp up the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Indeed, in October 2001, media darlings like
Richard Butler and
Andrew Sullivan propagandized for war
with Iraq because of the anthrax attacks. (Neither Iraq nor al-Qaida was involved.)
The 2001 anthrax attacks also provided much of the pretext for the surge in biolab spending since then, even though they apparently
originated in a US or U.S.-allied lab. Indeed, those attacks remain
shrouded in
mystery .
The US government has also come up with elaborate cover stories to distract from its bioweapons work. For instance, the US government
infamously claimed the 1953 death of Frank Olson, a scientist at Fort Detrick, Maryland, was an
LSD experiment gone wrong; it now appears to have been an execution to cover up for US biological warfare.
Regardless of the cause of the current pandemic, these biowarfare/biodefense labs need far more scrutiny. The call to shut them
down by Boyle and others needs to be clearly heard – and light must be shone on precisely what research is being conducted.
The secrecy of these labs may prevent us ever knowing with certainty the origins of the current pandemic. What we do know is this
kind of lab work comes with real dangers. One might make a comparison to climate change: We cannot attribute an individual hurricane
to man-made climate disruption, yet science tells us that human activity makes stronger hurricanes more likely. That brings us back
to the imperative to cease the kinds of activities that produce such dangers in the first place.
If that doesn't happen, the people of the planet will be at the mercy of the machinations and mistakes of state actors who are
playing with fire for their geopolitical interests.
"... The truth is that decline was never a choice, but the U.S. can decide how it can respond to it. We can continue chasing after the vanished, empty glory of the "unipolar moment" with bromides of American exceptionalism. We can continue to delude ourselves into thinking that military might can make up for all our other weaknesses. Or we can choose to adapt to a changed world by prudently husbanding our resources and putting them to uses more productive than policing the world. ..."
"... Exit From Hegemony: The Unraveling of the American Global Order ..."
More than 10 years ago, the columnist Charles Krauthammer
asserted that American
"decline is a choice," and argued tendentiously that Barack Obama had chosen it. Yet looking back over the last decade, it has become
increasingly obvious that this decline has occurred irrespective of what political leaders in Washington want.
The truth is that decline was never a choice, but the U.S. can decide how it can respond to it. We can continue chasing after
the vanished, empty glory of the "unipolar moment" with bromides of American exceptionalism. We can continue to delude ourselves
into thinking that military might can make up for all our other weaknesses. Or we can choose to adapt to a changed world by prudently
husbanding our resources and putting them to uses more productive than policing the world.
There was a brief period during the 1990s and early 2000s when the U.S. could claim to be the world's hegemonic power. America
had no near-peer rivals; it was at the height of its influence across most of the globe. That status, however, was always a transitory
one, and was lost quickly thanks to self-inflicted wounds in Iraq and the natural growth of other powers that began to compete for
influence. While America remains the most powerful state in the world, it no longer dominates as it did 20 years ago. And there can
be no recapturing what was lost.
Alexander Cooley and Dan Nexon explore these matters in their new book,
Exit From Hegemony: The Unraveling of the American Global Order . They make a strong case for distinguishing between the
old hegemonic order and the larger international order of which it is a part. As they put it, "global international order is not
synonymous with American hegemony." They also make careful distinctions between the different components of what is often simply
called the "liberal international order": political liberalism, economic liberalism, and liberal intergovernmentalism. The first
involves the protection of rights, the second open economic exchange, and the third the form of international order that recognizes
legally equal sovereign states. Cooley and Nexon note that both critics and defenders of the "liberal international order" tend to
assume that all three come as a "package deal," but point out that these parts do not necessarily reinforce each other and do not
have to coexist.
While the authors are quite critical of Trump's foreign policy, they don't pin the decline of the old order solely on him. They
argue that hegemonic unraveling takes place when the hegemon loses its monopoly over patronage and "more states can compete when
it comes to providing economic, security, diplomatic, and other goods." The U.S. has been losing ground for the better part of the
last 20 years, much of it unavoidable as other states grew wealthier and sought to wield greater influence. The authors make a persuasive
case that the "exit" from hegemony is already taking place and has been for some time.
Many defenders of U.S. hegemony insist that the "liberal international order" depends on it. That has never made much sense. For
one, the continued maintenance of American hegemony frequently conflicts with the rules of international order. The hegemon reserves
the right to interfere anywhere it wants, and tramples on the sovereignty and legal rights of other states as it sees fit. In practice,
the U.S. has frequently acted as more of a rogue in its efforts to "enforce" order than many of the states it likes to condemn. The
most vocal defenders of U.S. hegemony are unsurprisingly some of the biggest opponents of international law -- at least when it gets
in their way. Cooley and Nexon make a very important observation related to this in their discussion of the role of revisionist powers
in the world today:
But the key point is that we need to be extremely careful that we don't conflate "revisionism" with opposition to the United
States. The desire to undermine hegemony and replace it with a multipolar system entails revisionism with respect to the distribution
of power, but it may or may not be revisionist with respect to various elements of international architecture or infrastructure.
The core of the book is a survey of three different sources for the unraveling of U.S. hegemony: major powers, weaker states,
and transnational "counter-order" movements. Cooley and Nexon trace how Russia and China have become increasingly effective at wielding
influence over many smaller states through patronage and the creation of parallel institutions and projects such as the Collective
Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), and the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). They discuss
a number of weaker states that have begun hedging their bets by seeking patronage from these major powers as well as the U.S. Where
once America had a "near monopoly" on such patronage, this has ceased to be the case. They also track the role of "counter-order"
movements, especially nationalist and populist groups, in bringing pressure to bear on their national governments and cooperating
across borders to challenge international institutions. Finally, they spell out how the U.S. itself has contributed to the erosion
of its own position through reckless policies dating back at least to the invasion of Iraq.
The conventional response to the unraveling of America's hegemony here at home has been either a retreat into nostalgia with simplistic
paeans to the wonders of the "liberal international order" that ignore the failures of that earlier era or an intensified commitment
to hard-power dominance in the form of ever-increasing military budgets (or some combination of the two). Cooley and Nexon contend
that the Trump administration has opted for the second of these responses. Citing the president's emphasis on maintaining military
dominance and his support for exorbitant military spending, they say "it suggests an approach to hegemony more dependent upon military
instruments, and thus on the ability (and willingness) of the United States to continue extremely high defense spending. It depends
on the wager that the United States both can and should substitute raw military power for its hegemonic infrastructure." That not
only points to what Barry Posen has
called "illiberal hegemony,"
but also leads to a foreign policy that is even more militarized and unchecked by international law.
Cooley and Nexon make a compelling observation about how Trump's demand for more allied military spending differs from normal
calls for burden-sharing. Normally, burden-sharing advocates call on allies to spend more so the U.S. can spend less. But that isn't
Trump's position at all. His administration pressures allied governments to increase their spending, while showing no desire to curtail
the Pentagon budget:
Retrenchment entails some combination of shedding international security commitments and shifting defense burdens onto allies
and partners. This allows the retrenching power, in principle, to redirect military spending toward domestic priorities, particularly
those critical to long-term productivity and economic growth. In the current American context, this means making long-overdue
investments in transportation infrastructure, increasing educational spending to develop human capital, and ramping up support
for research and development. This rationale makes substantially less sense if retrenchment policies do not produce reductions
in defense spending–which is why Trump's aggressive, public, and coercive push for burden sharing seems odd. Recall that Trump
and his supporters want, and have already implemented, increases in the military budget. There is no indication that the Trump
administration would change defense spending if, for example, Germany or South Korea increased their own military spending or
more heavily subsidized American bases.
The coronavirus pandemic has exposed how misguided our priorities as a nation have been. There is now a chance to change course,
but that will require our leaders to shift their thinking. U.S. hegemony is already on its way out; now Americans need to decide
what our role in the world will look like afterwards. Warmed-over platitudes about "leadership" won't suffice and throwing more money
at the Pentagon is a dead end. The way forward is a strategy of retrenchment, restraint, and renewal.
Yeah. US just happened to decline, a completely natural process, some universal constant, like gravity of which we have no control.
No. A decadent US population, informed by clueless media, put in charge incompetent and self-serving leaders, who made a series
of very poor choices for the nation, but financially beneficial for themselves.
And thus our betrayed America's version of the White Man's Burden. It's sad to think our children having to endure living in a
world where they aren't called to die in God-forsaken hellholes for reasons that have nothing to do with this nation's core principles.
Sad!
Lol. Sort of. Except the very oligarchs you speak of, on both sides, set the stage for all of it.
This is the inevitable result of voting as a right, ans they knew it. Universal suffrage is a tool of control, not liberty.
The oligarchs are really just like other Americans, who got their hands on a whole lot of money. I have no doubt the rest of the
population would behave like oligarchs if given the same resources.
We don't have universal suffrage and voting is no where named as a right in the Constitution. The most it has to say is that voting
can not be denied to people based on their membership in certain classes, nor limited based on the payment of a tax.
"it has become increasingly obvious that this decline has occurred irrespective of what political leaders in Washington want."
It isn't "irrespective of". It is because of what they wanted. They wanted and aggressively pushed for US foreign policy
to serve the narrow regional interests of client states like Israel and Saudi Arabia. They got what they wanted, in spades, and
now America's geopolitical and economic fortunes are in a tail-spin.
If America had ignored these people, with their stupid interventionism, their almost blatant service of foreign interests by
demanding "no daylight" with "allies" who did nothing but suck our blood, we would have been far better off. We would have been
far better able to anticipate, prepare for, and respond to the pandemic. It's impossible not to think ruefully of the trillions
we wasted on Middle East wars and other interventions, money now so badly needed here at home.
The US will pursue a similar path to Israel. Advantage is relative. Rather than repair the US economy it is simpler to destroy
those of one's rivals. I see war as the only attractive option for the US elite as that is the only area where they still enjoy
clear superiority (or believe they do, same thing policy-wise.)
Cooley and Nevon's book appears to be a good read - I will put it on my 'to read so buy' book list. China is the next hegemon
- this is inevitable due to design. As time goes by during this 'coronavirus pandemic' I have been waiting to hear a politician,
any politician, assert that they will support legislation to require 'essential supply lines' to be returned to the U.S. Aside
from 'murmurs', not a 'lucid' peep. Just 'sue china' legislation, or smoke and mirrors blame on those within the U.S. via the
media or politicians. This is just embarrassing and surreal.
The priority should be to bring these supply lines back to the U.S. [i.e., medical]. Too hell if I am going to be forced to
pay for 'Obamacare' or 'Medicare For All' like a Russian Serf, to the Corporations [vassals] of China [Tatars] - enforced by their
'Eunuchs', greedy politicians in Washington. {Eunuchs were castrated lackies of Emperors]. Yet Chinese slave labour on these medical
products, including pharmaceutical ingredients, and precious metals for parts for the Department of Defense, keep profit margins
very high.
Because of their cowardice one must ask: Why increase defense spending on any project - or be concerned with Iran or Venezuela
or Russia or keeping NATO afloat? Allowing China to continue to be the 'sole source' provider of essential goods is just asking
for another scenario like the one before us. If so, I am convinced that my country is nothing more than a 'dead carcass' being
ripped apart by 'Corporate Vassals of China'. This, of course, includes the Tech Companies as well.
China does not have ideal geography to be world hegemon.
For one thing, it is too easy to prevent any ships from leaving the South China Sea.
The fact that China has not gone to war with anyone since 1953, except for two sharp but short border conflicts in 1962 and
1979, should tell you something. Contrast with the peace-loving liberal democracy of the United States.
The answer of course is a functional international system--environmental protection, world health, a transparent financial system,
world court, and policing. All agreed on by at least the major players which makes it costly for others not to participate.
With good reason many 'mistrust' this int'l system given the threat to sovereignty of a country, most importantly the freedom
of its citizens. An int'l system is asymmetrical, a radical 're-distribution' program that preys on citizens of the 'pseudo-wealthy'
west. The United States will be, post-Corona Virus, potentially $30T in debt. Yet they contribute the most to the WHO. The largest
contribution to the UN comes from the United States. This fact seems to rebut your 'costly for others not to participate'.
The Paris Agreement, like the UN and WHO, will rely on most of the funds coming from the U.S. and redistributed to other countries.
And this will further destroy the standard of living in this country to the degree of crashing the economy. The expected Utopian
Outcome for this so-called 'One-World' order will be a great disappointment to those that advocate for it. Because, after all,
it is nothing more than a Utopian dream gambling on the cohesive nature of different demographic groups combined with significant
reduction in freedoms for all - based on flawed models, including so-called 'man made global warming' models. To define the Demographic
is use in the context of my response: does not = race; it equals culture. Right now this is being demonstrated in the super state
of the EU. There can be no harmony in a world like this. It is like forcing a 'square peg' into a 'round hole'.
And who are these major players? The Eunuch Politicians in Washington and Western Europe? What are their priorities? Their
wallets or their constituents? And I do not mean in a parental way. That is not the role of government.
Viewed from a global perspective at this time, there is a decline in American power and influence, but the vanity of politicians
prevents them from seeing it and they don't want to let go.
The British government makes the same mistakes as it clings to an imaginary "prestige" as a world power - a power that vanished
in 1914.
After Eden was removed as PM post-Suez the new PM Harold McMillan came in and was honest with the British ppl in explaining their
new role in the world, just 10-15 years after the triumph of WW2 a UK Prime Minister had the courage to tell the British people
that they were no longer at the top table, that the age of Empire was over and to put in place the policies required to remove
the burden of empire from Britain and adjust to its new role in the world. Do you see an American politician with the capability
to tell some uncomfortable home truths to the American people and still win an election?
i think that is why voters elected Trump. The citizens of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin have lived the decline of the
United States. At least under trump there have been no new wars but the withdrawal from Iraq, Afghanistan NATO, Japan, Korea needs
to occur with the Military-Industrial-Media Complex kicking and screaming.with each step. Also ending sanctions on Iran, Cuba,
North Korea and Venezuela.
We are in Japan because it allows us to patrol the sea lanes which is vital for our economy and it gives us a large force ready
to respond in case of Chinese or North Korean aggression. The Status of Forces Agreement and other treaties with Japan stipulate
what percentage of costs are born by Japan.
Allowing Japan to destroy consumer electronics, damage steel and automotive is vital to our economy? Could we not patrol the sea
lanes if we wanted to from Guam? Is not freedom of the sea just as vital to Japan, Europe and India? How is China or North Korea
the aggressor when Japan, Korea and Taiwan have been client states of China with the US thousands of miles away?
Imperialism has bankrupt the United States just as it did Europe. The time has come to end these treaties.
Ultra protectionism, retreat to our island and no one can find us, 'make America great again' I dare say, thinking is naive and
unrealistic.
America wil be poorer, weaker, and more vulnerable if it tried to only make its own goods and had to rely on only its own labor.
Trade is profit and profit is the ability to develop, build, and defend what we have. Where do the profits go is the question.
Who loses in the trade is another question. Does the benefit from the former outweigh the latter?
I don't see Japanese trade as making much of a dent in employment rates. The profits go to the Japanese state and industry,
who are important counterweights to Chinese ambitions in Asia, a mutual interest. So, the costs are few, and the profits are used
in significant measure to mutual benefit.
The liberal hegemon is dead, yes our imperialism is dead even if it doesn't know it, but it is essential to remain strategically
involved in the world around us. Even if we stop playing the game, the world around us does not. Did Russia have the luxury of
turning into a turtle after the Cold War? No. Nations, which are all wolves, smell weakness. Yet the Trumpian right wants to hide,
put its finger in its ear, and pretend that everything will be fine it seems.
What are these withdrawals from Iraq & Afghanistan you speak of? They just have not happened, like not even a little bit, so tired
of people pushing this completely false narrative as if it is true, just maddening. A democracy cannot function if people exist
in their own worlds with their own facts that are just not true
The Brits after WW2 offer a lesson here. Hurt badly by WW1, their whole system began teetering as that illusion of the "natural
superiority" of the British took massive hits in the various colonies of the Empire. By exposing the ordinariness of the administrators
and soldiers, it encouraged revolt (see Gandhi in India). But WW2 arguably devastated the UK. It's "win" over Germany was Pyrrhic,
as it needed both the USSR and the USA , and each took a chunk of prestige and of the "hegemon". George VI recognized this, and
British politicians encouraged the shift from Empire to Commonwealth. (Which, if they had never involved themselves in the EU
beyond trade and had kept up the Commonwealth as it was intended, would have been a better path than what they did, IMHO.) Nevertheless,
they handled it better than I think we will.
As Jefferson said, "Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations-entangling alliances with none."
But to get there, we have a lot of nonsense -- damned nonsense - - to overcome.
Excellent review and outlook on an encouraging transition from the compulsion of hegemony within a generally agreeable paradigm
of economic liberalism (rules-based international markets).
Well this present regime is actively smashing "international organizations" constructed largely by the Americans after WW2. This
makes it even easier for the Chinese to fill the vacuum we have created. It would be better to hold them in a Western biased "international
organization"
All indications are that ship has sailed. Will there be hegemons? Yes, but more than one. The US will not be the only hegemon
and the COVID-19 helped the world see the emperor has no clothes.
I think that's the likely course, unless the US remains especially incompetent in ensuring that China isn't the one cleaning up
at all the empire liquidation sales.
No nation should be entrusted with anything like the power the US has had.
Until they start shooting down our airliners, sinking our cruise ships, attacking our Naval Bases, and invading their neighbors
and committing genocide against people of other races and religions.
Then, the doves will wake up and realize that the Big Stick is what kept us safe afterall.
You mean fight people who actually threaten us rather than attack people because we dream up scenarios where it's possible or
we just don't like them? I'll take that over preemptive genocide.
If we focused on actual defense 9/11 would not have happened. We ignored Al Qaeda despite the fact the bombed us multiple times
because we were too busy bombing Serbia, blowing up their TV stations and expanding NATO to gobble up former Russian Republics.
The United States routinely ignores any international laws, whenever it sees fit. Anyway, the idea that United States hegemony
is obligatory because muh international order is an argument from consequences.
Lol, America Is what's in the rear view, not just our status as the sole superpower.
People better get ready, this empire is getting ready to collapse.
Meh, people better get ready, we're getting ready to muddle along for the next several decades.
The American state is way too tasty a prize. No one is going to dismantle it, and people will unite against any threat that
has the potential to. Eventually someone will figure out a Bernie/Trump fusion and that person will be our Peron or Putin. Radical
leftists will be crushed by the police if they try anything, and the white nationalists will all be in prison.
We're somewhere between Argentina and Russia heading forward.
Sell the empire. Ignore the Middle East outside of the oil trade lanes. Reorient our trade networks on SE Asia, India, and Latin
America - no more feeding China. End of hostile moves towards Russia - let Europe reconcile with Russia. Fully support multipolar
world order.
Militarily we don't need the plodding battleship of a force we have now. No need to occupy whole countries with 'boots on the
ground'. Maintain top notch special forces, advisor and coordination programs with allies, and anything useful for blowing up
Chinese force projection especially the PLA navy. Subs and missiles.
Lots of good ideas here. Would trading with India involve a "reorient[ation]?" (I don't know.) That is to say, would still trading
with India mean that we have to maintain our current naval position, or would that still be consistent with some sort of drawdown?
Or are you saying that since India is not a hostile force, we would not have to worry about it? Or does is that problem met with
the "anything useful for blowing up Chinese force projection especially the PLA navy. Subs and missiles." Conceivably, China could
increase its presence in the Indian Ocean to create problems, no? Overall, agree with a lot of it--I'm just curious about the
logistics.
India in the longer term could ostensibly do much of what China does for us now trade wise. Needs to finish developing its infrastructure
and its manufacturing tech. SE Asia and Mexico are closer short term.
I think due to the commercial value of the seas our navy is our most cost effective means of force projection. Patrolling the
Persian Gulf means we have our thumb on the number one petroleum artery. I would focus more on cost effective means to deny China
(and Chinese trade) access to the seas in the event of tension. Carriers are expensive targets when subs and strategic missile
emplacements can inspire even more fear due to unpredictability. But yes we still need bases and partnerships throughout the Indian
and Pacific Oceans. China can roam around in peacetime as it wishes, what matters is that it stays totally bottled up in port,
along with its maritime trade, in a conflict.
Allow these places to run up trade surpluses with us rather than China.
I think Mr. Larison is on the right track. However, even if the logic of abandoning the Liberal International Order (LIO) is accepted--and
the LIO most certainly should be abandoned--the entire story or narrative of post-World War II America narrative must be either
abandoned or refashioned. It seems that the LIO functions as some sort of purpose for American citizens, and a higher-level theology
for those who work in the United States Government, especially those who are involved in foreign policy making. Countering or
reshaping the narrative of United States foreign policy and its link with domestic policy will be a challenge, but one that needs
to be taken up, and taken up successfully. In personal conversations with those who support the LIO, they seem to take [my] criticisms
of the LIO as some sort of ad hominem attack. This reaction is obviously illogical, but it is one that those who see the
wisdom of abandoning the LIO must tactically and tactfully counter. Regrettably, supporting the LIO is conflated with being an
American, or conflated with the raison d'etre of the existence of the United States. Many think the abandonment of the
LIO cannot rationally be replaced and will necessarily be replaced with some sort of nihilism or the most cynical form of "realism,"
of which they mistakenly believe they possess understanding. For a start, reforming the educational system, insofar as it not
already dominated by incorrect-but-fashionable far-leftist ideas that advocate a narrative of American history and purpose as
false as it is pernicious, would seem to necessary. Many children grow into adulthood falsely thinking maintaining the LIO is
their responsibility. It is, at root, a theological sickness.
I hope it is over. To hell with the Europeans who have made a national sport of mocking Americans and all things America, while
we risk nuclear war on their behalf. Let them face Putin and the Islamic invasion on their own - those problems are Europe's,
not ours.
The United States is ramping up for the "Great Final War' with both Russia and China. Throw in Iran, Syria, North Korea etc. as
an afterthought. The U.S. will bring the temple down on itself rather than give up the goal of 'Full Spectrum Dominance'.that
it has been pursuing since the end of WWII.
Alexander Cooley and Dan Nexon may think the glory days are coming to an end, but I don't think Trump and the neocons got the
memo yet. I see no evidence of any intent to change.
There is no "international order." That's just rhetoric that is useful for certain economic interests. A world without american
hegemony will be divided and filled with conflict. Globalization can't work politically.
Listen to America's imperial proconsuls long enough and they often let slip something
approaching truth -- perhaps exceptionalist confession is more accurate. Take Admiral Craig S.
Faller, commander of U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), with responsibility for all of Latin
America. Just before the COVID-19 crisis shifted into full gear, on March 11 he testified
before the House Armed Services Committee and admitted
, "There will be an increase in the U.S. military presence in the hemisphere later this year."
Naturally, admiral, but why?
Well, if one can push past the standard, mindless military dialectics -- i.e. "bad guys" --
the admiral posits a ready justification: Russia and (most especially) China. With his early
career molded in the last, triumphalist Reagan-era Cold War, Faller may be a true believer
in new dichotomies that must feel like coming home for the 1983 Naval Academy graduate. Before
the committee, he described
China, Russia, Iran, Cuba, and Venezuela as "malign state actors" who constitute "a vicious
circle of threats." Faller is right about the circle, but it is his own country that produces
it.
These are strange bedfellows, no matter how hard a criminally ahistorical White House and
Pentagon try to sell such disparate nations as naturally allied antagonists. A few of these
countries have tortured recent pasts, and three of them are several thousand miles from the
very hemisphere they ostensibly contest. The truth is that it's U.S. imperialism,
intransigence, and hyper-intervention -- anywhere and everywhere -- that links these
historically and geopolitically unnatural partners together. This holds true both in policy and
imagination. In the Corona Age, the Trump team -- anti-interventionist populist
campaign rhetoric aside -- have outed themselves as
pandemic-opportunists and gleeful slaves to the " New Cold War
."
Today, Washington sets policies that consistently make mountains out of "malign" molehills,
and quite literally construct the Orwellian enemies it
needs. It's hardly anything new. From
Reagan's "confederation of terrorist states" in a new "international Murder Inc." and Bush
II's "axis of evil," to Trump's (or actually
John Bolton's ) recent "troika of tyranny," the utility of the nuance-absent idiom is
clear: manufacture public fear, demonize opponents, and link the otherwise unlinked. Only
there's a catch: Decry a concocted connection often enough and one drives inorganic rivals into
each other's arms.
Exhibit A is East Asia. China and Russia are hardly historically simpatico. During the Cold
War, the Sino-Soviet split put the lie to communism as mythical monolith and resulted in a
shooting war
along the immense border between them. Furthermore, Beijing -- the rising regional power --
won't forever acquiesce to the archaic imperial boundaries, especially as a demographic
tipping point nears whereby Russia's scant Siberian population is overrun by Chinese
migrants. And Putin knows it.
Luckily for Vlad, U.S. demonization of China and Uncle Sam's insistence on perpetual
preeminence in the Western Pacific places that impending conflict on ice as Xi Jinping seeks
out Moscow as an ally of convenience. Remove the American challenge, as the East-West Center's
Denny Roy recently wrote
, and "the primary strategic motivation for Sino-Russian cooperation would fade," and relations
return to "their historically more normal adversarial character."
Back in Latin America, Washington inverts the spatial relationship, but adheres to the
formula of countering -- and creating -- " imagined
communities " of distant enemy "alliances." Though neither Russia or China (and certainly
not Iran) have any meaningful military
presence, Admiral Faller sees these nefarious ghosts behind every palm tree in his area of
responsibility. Their essential crime: trading with and recognizing regimes Washington doesn't
particularly care for in Cuba, Nicaragua, or Venezuela. The SOUTHCOM chief spoke of how "Russia
once again projected power in our neighborhood ," and that his "aha moment" this past
year was "the extent to which China is aggressively pursuing their interests right here in
our neighborhood ." (emphases added)
That's some fascinating language. As was Faller's reference to Chinese regional loans as
"predatory financing." Pot meet kettle! Surely, even the "
company man " admiral must know that his own navy right now
-- as always -- cruises warships through the disputed South China Sea, and that
Washington has long set the gold
standard in predatory loans through the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.
Besides, even assume that, say, Russia is wrong to back what Faller had the temerity to
label
the "former Maduro regime," in Venezuela, what of Washington's support for Bolivia's military
coup-installed extremists
in Bolivia, and of the right-wing strongman Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil?
Faller's "neighborhood" fallacy illustrates an American hypocrisy without recognizable
bounds. How instructive -- and disturbing -- it is to hear a purportedly educated four-star
flag officer peddle foolish binaries and prattle on in such coarse platitudes. The ease with
which this nonsense passes public and congressional muster is surely symptomatic of an obtuse
U.S. militarist disease. For if the admiral counts as one of those (establishment darling) "
adults
" in the Trumpian room, then the republic is in even bigger trouble than many thought. Either
way, it's high time to recognize Faller and his ilk for what they usually are: staggeringly
"small" thinkers without an inkling of strategic imagination.
It is, however, regarding Iran that the U.S. makes the bed for the most absurd of fellows.
Trump's withdrawal from a functioning nuclear deal, and recent
off-the-rails escalations , accomplish little more than
driving Tehran into Russia's arms. Incidentally, these are decidedly
unnatural friends, seeing as they fought repeated wars over the last few centuries, Moscow
occupied northern Iran after World War II, and their respective contours of regional influence
have long been contested.
Furthermore, it was U.S. complicity in
the Saudi terror war on Yemen that deepened ties between the Houthis and a Tehran that had
hardly given them much thought previously. Not only were Iranian military and religious (the
two peoples actually follow
different strands of Shia Islam) ties initially
exaggerated , but the sequence of increased support is usually confused. Serious support
from Tehran postdated the Saudi assaults.
Lastly, Trump's seemingly self-sabotaging actions decisively empower
the very hardliners in Tehran whom they purport to loathe. Rather than encourage nascent
moderates like President Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, The Donald's
unnecessary pugnacity
led to conservative legislative victories in Tehran, and so increased the popularity of the
Supreme Leader that Iranian people are apt to believe the ayatollah's insane
COVID-conspiracy theories.
If the rank absurdity of today's U.S. military posturing, and its outcomes, tend to confuse,
it is important to remember that Trump's audience is us -- the public and the media that
serves it -- not Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, or even Ayatollah Khomeini. After all, not even
Trump (I think?) believes the "harassing" Iranian speedboats in the Persian Gulf, that he just
ordered the navy to "to shoot down and destroy" if they misbehave, are headed for
Baltimore. Should Washington's policies appear incoherent, and consequently near masochistic,
well, that might be precisely the point, or, conversely (if unsatisfyingly), all there actually
is to say about that.
If the ultimate goal, as I'm increasingly persuaded, is simply to manufacture the enemy
coalitions necessary to frighten (thus discipline) the people and ensure endless profits for
the military-industrial complex that funds the resultant buildup -- well, then, Mr. Trump's
policies are far more lucid and effective than they're usually credited to be.
On the other hand, if chaos and contingency reign -- as they often have -- in Washington,
then U.S. foreign policy represents nothing less than counter-productivity incarnate. Lord only
knows which is worse.
I'm sure you still remember them. The president regularly called them " my generals
." They were, he claimed , from "central casting"
and there were three of them: retired Marine Corps General John Kelly, who was first
appointed secretary of the Department of Homeland Security and then White House chief of
staff; Army Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster, who became the president's national security
advisor; and last (but hardly least) retired Marine Corps General James Mattis, whom Trump
particularly adored for his nickname "
Mad Dog " and appointed as secretary of defense. Of him, the president said, "If I'm
doing a movie, I pick you, General Mattis, who's doing really well."
They were referred to in Washington and in the media more generally as "
the adults in the room ," indicating what most observers (as well as insiders) seemed to
think about the president – that he was, in effect, the impulsive, unpredictable,
self-obsessed
toddler in that same room. All of them had been commanders in the very conflicts that
Donald Trump had labeled "
ridiculous Endless Wars " and were distinctly hawkish and uncritical of those same wars
(like the rest of the U.S. high command). It was even rumored that, as "adults," Kelly and
Mattis had made a
private pact not to be out of the country at the same time for fear of what might happen
in their absence. By the end of 2018, of course, all three were gone. "My generals" were no
more, but the toddler remained.
As TomDispatch regular , West Point graduate (class of 2005), and retired Army Major
Danny Sjursen explains in remarkable detail today, while the president finally tossed "his"
generals in the nearest trash can, the "adults" (and you do have to keep that word in
quotation marks) didn't, in fact, leave the toddler alone in the Oval Office. They simply
militarized and demilitarized at the same time. In fact, one class from West Point, that of
1986, from which both Secretary of Defense Mark Esper and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
graduated, is essentially everywhere in a distinctly militarized (if still officially
civilian) and wildly hawkish Washington in the Trumpian moment. ~ Tom
"Courage Never Quits"? : The Price of Power and West Point's Class of 1986
By Danny Sjursen
Every West Point class votes on an official motto. Most are then inscribed on their class
rings. Hence, the pejorative West Point label " ring knocker ." (As
legend has it, at military meetings a West Pointer "need only knock his large ring on the
table and all Pointers present are obliged to rally to his point of view.") Last August, the
class of 2023 announced theirs: "Freedom Is
Not Free." Mine from the class of 2005 was "Keeping Freedom Alive." Each class takes pride in
its motto and, at least theoretically, aspires to live according to its sentiments, while
championing the accomplishments of fellow graduates.
But some cohorts do stand out. Take the class of 1986 (" Courage Never Quits
"). As it happens, both Secretary of Defense Mark Esper and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
are members of that very class, as are a surprisingly
wide range of influential leaders in Congress, corporate America, the Pentagon, the
defense industry, lobbying firms, Big Pharma ,
high-end financial
services , and even security-consulting firms. Still, given their striking hawkishness on
the subject of American war-making, Esper and Pompeo rise above the rest. Even in a pandemic,
they are as good as their class motto. When it comes to this country's wars, neither of them
ever quits.
Once upon a time, retired Lieutenant General Douglas Lute (Class of '75), a former US
Ambassador to NATO and a senior commander in Iraq and Afghanistan, taught both Esper and
Pompeo in his West Point social sciences class. However, it was Pompeo, the class of '86
valedictorian, whom Lute singled out for praise,
remembering him as "a very strong student – fastidious, deliberate." Of course, as
the Afghanistan Papers, released by
the Washington Post late last year, so starkly revealed ,
Lute told an interviewer that, like so many US officials, he "didn't have the foggiest notion
of what we were undertaking in Afghanistan." Though at one point he was President George W.
Bush's "Afghan war czar ," the
general never expressed such doubts publicly and his record of dissent is hardly an
impressive one. Still, on one point at least, Lute was on target: Esper and Pompeo are
smart and that's what worries me (as in the phrase "too smart for their own good").
Esper, a former Raytheon lobbyist, had
particularly hawkish views on Russia and China before he ever took over at the Pentagon
and he wasn't alone when it came to the urge to continue America's wars. Pompeo, then a
congressman, exhibited a striking pre-Trump-era foreign policy pugnacity
, particularly vis-à-vis the Islamic world . It has
since solidified into a veritable
obsession with toppling the Iranian regime.
Their militarized obsessions have recently taken striking form in two ways: the secretary
of defense
instructed US commanders to prepare plans to escalate combat against Iranian-backed
militias in Iraq, an order the mission's senior leader there, Lieutenant General Robert "Pat"
White,
reportedly resisted; meanwhile, the secretary of state evidently is
eager to convince President Trump to use the Covid-19 pandemic, now devastating Iran,
to bomb that country and further strangle it with sanctions. Worse yet, Pompeo might be just
cunning enough to convince his ill-informed, insecure boss (so open to clever flattery) that
war is the answer.
The militarism of both men matters greatly, but they hardly pilot the ship of state alone,
any more than Trump does (whatever he thinks). Would that it were the case. Sadly, even if
voters threw them all out, the disease runs much deeper than them. Enter the rest of the
illustrative class of '86.
As it happens, Pompeo's and Esper's classmates permeate the deeper structure of
imperial America . And let's admit it, they are, by the numbers, an impressive crew. As
another '86 alumnus, Congressman Mark Green (R-TN), bragged
on the House floor in 2019, "My class [has] produced 18 general officers 22-plus presidents
and CEOs of major corporations two state legislators [and] three judges," as well as "at
least four deans and chancellors of universities." He closed his remarks by exclaiming,
"Courage never quits, '86!"
However, for all his gushing, Green's list conceals much. It illuminates neither the
mechanics nor the motives of his illustrious classmates; that is, what they're actually doing
and why. Many are key players in a corporate-military machine bent on, and reliant on,
endless war for profit and professional advancement. A brief look at key '86ers offers
insight into President Dwight D. Eisenhower's military-industrial complex in 2020 – and
it should take your breath away.
The West Point Mafia
The core group of '86 grads cheekily
refer to themselves as "the West Point mafia." And for some, that's an uplifting thought.
Take Joe DePinto, CEO of 7-Eleven. He
says that he's "someone who sleeps better at night knowing that those guys are in the
positions they're in." Of course, he's an
'86 grad, too .
Back when I called the academy home, we branded such self-important cadets "
toolbags ." More than a decade later, when I taught there, I found my students still
using the term. Face facts, however: those "toolbags,"
thick as thieves today, now run the show in Washington (and despite their busy schedules,
they still find time to socialize as a group).
Given Donald Trump's shady past – one doesn't build an Atlantic City
casino-and-hotel empire without "
mobbing-it-up " – that Mafia moniker is actually fitting. So perhaps it's worth
thinking of Mike Pompeo as the president's latest consigliere . And since gangsters
rarely countenance a challenge without striking back, Lieutenant General White should watch
his back after his prudent attempt to stop the further escalation of America's wars in Iraq
and Iran in the midst of a deadly global pandemic. Worse yet for him, he's not a West Pointer
(though he did, oddly enough, earn his Army commission on the
very day that class of '86 graduated). White's once promising career is unlikely to be
long for this world.
In addition to Esper and Pompeo, other Class of '86 alums serve in key executive branch
roles. They include the
vice chief of staff of the Army General Joseph Martin, the director of the Army National Guard,
the commander of NATO's Allied Land
Command, the
deputy commanding general of Army Forces Command, and the
deputy commanding general of Army Cyber Command. Civilian-side classmates in the Pentagon
serve as: deputy assistant
secretary of the Army for installations, energy, and environment; a
civilian aide to the secretary of the Army; and the director of stabilization and peace
operations policy for the secretary of defense. These Pentagon career civil servants aren't,
strictly speaking, part of the "Mafia" itself, but two Pompeo loyalists are indeed charter
members.
Pompeo brought
Ulrich Brechbuhl and Brian Butalao, two of his closest cadet friends, in from the corporate
world. The three of them had, at one point, served as CEO, CFO,
and COO of Thayer Aerospace, named for the " father" of West Point, Colonel
Sylvanus Thayer, and started with Koch Industries
seed money . Among other things, that corporation sold
the Pentagon military aircraft components.
Brechbuhl and Butalao were given senior
positions at the CIA when Pompeo was its director. Currently, Brechbuhl is the State
Department's counselor (and reportedly
Pompeo's de facto chief of staff), while Butalao serves as under secretary for
management. According to his official bio, Butalao is responsible "for managing the State
Department on a day-to-day basis and [serving as its] Chief Operating Officer." Funny, that
was his exact position under
Pompeo at that aerospace company.
Still, this Mafia trio can't run the show by themselves. The national security structure's
tentacles are so much longer than that. They reach all the way to K Street and Capitol
Hill.
From Congress to K Street: The Enablers
Before Trump tapped Pompeo to head
the CIA and then the State Department, he represented Wichita, Kansas, home to Koch Industries, in the House of
Representatives. In fact, Pompeo rode his ample
funding from the political action committee of the billionaire Koch brothers straight to
the Hill. So linked was he to those fraternal right-wing energy tycoons and so
protective of their interests that he was
dubbed "the congressman from Koch." The relationship was mutually beneficial. Pompeo's
selection as secretary of state solidified
the previously
strained relationship of the brothers with President Trump.
The '86 Mafia's current congressional heavyweight, however, is Mark Green. An early
Trump supporter, he regularly tried to
shield the president from impeachment as a
minority member of the House Oversight and Reform Committee. The Tennessee congressman
nearly became Trump's secretary of the Army, but ultimately
withdrew his nomination because of controversies that included sponsoring
gender-discriminatory bills and commenting
that "transgender is a disease."
Legislators like Green, in turn, take their foreign-policy marching orders from the
military's corporate suppliers. Among those, Esper, of course, represents the gold standard
when it comes to " revolving-door " defense
lobbying. Just before ascending the Pentagon summit, pressed by Senator Elizabeth Warren
during his confirmation hearings, he patently
refused to "recuse himself from all matters related to" Raytheon, his former
employer and the nation's third-largest defense contractor. (And that was even before its
recent
merger with United Technologies Corporation, which once employed another Esper classmate as a senior
vice president.) Incidentally, one of Raytheon's " biggest
franchises " is the Patriot missile defense system, the very weapon being
rushed to Iraq as I write, ostensibly as a check on Pompeo's favored villain, Iran.
Less well known is the handiwork of another '86 grad, longtime lobbyist and CNN paid
contributor David Urban, who first met the president in 2012 and still
recalls how "we clicked immediately." The consummate Washington insider, he backed Trump
"when nobody else thought he stood a chance" and in 2016 was his senior campaign adviser in
the pivotal swing state of Pennsylvania.
Esper and Urban have been
close for more than 30 years. As cadets, they served in the same unit during the Persian
Gulf War. It was Urban who introduced Esper to his wife. Both later graced the Hill 's
list of Washington's top lobbyists. Since 2002, Urban has been a partner and is now
president of a
consulting giant, the American Continental Group. Among its clients : Raytheon and 7-Eleven.
It's hard to overstate Urban's role. He seems to have
landed Pompeo and Esper their jobs in the Trump administration and was a key go-between
in marrying class of '86 backbenchers and moneymen to that bridegroom of our moment, The
Donald.
Greasing the Machine: The Moneymen
Another '86er also passed through that famed military-industrial revolving door. Retired
Colonel Dan Sauter left his position as chief of staff of the 32nd Army Air and Missile
Defense Command for one at giant weapons maker Lockheed Martin as business developer for the
very systems his old unit employed. Since May 2019, he's directed Lockheed's
$1.5 billion Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) program in Saudi Arabia.
Lockheed's THAAD systems have streamed
into that country to protect the Kingdom, even as Pompeo continually threatens Iran.
If such corporate figures are doing the selling, it's the Pentagon, naturally, that's
doing the buying. Luckily, there are '86 alumni in key positions on the purchasing end as
well, including a retired brigadier general who now serves as the Pentagon's principal
adviser to the under secretary for acquisition, technology, and logistics.
Finally, there are other key consultants linked to the military-industrial complex who are
also graduates of the class of '86. They include a senior vice
president of Hillwood – a massive domestic and international real estate
development company, chaired by Ross Perot, Jr. –
formerly a consultant to the government of the United Arab Emirates. The Emiratis are US
allies in the fight against Pompeo's Iranian nemesis and, in 2019,
awarded Raytheon a $1.5 billion contract to supply key components for its air force
missile launchers.
Another classmate is a managing partner for Patriot Strategies,
which consults for corporations and the government but also separately lands hefty defense contracts itself. His
previous " ventures " included
"work in telecommunications in the Middle East and technical security upgrades at US
embassies worldwide."
Yet another grad , Rick
Minicozzi, is the founder and CEO of Thayer Leader Development Group (TLDG), which prides
itself on "building" corporate leaders. TLDG clients include:
7-Eleven, Cardinal Glass, EMCOR, and Mercedes-Benz. All either have or had '86ers at the
helm. The company's CEO also owns the Thayer
Hotel located right on West Point's grounds, which hosts many of the company's
lectures and other events. Then there's the retired colonel who, like me, taught on the West
Point history faculty. He's now the CEO of Battlefield
Leadership , which helps corporate leaders "learn from the past" in order to "prepare for
an ever-changing business landscape."
A Class-wide Conflict of Interest
Don't for a moment think these are all "bad" people. That's not faintly my point. One
prominent '86 grad, for instance, is Lieutenant General Eric Wesley, the
deputy of Army Futures Command. He was my brigade commander at Fort Riley, Kansas, in
2009 and I found him competent, exceptionally empathetic, and a decidedly decent man, which
is probably true of plenty of '86ers.
So what exactly is my point here? I'm not for a second charging conspiracy or even
criminal corruption. The lion's share of what all these figures do is perfectly legal. In
reality, the way the class of '86 has permeated the power structure only reflects the nature
of the carefully
crafted , distinctly undemocratic systems through which the military-industrial complex
and our political world operate by design. Most of what they do couldn't, in fact, be more
legal in a world of never-ending American wars and national security budgets that eternally
go
through the roof . After all, if any of these figures had acted in anything but a
perfectly legal fashion, they might have run into a classmate of theirs who recently led the
FBI's corruption unit in New Jersey – before, that is, he retired and became CEO of a
global security consulting firm
. (Sound familiar?)
And that's my point, really. We have a system in Washington that couldn't be more lawful
and yet, by any definition, the class of '86 represents one giant conflict of interest (and
they don't stand alone). Alums from that year are now ensconced in every level of the
national security state: from the White House to the Pentagon to Congress to K Street to
corporate boardrooms. And they have both power and a deep stake, financial or otherwise, in
maintaining or expanding the (forever) warfare state.
They benefit from America's permanent military mobilization, its never-ending economic
war-footing ,
and all that comes with it. Ironically, this will inevitably include the blood of future West
Point graduates, doomed to serve in their hopeless crusades. Think of it all as a macabre
inversion of their class motto in which it's not their courage but that of younger graduates
sent off to this country's hopeless wars that they will never allow to "quit."
Speaking of true courage, lately the only exemplar we've had of it in those wars is
General "Pat" White. It seems that he, at least, refused to kiss the proverbial rings of
those Mafia men of '86.
But of course, he's not part of their "family," is he?
Danny Sjursen is a retired U.S. Army officer and contributing editor atAntiwar.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 forpre-order. Sjursen was recently selected as a 2019-20 Lannan FoundationCultural Freedom Fellow. Follow him on Twitter@SkepticalVet. Visit his
professionalwebsitefor contact info, to schedule speeches or media appearances, and access to his past
work.
Everyone has heard, ad nauseam, about the "
Special Relationship " between the United States and Britain. Accordingly, the few
Americans who dare identify their country as an empire – past or present – tend
to analogize with the British model. While the similarities between Washington and
London-style imperialism are manifold – along with the distinct differences – in
other important ways, the more appropriate parallel is with France. For the French,
unlike
the Brits (for the most part), and like modern Americans (in a more indirect way),
imagined their colonial subjects as vital, moldable constituents (if rarely citizens) of a
grand francophone project for good.
I know, I know, the French and Americans can't stand each other, right? Well, sure, theirs
has been a contentious relationship for centuries – politically, culturally, you name
it. True enough, but lest we forget that the U.S. formed in opposition to British
Empire, and – though rarely mentioned in the dominant memories of American
Revolutionary
triumphalism – the colonists' military victory would've been far more difficult (if
not impossible) without French intervention on their behalf.
No doubt, the relationship between the US and its first, and longest, ally has been filled
with ups and downs: one thinks of the
Quasi-War (1798), FDR-Charles De Gaulle world war
drama , Paris' semi-" withdrawal " from NATO (1966),
and, of course, the Iraq War dispute-" freedom fries " charade
(2003), for starters. Still, in key ways, I'd submit that it is precisely because the French
and American models of governance and global policy have so much in common that they –
like rival siblings – so often squabble.
Peas in an Exceptional Pod of Delusion
While all historical analogizing must proceed cautiously – and with recognition of
the limits of deduction – the broad similarities are staggering. It is the very
grandiose idealism – and consequent universalism – in the wake of their
inextricably
connected revolutions, that has set the French and American hegemons (and empires) apart.
While the American variety has tended more towards (at least an aspirational) multiculturalism than that
of the French, both post-revolutionary nations have been certain of – and applied
– the necessary and proper exportability of their universally "positive"
cultural-political systems.
Indeed, in spite of their rather different ( theoretical )
approaches to internal immigrants, with some far-right wing exceptions
, to be French or American – rather uniquely – has been as much idea as
nationality. There have, of course, been both positive and negative applications inherent to
this notion. One common output has been a common dedication to the nebulous canard of
national "greatness." Indeed, Donald Trump – and Ronald Reagan
before him – can be said to have channeled none other than Charles De Gaulle, who
wrote in his war
memoirs, way back in 1954, that "France cannot be France without greatness."
Consequently, by extension, there have been (necessarily) tragic consequences for the
millions of victims of an imperialism that assumes not only metropole superiority, but that
inside every Algerian (or Afghan) is a Frenchman (or American) waiting to be unzipped .
Such is the logical conclusion of exceptionalism – that most treacherous of all
imperial brands.
There are more specific Franco-American likenesses worth noting as well. Despite the cozy
rhetoric of US multiculturalism and France's assimilation, both states ultimately adhere to a
notion that national values – however vaguely framed – heat their
respective citizen melting pots. And both fill their prisons with the detritus of that
program's historical failures. By now, the reality, and broad contours of, America's world-
record mass incarceration
– particularly of black and brown bodies are widely reported. Less well known, but of a
piece with the US model, is that by 2003, France's Muslims accounted for seven percent of the
population but
70 to 80 percent of its prisoners.
Furthermore, both have lengthy records of post-colonial and neo-imperial adventurism
across far-flung swathes of the the globe. In fact, American and French wars have been the
West's bloodiest since 1945, and also often complimentary – whereby, for example,
Washington quite literally took up Paris' mantle in
Vietnam. Furthermore, even today, France – though it pales in comparison to America's
veritable " empire of bases "
– maintains perhaps
the world's second largest network of overseas military footholds. That deployment and
intervention bonanza has all "blown back" at the French and American homelands, as both have
been targeted – recently at two of the highest Western rates – by transnational (or
foreign-influenced) "terrorists" from the very regions where they most often militarily
intervene.
Joint Exhibit Africa
Lastly, and most relevant to the current moment, both Paris and Washington have had a
tragic tortured relationship with – and become the favorite targets of – the more
violent flavors of political Islam. Of late, for the Americans, and more longstanding for the
French, that has particularly been the case in Africa. The truth is there are only two
countries which station – and unleash – significant numbers of troops in Africa
today: France and the United States.
The post-colonial pervasiveness of the French presence in Africa was itself exceptional
– at least until the United States truly got in the game in a more overt post-9/11 way.
As late as 1990, France had troops stationed in a remarkable 22
African countries. Even the once great British Empire's postcolonial role paled
in comparison. Furthermore, in a tactic the U.S. would later – and continue
to – make its own, France signed military defense pacts with 27
African states during the period 1961-92, including with three former British, and a few
Belgian, colonies. Paris also spearheaded three further
tactics common to Washington throughout and beyond the decolonization and Cold War eras:
fomenting coups, empowering dictators, and " dancing "
with heinous (sometimes genocidal) monsters. In several repulsive cases, some combination of
all three were waged as joint Franco-American exercises.
Paris and Washington "Behind the Scenes"
Since the end of the Second World War, when a defeated France sought to regain the
physical space, and glory, of its empire – most of which was in Africa – it
unleashed its external intelligence service, then known as the SDECE , first to stifle colonial nationalism, and
then, begrudgingly, to sustain real power over the newly independent states. Whereas
the equivalent US CIA spent the Cold War working behind the scenes to counter even the whiff
of Soviet influence, the SDECE was more concerned with stifling any true hints of economic or
political autonomy in its former domains. Nonetheless, not always, but more often than not,
Paris' and Washington's goals were symbiotic.
In the period after the " Year of Africa " –
when 14 French (and 17 total) colonies gained independence – the SDECE (after 1981
known as the DGSE) instigated
several coups , and been implicated
in more than a few presidential assassinations. In more farcical cases – take the
Central African Republic (CAR) – the SDECE even planned coups against leaders it had
previously "couped" into office in the first place. The losers were always the common
people, mind you, and it should thus come as little surprise that France was drawn back into the CAR over
this past decade in response to spiraling religious and ethnic conflict. Naturally, the CIA
played the same game all over the continent – toppling a few governments of its own
and
planning to assassinate prime Minister Patrice Lumumba of the Congo – but for the
most part, Paris guarded its "special," depraved, role in Francophone West and Central
Africa.
During the Cold War, and – albeit with some different motives – ever since,
Franco-American intel and diplomatic services have gleefully backed any strongman willing to
support Western goals or oppose the West's (perceived) external enemies. The outcomes have
repeatedly been tragic. Both Washington and Paris helped install and then backed Zaire's
(Congo's) brutal dictator Mobutu Sese Seko's vicious 35 year reign – the French to the
bitter end, even after the US cut him lose after he'd outlived his Cold War usefulness. Paris
even
ran one final covert operation – which included three fighter aircraft and European
mercenaries – in an unsuccessful attempt to stem the rebel tide in 1997. Previously,
France installed and/or backed dictators who banned political parties, and tortured or
murdered opponents in Cameroon, Niger, Chad, and the Central African Republic, among
others.
In the particularly odious case of Chad, Paris and Washington alternately worked at cross
or joint purposes to back one authoritarian thug after another. Both the SDECE and CIA
funneled cash and weapons to a slew of leaders who exploited and widened ethnic and religious
(Muslim north vs. Christian and animist south) conflicts and waged war on their own people.
Much of this unfolded in the name of a lengthy proxy war with Libya's Ghadafi regime –
which France would take a leading role in toppling
along with the US in 2011 – that ultimately destabilized the entire North African
region. The unintended perils of backing military strongmen was on stark display again
recently when a U.S.-trained captain
led a 2012 coup in Mali which drew both American and French troops back
into a prolonged indecisive intervention.
The rarely recounted record of French support for African monsters – usually vicious
rebel groups – is exceptionally hideous. For starters, Paris
backed Biafran separatists in Nigeria's bloody civil war (1967-70) with 350 tons of
weapons, and was the prime backer of the Rwandan Hutu regime – and its later rebel
manifestations in the extended Congo civil wars (1996-2003) – that perpetrated the
worst genocide (1994) since the Nazi Holocaust. If the US didn't always side with France in
these cases, it scantly opposed the macabre missions.
The Franco-American (Exceptionalist) Forever War Curse
In Africa, both France's (since 1960) and America's (after 2001) foreign policy has been
veritably defined by hyper-interventionism, and low-intensity forever wars. The French
have militarily intervened no less than 50 times – in at least 13 countries
– since official decolonization. It has waged its own lengthy or seemingly forever wars
in Chad (1968-75, 77-80 83-84),
Ivory Coast (2002-present), and Mali
. (2013-present) In Chad, the US has recently
taken the baton from France and continues to bolster a regime ranked by Transparency
International in 2010 as the sixth most corrupt on earth.
Indeed, today the French and American militaries are engaged in a joint adventure chasing
Islamist "terror" ghosts across Francophone West and Central Africa. According to AFRICOM's
own internal
documents , the US military now has "enduring" "footprints" in six, and "non-enduring"
presence in four, former French colonies in the region. Taking that incestuous overlap a step
further, Washington and Paris are together simultaneously engaged in
active operations in four of those countries, and jointly station troops in at least
two
others . Britain, by contrast, has troops in only four African countries in any
abiding sense, and is far less active in combat. While hardly any Americans –
and to a lesser extent Frenchmen – can locate, or in certain cases pronounce, Djibouti,
Gabon, Niger, Burkina Faso, Senegal, Chad, Tunisia, Mali, or Cameroon, the stark fact is that
both countries are meddling, and often at war, in each of those distant locales.
American and French soldiers, alike, continue to die in these, at best, tangential
hot spots in the name of domestic populations that don't give a damn and hardly take any
notice. In Africa, at least (though not the Middle East), French military losses have been
even higher than American casualties. Since 2013, 30 French troops have
died in Mali alone. For all that cost in French blood and treasure – more than
$750 million annually – the Sahel is even today " slipping out of control ." The same
could be said of the American investment – ample billions spent and thousands of troops
extensively deployed
in some 15 countries as of 2019 – in Africa since 9/11.
The result of all this has been a joint Franco-American counter-productivity crisis both
for the region and homeland security. The blowback synergy is perhaps best illustrated in the
linked Libyan-Mali debacle, especially since Paris and Washington (along with London)
shamelessly masked an
outright (Ghadafi) regime change in Tripoli under the guise of the UN's Responsibility
to Protect (R2P) concept.
From 2007-08, US special forces inserted themselves and
assisted the Malian government in its decidedly local ethnic fight with Tuareg
separatists in the country's north. Simultaneously, US trained and backed forces in nearby
Niger committed atrocities against fellow Tuareg civilians – which only added to their
ethnic grievances. Then, that temporarily tamped-down insurgency exploded when it was
bolstered in 2012 by fighters and weapons which flooded south from the chaos induced by
NATO's 2011 regime change war in Libya. A year later, the French army was back in its former
colony. They've yet to leave.
So, essentially, France – through its earlier colonial divide and rule policies
– and the US, by militarily meddling and choosing sides in local matters (and
catalyzing instability in Libya), created the Tuareg "problem" in Mali (and Niger)
that both Western powers then intervened in, and are still trying, to solve.
Taking stock of this recent U.S.-backed Francophone African history repeated
as farce , one is reminded of the
rejoinder of a long dead French Algerian settler philosopher: "Each act of repression
each act of police torture has deepened the despair and violence of those subjected [and] in
this way given birth to terrorists who in turn have given birth to more police." Or, one
might add in the contemporary African context: more French and American soldiers .
The Questions We (Both) Dare Not Ask
In another absurd commonality, the French and Americans have come to uncritically
accept the inevitability of interminable warfare in Africa without asking why. Neither
Paris nor Washington has much bothered to self-pose the salient question at hand: Why
has violent Islamism exploded in Africa (or the Mideast, for that matter); and why now
? It certainly can't be as simple as the Bush-era
trope : "They hate us for our freedoms."
If that were the case, one would expect the jihadi wave sooner, since, after all, French
and American democracy – such as it is – is far older than the post-colonial, or
post-9/11 eras. See, but there's the rub: exceptional entities don't trouble
themselves with such questions; that sort of doubt or reflection wouldn't occur to a
universalist policymaker in Paris or Washington.
Naturally, if French or American leaders had lowered themselves to such base (you
know, human) levels, and even deigned to touch a toe in some self-awareness waters, a few
inconvenient causation explanations might ripple outward. Like that, perhaps, the spread of
Islamist "terror" has deep roots in the phenomena of colonization, decolonization, neo-colonialism
and global-financial debt-imperialism
. And that there is a proven counterproductive
relationship between the level of foreign troop deployments and overall violence in Africa
– I.e. more French Foreign Legionnaires, and more (disturbingly similar) American "
Praetorians
" of the special operations command, has only sent regional jihadism skyrocketing.
Finally, there's the minor matter that the " Washington
consensus " response – through influence over IMF and World Bank policies –
to the post-1973 oil shocks and free-fall of global commodity prices, didn't (and wasn't
designed) to stop the number of Global Southerners living on less than a dollar a day rising
from 70 to 290 million by 1998. In the face of such poverty, locals can be forgiven for their
sneaking suspicion that both the Declarations of Independence, and of the Rights
of Man , offer rather paltry answers. Now, whether the West, however constructed, bears
all the blame for that might be debatable; but through African eyes, what's certain is the
recent infusion of Franco-American troops and corporations is not seen as a net
positive for the people. Jihadis may be monsters – and we must admit they often are
– but at least they are African (or Arab) monsters.
To distant, exceptionalist ears in the comfort of the White House (or the Élysée
Palace ), such sentiments seem resoundingly blasphemous. The cultural and political
universalism of American or French "values" – even if neither society ever manages to
internally agree about what those are – seem a given. To reject Washingtonian or
Parisian liberty largesse is seen as almost proof-positive that intransigent Africans were
communists – or now "terrorists" – after all. Furthermore, the unsophisticated
locals must've been put up to it by "real" enemies: the Soviets (pre-1991), or today,
obviously the Chinese. According to this prevailing logic, more's the reason to flood the
region with ample troops and around and around we go.
Passing the Torch?
Today, and quite
historically , both the French and Americans simplify a gray, complex world to their own
– and global peoples' – detriment. Elizabeth Schmidt's two recent exhaustive
studies of foreign interventions in Africa –
during and since the
Cold War – concluded that such actions "tended to exacerbate rather than alleviate
African conflicts." Consider that a scholarly understatement. In the case of exponentially
increased US military involvement since the founding of AFRICOM, credible
recent analyses demonstrate how strikingly counterproductive such missions have been on
the continent.
When it comes to the discrete – and often joint – French and American
interventions in Africa these days, sequence and timing matter. Until 2007, the generally
limited US military actions on the continent fell under the responsibility of United States
European Command (EUCOM) – which in addition to countering the Russian Bear, had
jurisdiction over 43 (what were seen as) backwater sub-Saharan African countries. When it
came to actual troop "boots-on-the-ground," France was still the military meddler
extraordinaire. All that changed, slowly after 9/11, and with immediacy when President Bush
announced the creation of the Pentagon's new Africa Command (AFRICOM) in 2007.
This was the pivotal moment, a changing of the economic and military neo-imperial guard of
sorts. It is unlikely coincidental that the permanent US military presence became official at
almost precisely the tipping point moment (2008) when China eclipsed France
as Africa's largest trading partner. Indeed, the ostensible "threat" of the Chinese Dragon
– despite it still having just
one base there – as much as "terrorism," has easily replaced the convenient canard
of Soviet infusion as the justification for perpetual US military intervention in Africa. In
the futile and inessential attempt to "defeat" Islamist jihadism and exclude China, France is
now the junior – but essential, given its existing local "knowledge" and neocolonial
relationships – partner on the continent.
With respect to Paris' incessant and indecisive warfare – and ineffective strategy
– in Africa, Hannah Armstrong, of the International Crisis Group, lamented
that "In the same way that French reality TV and pop music is 15 years behind the US, French
counterterrorism mimics US counterterrorism of 15 years ago." That may be strictly accurate
with respect to the recent failures in the Sahel that she analyzed – but widen the lens
a bit, and it becomes clear Armstrong has it backwards. Historically, since 1960, the French
have tried it all before; Uncle Sam was often behind (or backing) them, then (as in Vietnam)
willingly took the torch, and now fails where Paris already has.
In Africa, given that most of the current fighting is in the Francophone sphere upon which
Paris – uniquely
among former European imperialists – has maintained an historic
politico-military-economic post-colonial grip, it is worth asking just who is using
who in the relationship.
In other words, qui ( really ) bono?
Author's Note: As some readers may have noticed, I have (accidentally) embarked on a
sort of informal empire-analogy series, with a particularly African-inflection. In case
you've missed them, check out the links below to the previous articles (in a variety of
outlets) on contemporary American connections to past and present empires:
Danny Sjursen is a retired US Army officer and contributing editor atAntiwar.comHis 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 forpre-order. Sjursen was recently selected as a 2019-20 Lannan FoundationCultural Freedom Fellow. Follow him on Twitter@SkepticalVet. Visit his
professionalwebsitefor contact info, to schedule speeches or media appearances, and access to his past
work.
The only difference between Obama and Trump is their inside v. outside strategy. Obama was third-generation dynastic CIA
nomenklatura, and after his early misstep of promising to obey the supreme law of the land on torture, Obama took CIA direction
without demur, up to and including the crime of aggression of TIMBER SYCAMORE.
Trump, by contrast, follows the Nixon template, attempting to replace CIA focal points surrounding himself with “loyalists.”
When Nixon did it, CIA cadres leveled the same charge.
But Nixon put Schlesinger in as DCI to extract the crown jewels and shitcan a bunch of the worst criminals. Carter took the
outsider’s path too.
Nixon was purged in the CIA’s bloodless Watergate coup; Carter was ousted by CIA’s October Surprise. We should consider
whether COVID-19 collateral damage will be used to discredit Trump, who evidently has less workplace discretion than a
McDonald’s fry cook. At a key juncture of the outbreak CIA frogmarched Trump through the synthetic crisis of the Soleimani
assassination.
So of course the government is criminal. It was chartered as a criminal enterprise at inception in Sction 202, 73 years ago.
In the resulting kleptocracy, IGs perform a superfluous function. And every CIA inspector general is paid specifically to be a
criminal scumbag. The IG reviewing CIA’s most open-and-shut crime against humanity, its torture gulag, criticized it because it
didn’t work, intently ignoring the supreme law of the land that says nothing justifies torture.
So let’s not get all verklempt about some IGs. IGs are nothing but a Gehlen-type apparatus generating legal pretexts for
manifestly illegal acts. Fuck em if they can’t take a joke.
Patrick forgot that Full spectrum Dominance is still the driving force of the USA foreign
policy. And that will not change. So this is just a wishful thinking.
And after persevering for four decades, we prevailed.
What, then, did we do with our epochal victory?
We alienated Russia by moving our NATO military alliance into the Baltic and Black Seas. We
launched bloody, costly crusades for democracy in the Middle East that, invariably, failed. We
exported a huge slice of our manufacturing capacity and economic independence to a coddled
China.
Historically, blunders of such magnitude have undone great powers.
Even before COVID-19, Americans had begun to realize the folly of decades of mindless
interventionism over matters irrelevant to our vital interests. "Unsustainable" was the word
commonly associated with our foreign policy.
But if our foreign policy was unsustainable during President Trump's economic boom, with
unemployment at record lows and a bull market to rival the Roaring '20s, can an interventionist
foreign policy be sustained after the losses of this major depression we have induced to kill
the pandemic?
If the Democrats win in November, we know their priorities: national health insurance,
carbon taxes, the Green New Deal, open borders, amnesty, reparations and wealth redistribution
to reduce social and economic inequality -- an agenda costing trillions of dollars.
And Democrats will be looking at the defense budget as a slush fund to finance this new
progressive era.
If the Republicans win, given the influence of hawks and neocons among the party elite,
interventionism may get another run in the yard.
Having been exposed as naive beyond belief for their indulgence of China from the Bush I
days to 2016, some Republicans are looking to make amends by casting China in the Soviet role
in Cold War II.
There is talk on Capitol Hill of refusing to pay off U.S. bonds that Beijing holds and of
suing China for the damages done by the coronavirus, as China failed to alert the world the
pathogen was loose.
Americans should think long and hard before defaulting on U.S. government debt and consider
the consequences if we open a door to claims against sovereign nations for past sins.
Iraq was invaded in 2003 to force it to give up illicit weapons of mass destruction it did
not have. Baghdad could have a case in international court against America for the unprovoked
war waged against that country.
While the U.S. appears determined to bring back manufacturing -- especially of products
critical to the health, safety and defense of our nation -- there seems to be no stomach among
the public for a war with China.
But again, with the democracy crusades now repudiated, what is America's cause, what is
America's mission in the world?
... ... ...
To borrow from the title of historian Walter A. McDougall's classic work,
America's future is as a promised land, not a crusader state.
Patrick J. Buchanan is co-founder of TAC and the author of Nixon's White House
Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever.
Not really a turning point, certainly not in the sense of a reversal. And there’s no war, because for a war you need two
sides. The dumb hicks may rail against shadowy “globalists”, but are too stupid to realize that they themselves are
globalists. The hicks want their cheap computers, and the thousands of other things manufactured by slave labor in China, and
the globalists are happy to provide them. Yet the same dopes chanting USA! USA! (the forces of nationalism, at least in
America) don’t understand that empire has downsides as well as advantages.
The coronavirus pandemic is an example of the cost of empire, the ... technological empire that has come to cover
the whole world.
In that way, it resembles previous plagues, such as the plague of Justinian in the sixth century, and the Black Death in
the fourteenth...
"... Baron Nathan Mayer de Rothschild once said "I care not what puppet is placed on the throne of England to rule the British Empire on which the sun never sets. The man that controls Britain's money supply controls the British Empire, and I control the British money supply." ..."
"... Unfortunately that system of control is evident in today's society. Special interests have been behind every US president including Trump. ..."
"... Trump is following his marching orders to big oil interests including his authorized theft of Syrian oil. ..."
"... Trump has given more support to Israel than any of his predecessors, which to the Pentagon is another important agenda. Israel is an important US ally in the Middle East besides Saudi Arabia. ..."
"... Trump first trip as President was to Saudi Arabia to sell more weapons, which is business as usual for the arms industry. ..."
"... "We will stop racing to topple foreign regimes that we know nothing about, that we shouldn't be involved with" ..."
"... "these events send a strong signal to the illegitimate regimes in Venezuela and Nicaragua that democracy and the will of the people will always prevail." ..."
"... 'War is a Racket.' ..."
"... "I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902–1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents" ..."
"... "This conjunction, of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry, is new in the American experience. The total influence – economic, political, even spiritual – is felt in every city, every state house, every office of the federal government. We recognise the imperative need for this development, yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes." ..."
"... (who was the emperor's private army by default is similar to Presidents relationship with the Military-Industrial Complex) ..."
"... "smash the CIA into a thousand pieces" ..."
"... "For we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence–on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice, on guerrillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific and political operations. ..."
"... Its preparations are concealed, not published. Its mistakes are buried, not headlined. Its dissenters are silenced, not praised. No expenditure is questioned, no rumor is printed, no secret is revealed. It conducts the Cold War, in short, with a war-time discipline no democracy would ever hope or wish to match." ..."
"... TruTV's 'Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura' ..."
"... "About a month after I was elected governor, I was requested into the basement of the capital to be interviewed by 23 members of the Central Intelligence Agency, the CIA, they were very formal, there was governor, sir and all that, but they put me in a chair and they were in a big half-moon around me, and I said to them, look before I answer any of your questions, I want to know what are you doing here? because in the CIA mission statement, it says that they are not operational inside the United States of America. Well, they wouldn't really give me an answer on that and then I said I want to go around the room and I want each one of you to tell me your name and what you do, half of them wouldn't. Now isn't that bizarre, I'm the governor and these guys wouldn't answer questions from me. Then they started questioning me and it was all about how I got elected. You know what was the most bizarre thing about it was? There was every array of person you could imagine, young people, old people, all nationalities and that's what really got to me. These were people you would see every day. They look like your neighbors." ..."
"... Presidents come and go, and even the parties in power change, but the main political direction does not change, That's why, in the grand scheme of things, we don't care who's the head of the United States, we know more or less what's going to happen. And so, in this regard, even if we wanted to, it wouldn't make sense for us to interfere ..."
"... Timothy Alexander Guzman writes on his blog, Silent Crow News, where this article was originally published. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research. ..."
Baron Nathan Mayer de Rothschild once said "I care not what puppet is placed on the
throne of England to rule the British Empire on which the sun never sets. The man that controls
Britain's money supply controls the British Empire, and I control the British money
supply."
Unfortunately that system of control is evident in today's society. Special interests
have been behind every US president including Trump.
Trump is following his marching orders to big oil interests including his authorized
theft of Syrian oil.
Trump has given more support to Israel than any of his predecessors, which to the
Pentagon is another important agenda. Israel is an important US ally in the Middle East besides
Saudi Arabia.
Trump first trip as President was to Saudi Arabia to sell more weapons, which is
business as usual for the arms industry.
There is a power structure that sets the rules of the game in Washington. The
Military-Industrial Complex (MIC) has an agenda and that is war. A US led war in the Middle
East with Iran is increasingly coming close to reality. It would affect Syria, Lebanon and the
Palestinians.
At some point, the war will reach Latin America targeting Venezuela because of its oil
reserves since Trump likes the "oil". As of now, Bolivia, Chile and Ecuador are in chaos due to
new US-backed fascistic governments that re-established neoliberal economic policies which will
lead to the impoverishment of the masses.
The U.S. military has over 800 bases ranging from torture sites to drone hubs in over 70
countries. US tensions are more intense that in any period of time with Iran, Syria and
Hezbollah as Trump signed off on a new defense budget worth $738 billion including funds for
his new Space Force. Despite the fact that the Democrats are still angry over their election
defeat to Trump and are still pushing the Russia collusion hoax and now the farcical
impeachment scandal, but when it comes to foreign policy, both Democrats and Republicans are
unified with the same war agenda. The Trump administration continues its regime change
operations despite the fact that Trump said no more regime change wars when he was a candidate
in 2016. "We will stop racing to topple foreign regimes that we know nothing about, that we
shouldn't be involved with"
Fast-forward to 2019, Trump's CIA and others from his administration such as Eliot Abrams, a
Reagan-era neocon was given the green-light to conduct another regime change operation with a
nobody named Juan Guaido leading the Venezuelan opposition against the Maduro government which
failed. Bolivia on the other hand was a success for Washington which was planned the day Evo
Morales was elected President of Bolivia and was allied with Washington's adversaries in Latin
America including Venezuela, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Brazil (before Balsonaro of course). Trump
continued the pentagon's agenda when he praised the new fascist Bolivian regime who forced
Morales from power with Washington's approval of course. Trump even threatened Nicaragua and
Venezuela with new attempts of regime change when he said that "these events send a strong
signal to the illegitimate regimes in Venezuela and Nicaragua that democracy and the will of
the people will always prevail." In other words, Trump is not in charge.
US Presidents do have some room to make decisions concerning domestic issues such as taxes
or healthcare, but when it comes to foreign policy, its a different story. It's not a
conspiracy theory.
Many people in power has told the world who is really in charge from politicians, Wall
Street bankers to military generals. In a 1935 speech by a Marine General Smedley titled
'War is a Racket.'
A veteran in the Spanish-American War who rose through the ranks during the course of his
career. From 1898 until his retirement in 1931 he was part of numerous interventions all around
the world. Butler was also the most decorated Marine ever with two Medals of Honor added to his
resume. He said the following:
"I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I
spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the
bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and
especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a
decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping
of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify
Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902–1912. I brought
light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make
Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it
that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al
Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I
operated on three continents"
He was
correct. General Butler could have given notorious gangsters such as Al Capone a few lessons in
how to run a business empire. Then in 1961, President Dwight D. Eisenhower made it clear who
had the real power inside Washington in a farewell address he gave to the American public.
Eisenhower issued a stark warning on the dangers of the MIC posed to humanity.
Here is a part of the speech:
"This conjunction, of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry, is
new in the American experience. The total influence – economic, political, even
spiritual – is felt in every city, every state house, every office of the federal
government. We recognise the imperative need for this development, yet we must not fail to
comprehend its grave implications In the councils of government, we must guard against the
acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial
complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic
processes."
Eisenhower seemed like he was not in agreement with the deep state's decision to drop the
atomic bombs during World War II, perhaps he was cornered by the growing power of the deep
state. A comparison between the Roman Empire and America today is uncanny. In Rome for example,
choosing an emperor was made difficult by the ruling elite, political debates dominated how new
emperors were selected by old emperors, the senate, those who were influential and the
Praetorian Guard which is today's version of the Military-Industrial Complex.
The political and industrial heavyweights and its intelligence agencies select the best two
candidates from the only two political parties who are bought and paid for by corporate and
political interests make the important decisions. The Praetorian Guard (who was the
emperor's private army by default is similar to Presidents relationship with the
Military-Industrial Complex) had dominated the election process for the next century or so
resulting in targeted assassinations of several emperors they did not want in power before
Rome's collapse. They were assassinations and attempted assassinations on US presidents
resulting in four deaths, the most notable assassination in the 20th century was President John
F. Kennedy who wanted to "smash the CIA into a thousand pieces" gave a speech on April
27th, 1961 at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City, many believe, including myself, that
it was the speech that eventually got him killed:
"For we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that
relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence–on infiltration
instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free
choice, on guerrillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted
vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient
machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific and political
operations.
Its preparations are concealed, not published. Its mistakes are buried, not headlined.
Its dissenters are silenced, not praised. No expenditure is questioned, no rumor is printed,
no secret is revealed. It conducts the Cold War, in short, with a war-time discipline no
democracy would ever hope or wish to match."
The " tightly knit, highly efficient machine " Kennedy spoke about directs U.S.
presidents to authorize wars or a covert operations to topple foreign governments. Kennedy
exposed that fact and followed that same fate as those emperors in Rome. Even in Domestic
politics, the U.S. government deep state apparatus is in control as the former Governor of
Minnesota Jesse Ventura , who is also a former Navy Seal, actor and professional wrestler who
now has his own show on RT news called 'The World According to Jesse'
admitted on TruTV's 'Conspiracy Theory with Jesse Ventura' on how the CIA interrogated
him shortly after he became governor:
"About a month after I was elected governor, I was requested into the basement of the
capital to be interviewed by 23 members of the Central Intelligence Agency, the CIA, they
were very formal, there was governor, sir and all that, but they put me in a chair and they
were in a big half-moon around me, and I said to them, look before I answer any of your
questions, I want to know what are you doing here? because in the CIA mission statement, it
says that they are not operational inside the United States of America. Well, they wouldn't
really give me an answer on that and then I said I want to go around the room and I want each
one of you to tell me your name and what you do, half of them wouldn't. Now isn't that
bizarre, I'm the governor and these guys wouldn't answer questions from me. Then they started
questioning me and it was all about how I got elected. You know what was the most bizarre
thing about it was? There was every array of person you could imagine, young people, old
people, all nationalities and that's what really got to me. These were people you would see
every day. They look like your neighbors."
The US president including all elected congress members are all bought and paid for by the
arms industry, major corporations, bankers, Big Pharma, Big Oil, the media and a handful of
lobbyists with the Israel lobby being the most powerful. Trump is no exception. He will follow
the road given to him by those who are in charge and he will continue the path to a world war,
an agenda that been long in the making. One of America's favorite enemies, Russian President
Vladimir Putin was interviewed by Megan Kelly of NBC news in 2017 and was asked about
the so-called Russian collusion conspiracy theory and he said the following:
Presidents come and go, and even the parties in power change, but the main political
direction does not change, That's why, in the grand scheme of things, we don't care who's the
head of the United States, we know more or less what's going to happen. And so, in this regard,
even if we wanted to, it wouldn't make sense for us to interfere
Whether Trump wants war or even peace, it won't matter, he will do the right thing, for the
deep state that is.
*
Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your
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Timothy Alexander Guzman writes on his blog, Silent Crow News, where this article was originally published.
He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.
The
Roosevelt has been ravaged by the coronavirus. As of Tuesday, 589 cases of COVID-19 were
reported from a crew of 4,800. Four thousand sailors in Guam are in various stages of a 14-day
isolation period in hotels and spare rooms across the island.
But it is not just the Roosevelt. Every U.S. warship -- carriers, cruisers, frigates,
destroyers, subs -- has cramped quarters conducive to the spread of the coronavirus.
How many of these vessels will soon be doubling as hospital ships?
The same question might also be asked of the U.S. Army and Marine barracks in South Korea,
Japan, Australia and Okinawa.
There are allegations that the coronavirus did not originate in the Wuhan "wet market" where
bats are sold for food but instead escaped through a horrible blunder in a Chinese bioweapons
laboratory a few miles away.
Whatever the truth, the Wuhan virus appears to have become the most effective means of
disabling U.S. hard and soft power that we have encountered in many a decade.
Of those 10,000 Peace Corp volunteers, and scores of thousands of other Americans who have
been repatriated home, how many of these "soft power" soldiers will be going back after they
have been out of their host country for 18 months?
Will this pandemic prove the decisive factor in America's retreat from global hegemony?
With the U.S. budget deficit for 2020 originally set at $1 trillion, now triple that, there
is going to be a hard reckoning for the allocation of our diminished resources after the nation
reopens.
And policing the planet is likely to be seen as yesterday's priority, and a primary
candidate for discard.
Well, if the epidemic does lead to a more restrained foreign policy, that would be the
silver lining in this awfully dark cloud. It might well end up saving more lives than are
lost in the epidemic, too.
America is the exceptional indispensable nation. Home of super heros in the movies and their
military. Their TV is full of cop dramas with tough macho cops who always get their man. Many
Americans cannot accept as a nation that they could ever be wrong on anything. After all,
they saved Europe from the Nazis and then the evil ruskies. They see themselves as the
greatest nation to ever exist upon the Earth that seeks only to do good for other countries
(sigh).
Sadly, none of the above is true. The US needs to step down from their pedestal and rejoin
the human race as equals. Belief in your own exceptionalism leads to hubris which leads to
arrogance, leading to an overestimation of your own capabilities and a fatal underestimation
of the capabilities of your adversary. Americans and especially their government are living
in a fantasy with crumbling foundations.
The Coronavirus crisis appears set to herald a new era of much poorer relations between
China and the Western world, with Western countries having borne the brunt of the fallout from
the pandemic and, particularly in the United States, increasingly blaming China at an official
level for the effects.
[1] Looking at the U.S. case in particular, at first responses to the virus were if
anything optimistic – the fallout in China was seen as a 'correction' which would shift
the balance of global economic power back into Western hands. Indeed, U.S. Commerce Secretary
Wilbur Ross stated on January 30 th that the fallout from the virus in China "will
help to accelerate the return of jobs to North America" with millions at the time placed under
lockdown in Wuhan and elsewhere.
[2] Western publications from the New York Times to the Guardian widely
hailed the virus as potentially bringing an end to China's decades of rapid economic growth
– with a 'rebalancing' of the global economy towards Western power strongly implied.
[3] ,
[4] Against North Korea, the New York Times described the virus as potentially
functioning as America's "most effective ally" in achieving the outcome Washington had long
sought – "choking the North's economy."
[5]
The result, however, has if anything been strong resilience to the virus across much of East
Asia, with Vietnam and South Korea being prime examples of successful handling alongside Macao,
Hong Kong, Taiwan and the Chinese mainland – in contrast to a very sluggish and often
ineffective response in the West.
[6] From rot filled and broken emergency supplies in the U.S. national reserve
[7] to nurses wearing bin bags due a lack of protective equipment,
[8] the commandeering of supplies heading to other countries,
[9] and the enlistment of prison labour to build mass graves in New York City
[10] – signs have unanimously pointed to chaos. It should be pointed out that
the U.S. reported its first case on the same day as South Korea – which had the virus
fully under control several weeks earlier due to more effective handling and a lack of
complacency.
[11] The U.S. and wider Western world had a major advantage in its warning time over
China in particular, but effectively squandered it.
[12]
The results of the fallout from the Coronavirus in the Western world, and in the U.S. in
particular, could be extremely serious given the context of escalating American pressure on
China in the leadup to the outbreak. Blaming China for the virus across American press and in
the White House itself – despite it having reached America primarily from Europe rather
than Asia
[13] – has heralded mass hate crimes against the Asian American community of
unprecedented seriousness and scale since the targeting of Japanese-Americans in the 1940s.
[14] Perhaps even more seriously, however, the official American response as public
opinion is directed against China appears set to place the world's two largest economies on a
potentially catastrophic collision course. On April 14th U.S. Senator Josh Hawley unveiled
highly provocative legislation which would strip China of its sovereign immunity in American
courts and allow Americans to sue China's ruling Communist Party directly for the damages
caused by the coronavirus crisis.
[15] Such legislation relies heavily on growing anti-Chinese sentiments and
depictions of China as directly responsible – and contradicts evidence from the World
Health Organisation among others that China's response effectively stalled the global spread of
the virus at its own expense with its lockdown.
[16]
An unbiased analysts shows that the disproportionate fallout in the Western world relative
to East Asia is overwhelmingly due to poor preparation – and had effective South Korean
style measures been implemented from the outset America would have seen only a small fraction
of the cases it currently suffers from.
[17] Nevertheless, calls from the U.S. and to a lesser extent from within other
Western states
[18] to make China foot the bill are manifold. Scholars from the American Enterprise
Institute and Stanford University's Hoover Institution among others have made direct calls for
Western states to unilaterally "seize the assets of Chinese state-owned companies," cancel
debts to China and expropriate Chinese overseas assets "in compensation for coronavirus
losses."
[19] The Florida based firm the Berman Law Group has already filed two major lawsuits
suing China calling for compensation for the outbreak – and the situation looks set to
worsen considerably with many more suits to follow. Regarding how the crisis could play out,
and how the U.S. could act on its massive claims against China over the virus which are
expected to be in the hundreds of billions at least, there is an important precedent for
American courts providing similar compensation to alleged victims of an East Asian government
and the American state taking action accordingly – that of the Otto Warmbier case in
2018. Assessment of the Warmbier case sets a very important precedent with very considerable
implications for the outcome of a Sino-American dispute.
Otto Warmbier was an American student arrested in North Korea in 2016 for stealing a poster
and violating a restricted high security area in Pyongyang. The student was returned to the
U.S. the following year in a comatose state, with his parents alleging that his teeth had been
artificially rearranged and his body showed signs of torture. This was strongly contradicted by
medical analyses, with the Hamilton County Coroner's Office carrying out an external
examination of Warmbier's body and dismissing the claim by his father that his teeth had been
pulled out and rearranged by the North Koreans. "The teeth are natural and in good repair," the
office concluded, after Warmbier's father had sensationally claimed that "his bottom teeth look
like they [the Koreans] had taken a pair of pliers and rearranged them." Coroner Dr. Lakshmi
Kode Sammarco stated addressing the claim of forced rearranging of Otto's teeth: "I felt very
comfortable that there wasn't any evidence of trauma. We were surprised at the [parents']
statement." She said her team, which included a forensic dentist, thoroughly evaluated the body
and assessed various scans of his body.
[20] Medical assessments showed no signs of mistreatment or any trauma to the
student's head or skull, with a blood clot, pneumonia, sepsis, kidney failure, and sleeping
pills were also cited as potential causes of death.
[21] Nevertheless, Warmbier's parents would continue to claim against all available
evidence that their son had been tortured to death – filing a lawsuit against the North
Korean government. Where a full autopsy could have provided data to more completely undermine
their claims, and was strongly recommended by doctors, they were adamant in their refusal and
no autopsy was carried out. Forensic scientists were highly critical of this unusual and
unexpected decision in this critical case.
[22]
In response to the Warmbers' claim against the North Korean state, which amounted to a
staggering $1.05 billion in punitive damages and around $46 million for the family's suffering
in a motion filed in U.S. District Court in Washington in October 2018, Pyongyang was asked to
pay the couple $500 million.
[23] This was despite no evidence for the couple's claims of Korean culpability, but
at a time when public opinion was strongly against North Korea and would have supported the
motion. To seize the Warmbiers' compensation, the United States Navy would later that year
commandeer a North Korean cargo ship, the Wise Honest, and escort it to American territory
where it was subsequently sold at auction. The couple was provided with a part of the ship's
value, and future seizures of Korean merchant shipping to meet the remainder of the American
family's claim remain possible under U.S. law.
[24] The seizure of the ship, one of North Korea's largest, represented a
considerable loss to its fleet and complemented the effects of ongoing Western sanctions to
undermine the country's economy.
The significance of the Warmbier case is that it provides a strong precedent for the U.S.
Military, should China inevitably refuse to pay the hundreds billions expected to be demanded
in compensation, to engage in effective state level piracy against Chinese merchant shipping to
provide funds for its increasingly struggling economy.
[25] With trade war having failed to significantly slow Chinese economic growth and
foreign trade, which had been its primary goal,
[26] more drastic means may be adopted for the same end using the Coronavirus crisis
as a pretext. Other similar recent cases of do exist, including unilateral seizure and sale of
Iranian government owned properties by the Canadian government in 2019 to compensate alleged
victims of terror of conflicts with Hezbollah and Hamas. This was despite neither of these
being UN recognised terrorist organisations and Iran's support for these non-state actors being
entirely legal under international law.
[27] The fact that these properties were on Canadian soil and governed under Canadian
law however, rather than in international waters, makes this a considerably less provocative
case than the Warmbier case one or than what is being proposed against China.
Further evidence that the U.S. would consider unilateral commandeering of shipping against
China was provided by the U.S. Naval Institute, which in April published an important paper
titled 'Unleash the Privateers' highlighting that it remained legal under American law for U.S.
security firms to be tasked with commandeering and either sinking or capturing and selling
Chinese merchant ships in the event of conflict. It highlighted that China was the largest
trading nation in the world with a merchant fleet several times the size of its American
counterpart – and that this provided a vulnerability the U.S. should be willing to
exploit.
[28] Taken together, the circumstances surrounding claims against China and moves to
strip it of its sovereign immunity, the Warmbier precedent, the well timed and extremely
radical naval institute paper and above all America's need to reverse its losses and undermine
China's growing trade and economic prosperity to perpetuate its own hegemony, between them
point to a high possibility of the U.S. adopting state level piracy against Chinese shipping as
a future policy. While evidence strongly contradicts claims that China is responsible for the
Coronavirus and the massive fallout the U.S. is now experiencing – much as evidence from
American coroners and forensic scientists contradicted the claims of the Warmbier family
– these inconvenient facts are highly unlikely to prevent the U.S. from taking action to
secure its perceived rightful place as the leader of the global economy by seizing what it sees
as its rightful property through attacks on Chinese trading vessels.
It is by no means a certainty that the United States will engage in such an escalatory
course of action, and the nature of the overall Western response beyond the current harsh
rhetoric and unfounded accusations is yet to be seen. It is important at this stage, however,
to highlight the not insignificant possibility such a course will be taken by the U.S. and
other Western parties to reverse the trend towards a decline in their economic positions
relative to China. Repercussions from such seizures will almost certainly be far more severe
than the relatively muted global response to the seizure and sale of a commandeered North
Korean ship two years prior. While China's Navy is concentrated in the Western Pacific and is
poorly placed to defend its trade routes from the global reach of Western warships, Beijing and
its allies have a wide range of means to retaliate which could deter the Western powers from
taking such a course of action.
'Coronavirus Map: Tracking the Global Outbreak,' New York
Times (accessed April 16, 2020).
↑ Staracqualursi, Veronica and Davis, Richard, 'Commerce secretary says coronavirus
will help bring jobs to North America,' CNN, January 30, 2020.
↑ Bradsher, Keith, 'Coronavirus Could End China's Decades-Long Economic Growth
Streak,' New York Times, March 16, 2020.
↑ Davidson, Helen, 'Coronavirus deals China's economy a "bigger blow than global
financial crisis,"' The Guardian, March 16, 2020.
↑ Koettl, Christoph, 'Coronavirus Is Idling North Korea's Ships Achieving What
Sanctions Did Not,' New York Times, March 26, 2020.
↑ Graham-Harrison, Emma, 'Coronavirus: how Asian countries acted while the west
dithered,' The Guardian, March 21, 2020.
Inkster, Ian, 'In the battle against the coronavirus, East Asian societies and cultures have
the edge,' South China Morning Post, April 10, 2020.
↑ Chandler, Kim, 'Some states receive masks with dry rot, broken ventilators,'
Associated Press, April 4, 2020.
↑ Glasser, Susan B., 'How Did the U.S. End Up with Nurses Wearing Garbage Bags?,'
The New Yorker, April 9, 2020.
↑ 'US Seizes Ventilators Destined for Barbados,' Telesur, April 5, 2020.
Willsher, Kim and Holmes, Oliver and. McKernan, Bethan and Tondo, Lorenzo, 'US hijacking
mask shipments in rush for coronavirus protection,' The Guardian, April 3, 2020.
Lister, Tim and Shukla, Sebastian and Bobille, Fanny, 'Coronavirus sparks a 'war for masks'
as accusations fly,' CNN, April 3, 2020.
↑ Crane, Emily, 'Workers in full Hazmat suits bury rows of coffins in Hart Island mass
grave as NYC officials confirm coronavirus victims WILL be buried there if their bodies aren't
claimed within two weeks after death toll rises to 4,778,' Daily Mail, April 9, 2020.
↑ 'Special Report: How Korea trounced U.S. in race to test people for coronavirus,'
Reuters, March 18, 2020.
'Once the biggest outbreak outside of China, South Korean city reports zero new coronavirus
cases,' Reuters, April 10, 2020.
↑ Johnson, Ian, 'China Bought the West Time. The West Squandered It,' New York
Times, March 13, 2020.
↑ 'New York coronavirus outbreak originated in Europe, studies show,' The Hill
, April 9, 2020.
↑ De Souza, Alison, 'Asian Americans tell harrowing stories of abuse amid coronavirus
outbreak in the US,' Straits Times, April 1, 2020.
Chapman, Ben, 'New York City Sees Rise in Coronavirus Hate Crimes Against Asians,' Wall
Street Journal, April 2, 2020.
↑ Schultz, Maarisa, 'Sen Hawley: Let coronavirus victims sue Chinese Communist Party,'
Fox News, April 14, 2020.
↑ Wang, Yanan, 'New virus cases fall; WHO says China bought the world time,'
Associated Press, February 15, 2020.
Johnson, Ian, 'China Bought the West Time. The West Squandered It,' New York Times,
March 13, 2020.
↑ 'Special Report: How Korea trounced U.S. in race to test people for coronavirus,'
Reuters, March 18, 2020.
'Once the biggest outbreak outside of China, South Korean city reports zero new coronavirus
cases,' Reuters, April 10, 2020.
↑ Cole, Harry, 'China owes us £351 billion: Britain should pursue Beijing
through international courts for coronavirus compensation, major study claims as 15 top top
Tories urge "reset" in UK relations with country,' Daily Mail, April 5, 2020.
↑ Stradner, Ivana and Yoo, John, 'How to Make China Pay,' American Enterprise
Institute, April 6, 2020.
↑ Nedelman, Michael, 'Coroner found no obvious signs of torture on Otto Warmbier,'
CNN, September 29, 2017.
↑ Lockett, Jon, 'Tragic student Otto Warmbier 'may have attempted suicide' in North
Korean prison after being sentenced to 15 years for stealing poster,' The Sun , July 28,
2018.
Basu, Zachary, 'What we're reading: What happened to Otto Warmbier in North Korea,'
Axios , July 25, 2018.
Tingle, Rory, 'Otto Warmbier's brain damage that led to his death was caused by a SUICIDE
ATTEMPT rather than torture by North Korean prison guards, report claims,' Daily Mail,
July 25, 2018.
Fox, Maggie, 'What killed Otto Warmbier?' NBC News, June 20, 2017.
Tinker, Ben, 'What an autopsy may (or may not) have revealed about Otto Warmbier's death,'
CNN, June 22, 2017.
Nedelman, Michael, 'Coroner found no obvious signs of torture on Otto Warmbier,' CNN,
September 29, 2017.
↑ Tinker, Ben, 'What an autopsy may (or may not) have revealed about Otto Warmbier's
death,' CNN, June 22, 2017.
Nedelman, Michael, 'Coroner found no obvious signs of torture on Otto Warmbier,' CNN,
September 29, 2017.
↑ Brookbank, Sarah, 'Family of Otto Warmbier awarded $500 million in lawsuit against
North Korea,' USA Today, December 24, 2018.
↑ Lee, Christy, 'U.S. Marshals to Sell Seized North Korean Cargo Ship,' VOA,
July 27, 2019.
'Seized North Korean cargo ship sold to compensate parents of Otto Warmbier, others,'
Navy Times, October 9, 2019.
↑ Blyth, Mark, 'The U.S. Economy Is Uniquely Vulnerable to the Coronavirus,'
Foreign Affairs, March 30, 2020.
Schulze, Elizabeth, 'The coronavirus recession is unlike any economic downturn in US
history,' CNBC, April 8, 2020.
Schwartz, Nelson D., 'Coronavirus Recession Looms, Its Course "Unrecognizable,"' New York
Times, April 1, 2020.
Davies, Rob, 'Coronavirus means a bad recession – at least – says JP Morgan
boss,' The Guardian, April 6, 2020.
Lowrey, Annie, 'Millennials Don't Stand a Chance,' The Atlantic , April 13, 2020.
↑ Wei, Liu, 'Trump's Trade War on China Is About More Than Trade,' The
Diplomat, July 20, 2018.
↑ Bell, Stewart, 'Iran's properties in Canada sold, proceeds handed to terror
victims,' Global News, September 12, 2019.
↑ Cancian, Mark and Schwartz, Brandon, 'Unleash the Privateers!,' U.S. Naval
Institute, vol. 146, no. 2, issue 1406, April 2020.
↑
A very interesting assessment. The Warmbier case shows that the ‘rules based
order’ espoused by the US and its Western allies is not so rules based as they claim
– they can ignore evidence from their own medical assessments to put forward a
politicised demonisation case and use this as a pretext to make ridiculous compensation
demands and even engage in state piracy in international waters to claim foreign
nations’ property.
Quite abominable behaviour – the international community should really wake up and
unite against this.
Mexican American War (US Cavalry moved into territory previously agreed by US to be Mexican)
Fenian Raids into Canada (led by a US Military officer on ‘leave’ –
leads to formation of IRA – attempts to initiate revolution in Canada to sunder from
British Empire – fails but could have led to war)
USS Maine incident used to incite the Spanish American War later found to be a coal dust
explosion
Philippine-American war started by US sentry shooting Filipino soldier
US stays out of WWI but secretly supplies Allied forces using civilian Cruise Liner
– Lusitania torpedoed and used to justify entry into WWI by USA (fast forward about 80
years and … the Germans were right, it was carrying munitions
US sells Japan advanced war material, embargoes oil supply, leads to invasion of China
WWII US bankrolls Adolf Hitler (ends better for the USA than it did for Germany or the
Soviet Union, or actually anybody else)
USA enters WWII on Allied side after Pearl Harbour – see McCollum memo
‘inducing Japan to an overt act of war’
Korean war – research this one yourself – wow
Viet Nam War – Gulf of Tonkin false flag
Iraq – “It happens not to be the area where weapons of mass destruction were
dispersed. We know where they are. They’re in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and
east, west, south and north somewhat.” – Sure, you go with Donald Rumsfailed,
have they been found yet???
I’m not sure when I’ve read a sillier article. I had to skip down quite a way, to
see if the author was actually going to say something about ‘Official State
Piracy’. So, the US is going to hijack merchant ships carrying some of the $558B USD
exports coming from China?
The willful decimation of the Western Economies is certainly going to have a gigantic
impact on China. Where are all those exports going, when their customers have stopped buying?
Right now, there are virtually no stores open in the West. Order cancellation from Western
importers has probably just begun, and will be huge. This will accelerate the shift by China
toward domestic consumption, which is a good thing for China, and the rest of the World as
well. On the other side, this will increase policies in the West to repatriate production,
also a good thing.
I disagree. The article does highlight very legitimate points regarding the nature of
Western-led order and the threat posed to peaceful trading nations from seizures based on
false pretexts.
To equate BRI investment with imperialism I think shows a serious lack of understanding of
what imperialism is. Chinese fleets voyaged to East Africa, Oceania and possibly the Americas
long before Europeans knew those places existed. There were no genocides, armed settler
colonies or attempts to impose certain religions or ideologies.
Overseas investment isn’t imperialism. It can be if you carry out assassinations and
coups to force other countries to accept investment on your terms (the French in West Africa
being a prime example), but if simple foreign investment is imperialism then imperialism
really has no meaning. This definition also serves to whitewash the genocidal crimes of
genuine imperialists which wiped out the populations of three continents (Americas and
Oceania) and caused tremendous suffering for two others.
”So, the US is going to hijack merchant ships carrying some of the $558B USD exports
coming from China?”
Given the manifest insanity of the US, I wouldn’t put it past them to demand payment
in addition to the merchandise, accompanied by violent, brute racism. That’s not
particularly ”silly”, only highly repugnant.
I surely doubt the the Indispensiblistan will take two big moves in pirating chinese ships.
Because the second one will trigger a harsh response from Beijing. XI jin knows pretty well
they are not in the opium war circunstances.
They can:
1-build up their second and third naval base in Africa – besides from upgrading the
existent Djibouti facilities and one in Venezuela practically overnight.
2-Stop important and vital exports to US and Canada, and further just select the items that
will hurt the enemy the most.
3- Offer military aid to Syrian government and direct economic assistance to Iran.
Is the United States About to Engage in Official State Piracy Against China?
Is the earth round rather than flat?
Of course.
America and its “democratic” allies are pirate nations from top to bottom. So
they are will instinctively seize upon the COVID-19 pretext to try and extort money from
China.
But it won’t necessarily be through direct naval piracy only.
It will be through the launching of various lawsuits to provide a legal fig leaf for this
piracy and then attempted seizures of Chinese business assets–similar to how America
has seized and stolen the financial assets of Iran and Venezuela–as well as America
repudiating repayment of the US Treasury “debts” that China has purchased.
This March, as COVID-19's capacity to overwhelm the American
healthcare system was becoming obvious, experts marveled at the scenario unfolding before their
eyes. "We have Third World countries who are better equipped than we are now in Seattle,"
noted one healthcare professional, her words echoed just a few days later by a shocked
doctor in New York who described
"a third-world country type of scenario." Donald Trump could similarly only grasp what was
happening through the same comparison. "I have seen things that I've never seen before," he
said
. "I mean I've seen them, but I've seen them on television and faraway lands, never in my
country."
At the same time, regardless of the fact that "Third World" terminology is outdated and
confusing, Trump's inept handling of the pandemic has itself elicited more than one "banana republic"
analogy, reflecting already well-worn, bipartisan comparisons of Trump to a "
third world dictator " (never mind that dictators and authoritarians have never been
confined solely to lower income countries).
And yet, while such comparisons provoke predictably nativist outrage from the right, what is
absent from any of
these responses to the situation is a sense of reflection or humility about the "Third
World" comparison itself. The doctor in New York who finds himself caught in a "third world"
scenario and the political commentators outraged when Trump behaves "like a third world
dictator" uniformly express themselves in terms of incredulous wonderment. One never hears the
potential second half of this comparison: "I am now experiencing what it is like to live in a
country that resembles the kind of nation upon whom the United States regularly imposes broken
economies and corrupt leaders."
Because behind today's coronavirus-inspired astonishment at conditions in developing or
lower income countries, and Trump's authoritarian-like thuggery, lies an actual military and
political hegemon with an actual impact on the world; particularly on what was once called the
"Third World."
In physical terms, the U.S.'s military hegemony is comprised of 800 bases in over 70 nations
–
more bases than any other nation or empire in history. The U.S. maintains drone bases,
listening posts, "black sites," aircraft carriers, a massive nuclear stockpile, and military
personnel working in approximately 160 countries. This is a globe-spanning military and
security apparatus organized into regional commands
that resemble the "proconsuls of the Roman empire and the governors-general of the
British." In other words, this apparatus is built not for deterrence, but for primacy.
The U.S.'s global primacy emerged from the wreckage of World War II when the United States
stepped into the shoes vacated by European empires. Throughout the Cold War, and in the name of
supporting "free peoples," the sprawling American security apparatus helped ensure that 300
years of imperial resource extraction and wealth distribution – from what was then called
the Third World to the First – remained undisturbed, despite decolonization.
Since then, the United States
has overthrown or attempted to overthrow the governments of approximately 50 countries,
many of which (e.g. Iran, Guatemala, the Congo, and Chile) had elected leaders willing to
nationalize their natural resources and industries. Often these interventions
took the form of covert operations. Less frequently, the United States went to war to
achieve these same ends (e.g. Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq).
In fiscal terms, maintaining American hegemony requires spending more
on "defense" than the next seven largest countries combined. Our
nearly $1 trillion security budget now amounts to about 15 percent of the federal budget
and over half of all
discretionary spending. Moreover, the U.S. security budget continues to increase despite the
Pentagon's inability to pass a fiscal audit.
Trump's claim that Obama had
"hollowed out" defense spending was not only grossly untrue, it masked the consistency of the
security budget's metastasizing growth since the Vietnam War, regardless of who sits in the
White House. At $738 billion dollars, Trump's security budget was passed in December with the
overwhelming support of House Democrats.
And yet, from the perspective of public discourse in this country, our globe-spanning,
resource-draining military and security apparatus exists in an entirely parallel universe to
the one most Americans experience on a daily level. Occasionally, we wake up to the idea of
this parallel universe but only when the United States is involved in visible military actions.
The rest of the time, Americans leave thinking about international politics – and the
deaths, for instance, of 2.5 million
Iraqis since 2003 – to the legions of policy analysts and Pentagon employees who
largely accept American military primacy as an "article of faith," as Professor of
International Security and Strategy at the University of Birmingham Patrick Porter has said
.
Foreign policy is routinely the last issue Americans consider when they vote for presidents
even though the president has more discretionary power over foreign policy than any other area
of American politics. Thus, despite its size, impact, and expense, the world's military hegemon
exists somewhere on the periphery of most Americans' self-understanding, as though, like the
sun, it can't be looked upon directly for fear of blindness.
Why is our avoidance of the U.S.'s weighty impact on the world a problem in the midst of the
coronavirus pandemic? Most obviously, the fact that our massive security budget has gone so
long without being widely questioned means that one of the soundest courses of action for the
U.S. during this crisis remains resolutely out of sight.
The shock of discovering that our healthcare system is so quickly overwhelmed should
automatically trigger broader conversations about spending priorities that entail deep and
sustained cuts in an engorged security budget whose sole purpose is the maintenance of primacy.
And yet, not only has this not happened, $10.5 billion of the coronavirus aid package has been
earmarked for the Pentagon, with $2.4 billion of that
channeled to the "defense industrial base." Of the $500 billion aimed at corporate America,
$17.5 billion is
set aside "for businesses critical to maintaining national security" such as aerospace.
To make matters worse, our blindness to this bloated security complex makes it frighteningly
easy for champions of American primacy to sound the alarm when they even suspect a dip in
funding might be forthcoming. Indeed, before most of us had even glanced at the details of the
coronavirus bill, foreign policy hawks were already
issuing dark prediction s about the impact of still-imaginary cuts in the security budget
on the U.S.'s "ability to strike any target on the planet in response to hostile actions by any
actor" – as if that ability already did not exist many times over.
On a more existential level, a country that is collectively engaged in unseeing its own
global power cannot help but fail to make connections between that power and domestic politics,
particularly when a little of the outside world seeps in. For instance, because most Americans
are unaware of their government's sponsorship of fundamentalist Islamic groups in the Middle
East throughout the Cold War, 9/11 can only ever appear to have come from nowhere, or because
Muslims hate our way of life.
This "how did we get here?" attitude replicates itself at every level of political life
making it profoundly difficult for Americans to see the impact of their nation on the rest of
the world, and the blowback from that impact on the United States itself. Right now, the
outsized influence of American foreign policy is already encouraging the spread of coronavirus
itself as U.S. imposed sanctions on Iran severely hamper that
country's ability to respond to the virus at home and virtually
guarantee its spread throughout the region.
Closer to home, our shock at the healthcare system's inept response to the pandemic masks
the relationship between the U.S.'s imposition
of free-market totalitarianism on countries throughout the
Global South and the impact of free-market totalitarianism on our own welfare state .
Likewise, it is more than karmic comeuppance that the President of the United States now
resembles the self-serving authoritarians the U.S. forced on so many formerly colonized
nations. The modes of militarized policing American security experts exported to those
authoritarian regimes also contributed , on a
policy level, to both the rise of militarized policing in American cities and the rise of mass
incarceration in the 1980s and 90s. Both of these phenomena played a significant role in
radicalizing Trump's white nationalist base and decreasing their tolerance for democracy.
Most importantly, because the U.S. is blind to its power abroad, it cannot help but turn
that blindness on itself. This means that even during a pandemic when America's exceptionalism
– our lack of national healthcare – has profoundly negative consequences on the
population, the idea of looking to the rest of the world for solutions remains unthinkable.
Senator Bernie Sanders' reasonable suggestion that the U.S., like Denmark, should
nationalize its healthcare system is dismissed as the fanciful pipe dream of an aging socialist
rather than an obvious solution to a human problem embraced by nearly every other nation in the
world. The Seattle healthcare professional who expressed shock that even "Third World
countries" are "better equipped" than we are to confront COVID-19 betrays a stunning ignorance
of the diversity of healthcare systems within developing countries. Cuba, for instance,
has responded
to this crisis with an efficiency and humanity that puts the U.S. to shame.
Indeed, the U.S. is only beginning to feel the full impact of COVID-19's explosive
confrontation with our exceptionalism: if the unemployment rate really does reach 32 percent,
as has been predicted,
millions of people will not only lose their jobs but their health insurance as well. In the
middle of a pandemic.
Over 150 years apart, political commentators Edmund Burke and Aimé Césaire
referred to this blindness as the byproduct of imperialism. Both used the exact same language
to describe it; as a "gangrene" that "poisons" the colonizing body politic. From their
different historical perspectives, Burke and Césaire observed how colonization
boomerangs back on colonial society itself, causing irreversible damage to nations that
consider themselves humane and enlightened, drawing them deeper into denial and
self-delusion.
Perhaps right now there is a chance that COVID-19 – an actual, not metaphorical
contagion – can have the opposite effect on the U.S. by opening our eyes to the things
that go unseen. Perhaps the shock of recognizing the U.S. itself is less developed than our
imagined "Third World" might prompt Americans to tear our eyes away from ourselves and look
toward the actual world outside our borders for examples of the kinds of political, economic,
and social solidarity necessary to fight the spread of Coronavirus. And perhaps moving beyond
shock and incredulity to genuine recognition and empathy with people whose economies and
democracies have been decimated by American hegemony might begin the process of reckoning with
the costs of that hegemony, not just in "faraway lands" but at home. In our country.
A lot of illusions. Democratic Party is a party of neoliberal billionaires and want to remains this way. They will never
reform. They are a part of Pepsi-Cola scam -- the party duopoly in the USA.
In ancient Greek dramas, a deus ex machina would sometimes be enacted; a god, wheeled in on
a mechanical contraption, would appear upon the stage and go on to set an otherwise intractable
situation right.
Notable quotes:
"... The Republican Party was already unspeakably odious before Trump waddled into the scene, but, by giving a large and growing segment of its base – its mainly male, mainly rural, mainly geezerly, poorly educated, socially dislocated and economically stressed component -- permission to give their most noxious impulses free rein, Trump has turned the Republican Party into a personality cult for him to manipulate as he sees fit. ..."
"... Meanwhile, playing on their rank opportunism and mindless disregard of values and principles, he has brought the God Squad, rightwing Christian evangelicals and their Jewish counterparts, into the Trumpian fold, along with many of the most base and shamelessly venal plutocrats and plutocrat wannabes in creation. ..."
"... Biden is a doofus who, even in his prime, could actually make the Clintons look good. That was surely one of the reasons why Barack Obama picked him to be his running mate; the future President Drone and Deporter-in-Chief, anticipating taking up where Bill Clinton left off, wanted to look good too. ..."
"... ["Kakistocracy," for those who still don't know, is an old word that has lately become timely. It means: rule of the worst, the most vile, corrupt, and incompetent.] ..."
"... One would think that mainstream Democrats would have learned something from 2016 about the wisdom of fielding a stalwart of the ancien régime , a "moderate" -- she called herself a "progressive pragmatist" – against a buffoonish, sociopathic liar, a reality TV conman, who promises "to drain the swamp." ..."
"... There is a certain irony in what Democrats are now saying about that prospect, now that, barring a miracle, Biden is the presumptive nominee. They are saying just what people were saying about Trump when his more thoughtful supporters were starting to anticipate and then to experience voters' remorse – that, however awful he may be, however much out of his depth in the Oval Office, "the adults in the room" will be there to keep him in line. ..."
"... By almost any relevant standard, Franken was a far better Senator than Biden or, for that matter, than nearly every other Democratic Senator, Gillibrand included. By almost any relevant standard, Biden, even in his prime, was a dunce. But no matter. Anything for banality's sake; anything not to field a candidate worth supporting. ..."
"... In ancient Greek dramas, a deus ex machina would sometimes be enacted; a god, wheeled in on a mechanical contraption, would appear upon the stage and go on to set an otherwise intractable situation right. ..."
"... Obama's Original Sin, and also Eric Holder's, was to let the war criminals in the upper echelon of the Bush administration off scot-free. I fear that just as Trump takes his cues from Fox News, Biden will be taking his from what Obama did a dozen years ago. ..."
"... Back then, Obama said that he wanted "to look forward," to let bygones be bygone. Because that is precisely what he did, the Bush-Cheney perpetual war regime became his own. It is still with us too, and Biden is no doubt itching to take up where his Best Friend Forever left off. ..."
"... Were that to come to pass, the countless, legally actionable crimes that Trump and his kakistocratic minions have committed, now including the depraved indifference to human life and the menace to public health that Trump has been exhibiting daily since the corvid-19 crisis broke, would go unpunished, setting an even worse precedent than the one set by Obama. ..."
Donald Trump is
a paradoxical creature. On the one hand, he resembles nothing so much as a dumbass teenage boy,
and, on the other, a barfly, long in the tooth and good for nothing but mouthing off.
This from an obese septuagenarian who doesn't drink and who, unlike Richard Nixon, his only
near rival in political depravity, is as unconflicted and intellectually shallow as they
come.
Nixon was good at many things. In politics, Trump is good at only two.
One is using corporate media to his own advantage. To be sure, Trump has Fox News and talk
radio, propaganda assets Nixon could hardly have dreamed of, in his pocket, but they were in
place, dumbing down and otherwise doing harm, long before he came onto the scene. What Trump
has managed to do is to get the ostensibly respectable cable networks, CNN and MSNBC, to offer
him their platforms for free.
This, as much as Hillary Clinton's politics and her failures as a candidate, helped him get
elected in 2016. It is helping him stay afloat now, even as the utter incompetence of his
handling of the on-going covid-19 crisis that he did so much to exacerbate becomes stunningly
clear to anyone not hellbent on denying the obvious.
CNN's and MSNBC's hatred of the Donald is as palpable as it is justified, and yet he plays
them like a fiddle.
The other thing he is good at is turning the GOP into an instrument of his will.
The Republican Party was already unspeakably odious before Trump waddled into the scene,
but, by giving a large and growing segment of its base – its mainly male, mainly rural,
mainly geezerly, poorly educated, socially dislocated and economically stressed component --
permission to give their most noxious impulses free rein, Trump has turned the Republican Party
into a personality cult for him to manipulate as he sees fit.
Meanwhile, playing on their rank opportunism and mindless disregard of values and
principles, he has brought the God Squad, rightwing Christian evangelicals and their Jewish
counterparts, into the Trumpian fold, along with many of the most base and shamelessly venal
plutocrats and plutocrat wannabes in creation.
And what does the other duopoly party offer in response? Joe Biden. Seriously.
Biden is a doofus who, even in his prime, could actually make the Clintons look good. That was surely one of the reasons why Barack Obama picked him to be his running mate; the
future President Drone and Deporter-in-Chief, anticipating taking up where Bill Clinton left
off, wanted to look good too.
Another reason was to reassure Wall Street. They had already vetted him out the wazoo, but
with serious money involved, they were still a tad worried. Team Obama therefore felt it
expedient to set their minds at ease. Biden on the ticket would seal the deal.
In those bygone days of yesteryear, Democratic Party honchos still knew what they had to do
to win elections that weren't handed to them on a silver platter. Where, then, are they now, those savvy Party grandees? And why don't their paymasters
intervene? Why are they being so stupid?
Whatever the answer, it hasn't made them too stupid to hold onto their power.
Sad to say, though, that they were still clever enough to realize that Sanders, and maybe
Elizabeth Warren as well, were everything they didn't want Obama to be. And so, aided and
abetted by CNN and MSNBC, The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR and the whole motley
mess of "liberal" corporate media, they quashed their candidacies well.
Sadder still, after the powers that be pulled off the South Carolina and Super Tuesday
fiascos and then promptly got the other "moderates" to throw in the towel all at once, it
became clear that the old régime would win again.
All doubts about that ended when the pandemic made door to door canvassing, rallies and
nearly all the other usual forms of electoral politicking impossible. Almost overnight, the
only two candidates in the Democratic field worth taking seriously had no chance at all of
making the Democratic Party anything more than a lesser evil. The bad guys had won.
But still the question remains: why are the winners being so stupid?
Even if all they want is a colorless stooge whose only virtue is that he is not Trump, or
Pence or any of the other kakistocrats in the Trumpian fold, surely they could at least do
better than taking on the Trumpian juggernaut with a second-rate dodo leading the charge.
["Kakistocracy," for those who still don't know, is an old word that has lately become
timely. It means: rule of the worst, the most vile, corrupt, and incompetent.]
In a saner political environment, or even in the one we knew before Clinton, the Queen of
Ineptitude, blew a sure thing in 2016, Trump and his minions could be counted on to defeat
themselves.
In the actual world, the chances are good that this will still be the case. Corporate media
give Trump precious airtime, but they also display his and his administration's mind-boggling
awfulness day by day.
With the economy collapsing and the corpses piling high, and with rural America about to
feel the pain along with the urban centers, it is hard to imagine that at least some of the
lost souls in the Trump cult won't see the light and defect.
But Democrats these days are born to lose; it might as well be in their genes.
Therefore, like the Wall Street financiers in 2008 whose minds were set at ease when Obama
put Biden on the ticket, voters who get what Trump is about could still use some
reassurance.
Trump may advertise his awfulness with every breath he takes, but with our electoral
institutions being what they are, and with his base still standing by their man, the chances
that Democrats will blow it again can seem greater than trivial.
One would think that mainstream Democrats would have learned something from 2016 about the
wisdom of fielding a stalwart of the ancien régime , a "moderate" -- she called herself
a "progressive pragmatist" – against a buffoonish, sociopathic liar, a reality TV conman,
who promises "to drain the swamp."
But leave it to Democrats and Democratic voters to draw precisely the wrong lesson from that
debacle. Leave it to them to field a candidate who is even worse than Clinton this time
around.
Needless to say, better a President Biden than a President Trump; better by far. But even
befuddled moderates should be able to figure out that a Biden presidency will be a disaster in
its own right.
There is a certain irony in what Democrats are now saying about that prospect, now that,
barring a miracle, Biden is the presumptive nominee. They are saying just what people were
saying about Trump when his more thoughtful supporters were starting to anticipate and then to
experience voters' remorse – that, however awful he may be, however much out of his depth
in the Oval Office, "the adults in the room" will be there to keep him in line.
That by running Biden, they are squandering an historically unprecedent opportunity to make
basic, urgently needed, structural changes in the economy and society, and to transform the
Democratic Party, presently part of the problem, into a force for genuine progressive change,
at least to the extent that it was in the more radical phases of the New Deal and then later
before the Vietnam War undid the Great Society, doesn't seem to matter to a large segment of
the Democratic electorate – not yet, anyway.
If they have qualms, they comfort themselves by telling themselves that, unlike Trump, Biden
will appoint good people to run the show. And when that thought doesn't quite suffice, the
default position seems to be that at least he, like Obama, will be a No Drama president, which
is, they claim, just what the country now needs.
These wrong-headed but cheery bromides are not entirely without merit.
With Trump gone and Democrats eager to take over from the kakistocrats he empowered, the
national government probably will become not exactly "great again," it never was even close to
that, but at least not stunningly abominable.
And although Biden, unlike Sanders and Warren, has hardly comported himself in a way that
suggests competency or, for that matter, a fully functional mind, and although Andrew Cuomo and
other governors have far outshined him since the corvid-19 plague erupted, at least he is not a
narcissist, a sociopath, or a barely constrainable maniac.
But what's wrong with Democrats? Why don't they dump him while they still can?
Even Kirstin Gillibrand, scourge of womanizers who like Al Franken couldn't keep his hands
enough to himself, seems OK with Joe, notwithstanding the fact that he is credibly accused of
having done far worse than Franken ever did.
By almost any relevant standard, Franken was a far better Senator than Biden or, for that
matter, than nearly every other Democratic Senator, Gillibrand included. By almost any relevant
standard, Biden, even in his prime, was a dunce. But no matter. Anything for banality's sake;
anything not to field a candidate worth supporting.
And at a time when "the homeland," as we now call it, is facing a crisis the likes of which
has not been seen on these shores for more than a hundred years, how can it still be that, for
so many Democratic voters, it is practically axiomatic that only a paragon of banality can
defeat the most inept and villainous president that the United States has ever had to
endure?
The Democratic establishment is incapable of redemption. They have demonstrated time and
again that they will do anything to maintain their own power, and the power of the forces they
represent. That would be the obscenely rich; the beneficiaries of an increasingly inegalitarian
distribution of income and wealth that, regardless the intentions of a few kindly billionaires,
puts nearly everything on earth that is worth saving in mortal jeopardy.
But Trump is their enemy too. They could at least stop helping him out to the extent that
they are.
Lately, for whatever it's worth, Democratic Party honchos have been floating the idea of
running Warren for Vice President. I suspect that they are just blowing air, and I would be
surprised and more than a little disappointed in her if she would go along with that; I'd
expect her to have more integrity. But some good come of that possibility.
After all, while there is death and the twenty-fifth amendment there is hope. Not much,
though; not anyway in this "one nation under (Mike Pence's) God."
I, for one, have been waiting for nearly four years for cholesterol and a sedentary
lifestyle to relieve us of the clear and present danger we face. Now there is the corona virus
as well. But here we are. I would say, though, that were the Donald to follow the lead of his
British counterpart and soul-mate, Boris Johnson, and then go one step beyond, I might almost
start believing in that (alleged) divinity.
In ancient Greek dramas, a deus ex machina would sometimes be enacted; a god, wheeled in on
a mechanical contraption, would appear upon the stage and go on to set an otherwise intractable
situation right.
It is too late now for Sanders and probably for Warren as well, even if she does become
Biden's running mate. It probably always was; the fix was in too deep. What those two wanted to
do was obviously better than any of the moderates' nostrums. But the dodos calling the shots
would not abide Democrats doing the right thing or even some pale semblance of it. Those
bastardly dodos won.
But, even if only out of self-interest, and also in order to make the demise of Trump and
Trumpism more likely than it already is, they surely ought to be able to bring themselves to
pull off something like a deus ex machina trick -- by dumping the doofus for another
"moderate," one less retrograde, less risible, and less likely to inspire potential anti-Trump
voters to stay home.
They could put Biden back out to pasture where he so plainly belongs. As Trump might say
"what have they got to lose?" Of course, when Trump says it, the answer is always "everything."
In this case, it would be "nothing at all."
But I wouldn't hold my breath. It is more likely by many orders of magnitude that we will
have a Clintonesque, Obama-inflected, déja vu all over again in our future.
But even with the Forces of Darkness running the Democratic show, the forty or fifty percent
of Democratic voters who favored Sanders or Warren still have leverage over where the
Democratic Party goes.
They could and should use it to push Biden and the Democratic Party establishment as far to
the left as they can.
They should also insist on at least two things.
The first is obviously in the interest of all Democrats, the ones who are, for whatever
reason, still wedded to the status quo. as well as those who understand the need to transform
the lesser evil party fundamentally.
That would be to defeat Republican efforts at voter suppression. It is plain as can be
– so plain that even Trump has said as much – that if the black, brown, and youth
votes are not suppressed, Republicans would have hardly any chance of electing anybody, much
less Trump himself.
Anyone paying attention to the April 7 primary election in Wisconsin, conducted at great
peril to voters in the midst of the covid-19 pandemic, could hardly fail to understand how
important this is.
Republican lawmakers in the heavily gerrymandered and therefore Republican led Wisconsin
state legislature, and so-called "conservative" but actually radical rightwing Republican
judges in the Wisconsin and then the U.S. Supreme Courts put peoples', mainly black and brown
peoples', lives at risk in order to secure the electoral victory of one Dan Kelly, a retrograde
state Supreme Court Justice whom they can count on to ease their way.
In light of that, who knows what mischief Trump and the cult around him have in store for
November. The problem is especially acute now that, thanks to the machinations of Mitch
McConnell, arguably the most malign figure in the entire Trumpian firmament, the judicial
system is so profoundly compromised.
Congressional Democrats must therefore, first and foremost, guarantee the right to vote for
everybody eligible to vote. This means, among other things, making voting by mail an option
that even troglodyte Republican judges cannot refuse to honor.
Surely, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer and the other party leaders can do that much.
If they have the sense they were born with, they will do everything in their power to make
the November election a referendum on Trump. If it is, Trump will surely lose.
On the other hand, if it devolves into a choice between him and Biden, Trump will only just
probably lose, the probability depending on how the corovid-19 virus is doing by then, the
state of the economy, and the extent to which the good citizens of the United States of Amnesia
keep in mind even just a tiny fraction of all the harm that the Trump presidency has done.
In any event, the less Biden is exposed to the public, the more he stays bunkered down in
Wilmington or wherever he has been hiding out, the better. The more voters see him as the only
feasible alternative to Trump, the more electable he will be. The more they reflect on his
merits, the more reason there is for concern.
The other "non-negotiable demand" should be to insist on holding Trump and his factotums
accountable. That will require riding herd over the doofus because, having attached himself to
Obama's "legacy," letting it all go has become his default position.
Obama's Original Sin, and also Eric Holder's, was to let the war criminals in the upper
echelon of the Bush administration off scot-free. I fear that just as Trump takes his cues from
Fox News, Biden will be taking his from what Obama did a dozen years ago.
Back then, Obama said that he wanted "to look forward," to let bygones be bygone. Because
that is precisely what he did, the Bush-Cheney perpetual war regime became his own. It is still
with us too, and Biden is no doubt itching to take up where his Best Friend Forever left
off.
Does anyone doubt that, left to his own devices, a President Biden would repeat Obama's and
Holden's mistake? Banality and the absence of drama are his trump card, after all; letting
bygones be bygone is his thing.
Were that to come to pass, the countless, legally actionable crimes that Trump and his
kakistocratic minions have committed, now including the depraved indifference to human life and
the menace to public health that Trump has been exhibiting daily since the corvid-19 crisis
broke, would go unpunished, setting an even worse precedent than the one set by Obama.
When that comes back to haunt us, as it surely will with Biden continuing the political line
that made Trumpism all but inevitable, it won't be pretty. With the bar now set so low, the
next demagogue in the Trumpian role is likely to be a lot smarter and more capable than Trump,
and therefore a lot more dangerous.
Surely, even the "moderates" in the House and Senate Democratic caucuses could at least
force the dodo they are inflicting upon us to pre-commit, as it were, not to stoop so low as to
give get-out-of-jail-free cards to the likes of Trump, his family and inner circle, and the
most criminal of the base and servile sycophants he has inflicted upon us.
The judgment of history is sure, but it is inevitably slow in coming, and the time for
guarantees that Trump et. al . will be held to account, just as soon as Trump vacates the
premises at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, is now.
If a Democratic president isn't good even for that, then, when the judgment of history comes
down on the Democratic Party establishment too, as it surely will, they will have a lot more to
answer for than squandering a chance to make up for the neoliberal turn their party has been on
since the Jimmy Carter days, and for all the many other post-Watergate ways that it has been
making life better for the rich and heinous and worse for the working class.
"...Today, quite a number of alternative media commentators are ready to believe in the
absolute power not of God but of Mammon, of the powers of Wall Street and its partners in
politics, the media and the military. In this view, nothing major happens that hasn't been
planned by earthly powers for their own selfish interest.
"Mammon is wrecking the economy so a few oligarchs will own everything. Or else Mammon
created the hoax Coronavirus 19 in order to lock us all up and deprive us of what little is
left of our freedom. Or finally Mammon is using a virus in order to have a pretext to
vaccinate us all with secret substances and turn us all into zombies.
"Is this credible? In one sense, it is. We know that Mammon is unscrupulous, morally
capable of all crimes. But things do happen that Mammon did not plan, such as earthquakes,
floods and plagues. Dislike of our ruling class combined with dislike of being locked up
leads to the equation: They are simply using this (fake) crisis in order to lock us up!
"But what for? To whom is there any advantage in locking down the population? For the
pleasure of telling themselves, "Aha, we've got them where we want them, all stuck at home!"
Is this intended to suppress popular revolt? What popular revolt? Why repress people who
aren't doing anything that needs to be repressed?...
"What is the use of locking up a population – and I think especially of the United
States – that is disunited, disorganized, profoundly confused by generations of
ideological indoctrination telling them that their country is "the best" in every way, and
thus unable to formulate coherent demands on a system that exploits them ruthlessly? Do you
need to lock up your faithful Labrador so he won't bite you?...
"....Mammon is blinded by its own hubris, often stupid, incompetent, dumbed down by
getting away with so much so easily. Take a look at Mike Pompeo or Mike Pence – are
these all-powerful geniuses? No, they are semi-morons who have been able to crawl up a
corrupt system contemptuous of truth, virtue or intelligence – like the rest of the
gangsters in power in a system devoid of any ethical or intellectual standards.
"The power of creatures like that is merely the reflection of the abdication of social
responsibility by whole populations whose disinterest in politics has allowed the scum to
rise to the top.
The lockdown decreed by our Western governments reveals helplessness rather than power.
They did not rush to lock us down. The lockdown is disastrous for the economy which is their
prime concern. They hesitated and did so only when they had to do something and were
ill-equipped to do anything else. They saw that China had done so with good results. But
smart Asian governments did even more, deploying masks, tests and treatments Western
governments did not possess..."
"... Because behind today's coronavirus-inspired astonishment at conditions in developing or lower income countries, and Trump's authoritarian-like thuggery, lies an actual military and political hegemon with an actual impact on the world; particularly on what was once called the "Third World." ..."
"... In physical terms, the U.S.'s military hegemony is comprised of 800 bases in over 70 nations – more bases than any other nation or empire in history. The U.S. maintains drone bases, listening posts, "black sites," aircraft carriers, a massive nuclear stockpile, and military personnel working in approximately 160 countries. ..."
"... Since then, the United States has overthrown or attempted to overthrow the governments of approximately 50 countries, many of which (e.g. Iran, Guatemala, the Congo, and Chile) had elected leaders willing to nationalize their natural resources and industries. Often these interventions took the form of covert operations. Less frequently, the United States went to war to achieve these same ends (e.g. Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq). ..."
"... In fiscal terms, maintaining American hegemony requires spending more on "defense" than the next seven largest countries combined. Our nearly $1 trillion security budget now amounts to about 15 percent of the federal budget and over half of all discretionary spending. Moreover, the U.S. security budget continues to increase despite the Pentagon's inability to pass a fiscal audit. ..."
This March, as COVID-19's capacity to overwhelm the American healthcare system was becoming
obvious, experts marveled at the scenario unfolding before their eyes. "We have Third World
countries who are better equipped than we are now in Seattle,"
noted one healthcare professional, her words echoed just a few days later by a shocked
doctor in New York who described
"a third-world country type of scenario." Donald Trump could similarly only grasp what was
happening through the same comparison. "I have seen things that I've never seen before," he
said
. "I mean I've seen them, but I've seen them on television and faraway lands, never in my
country."
At the same time, regardless of the fact that "Third World" terminology is outdated and
confusing, Trump's inept handling of the pandemic has itself elicited more than one "banana republic"
analogy, reflecting already well-worn, bipartisan comparisons of Trump to a "
third world dictator " (never mind that dictators and authoritarians have never been
confined solely to lower income countries).
And yet, while such comparisons provoke predictably nativist outrage from the right, what is
absent from any of
these responses to the situation is a sense of reflection or humility about the "Third
World" comparison itself. The doctor in New York who finds himself caught in a "third world"
scenario and the political commentators outraged when Trump behaves "like a third world
dictator" uniformly express themselves in terms of incredulous wonderment. One never hears the
potential second half of this comparison: "I am now experiencing what it is like to live in a
country that resembles the kind of nation upon whom the United States regularly imposes broken
economies and corrupt leaders."
Because behind today's coronavirus-inspired astonishment at conditions in developing or
lower income countries, and Trump's authoritarian-like thuggery, lies an actual military and
political hegemon with an actual impact on the world; particularly on what was once called the
"Third World."
In physical terms, the U.S.'s military hegemony is comprised of 800 bases in over 70
nations –
more bases than any other nation or empire in history. The U.S. maintains drone bases,
listening posts, "black sites," aircraft carriers, a massive nuclear stockpile, and military
personnel working in approximately 160 countries. This is a globe-spanning military and
security apparatus organized into regional commands
that resemble the "proconsuls of the Roman empire and the governors-general of the
British." In other words, this apparatus is built not for deterrence, but for primacy.
The U.S.'s global primacy emerged from the wreckage of World War II when the United States
stepped into the shoes vacated by European empires. Throughout the Cold War, and in the name of
supporting "free peoples," the sprawling American security apparatus helped ensure that 300
years of imperial resource extraction and wealth distribution – from what was then called
the Third World to the First – remained undisturbed, despite decolonization.
Since then, the United States
has overthrown or attempted to overthrow the governments of approximately 50 countries,
many of which (e.g. Iran, Guatemala, the Congo, and Chile) had elected leaders willing to
nationalize their natural resources and industries. Often these interventions
took the form of covert operations. Less frequently, the United States went to war to
achieve these same ends (e.g. Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq).
In fiscal terms, maintaining American hegemony requires spending more
on "defense" than the next seven largest countries combined. Our
nearly $1 trillion security budget now amounts to about 15 percent of the federal budget
and over half of all
discretionary spending. Moreover, the U.S. security budget continues to increase despite the
Pentagon's inability to pass a fiscal audit.
Trump's claim that Obama had
"hollowed out" defense spending was not only grossly untrue, it masked the consistency of the
security budget's metastasizing growth since the Vietnam War, regardless of who sits in the
White House. At $738 billion dollars, Trump's security budget was passed in December with the
overwhelming support of House Democrats.
And yet, from the perspective of public discourse in this country, our globe-spanning,
resource-draining military and security apparatus exists in an entirely parallel universe to
the one most Americans experience on a daily level. Occasionally, we wake up to the idea of
this parallel universe but only when the United States is involved in visible military actions.
The rest of the time, Americans leave thinking about international politics – and the
deaths, for instance, of 2.5 million
Iraqis since 2003 – to the legions of policy analysts and Pentagon employees who
largely accept American military primacy as an "article of faith," as Professor of
International Security and Strategy at the University of Birmingham Patrick Porter has said
.
Foreign policy is routinely the last issue Americans consider when they vote for presidents
even though the president has more discretionary power over foreign policy than any other area
of American politics. Thus, despite its size, impact, and expense, the world's military hegemon
exists somewhere on the periphery of most Americans' self-understanding, as though, like the
sun, it can't be looked upon directly for fear of blindness.
Why is our avoidance of the U.S.'s weighty impact on the world a problem in the midst of the
coronavirus pandemic? Most obviously, the fact that our massive security budget has gone so
long without being widely questioned means that one of the soundest courses of action for the
U.S. during this crisis remains resolutely out of sight.
The shock of discovering that our healthcare system is so quickly overwhelmed should
automatically trigger broader conversations about spending priorities that entail deep and
sustained cuts in an engorged security budget whose sole purpose is the maintenance of primacy.
And yet, not only has this not happened, $10.5 billion of the coronavirus aid package has been
earmarked for the Pentagon, with $2.4 billion of that
channeled to the "defense industrial base." Of the $500 billion aimed at corporate America,
$17.5 billion is
set aside "for businesses critical to maintaining national security" such as aerospace.
To make matters worse, our blindness to this bloated security complex makes it frighteningly
easy for champions of American primacy to sound the alarm when they even suspect a dip in
funding might be forthcoming. Indeed, before most of us had even glanced at the details of the
coronavirus bill, foreign policy hawks were already
issuing dark prediction s about the impact of still-imaginary cuts in the security budget
on the U.S.'s "ability to strike any target on the planet in response to hostile actions by any
actor" – as if that ability already did not exist many times over.
On a more existential level, a country that is collectively engaged in unseeing its own
global power cannot help but fail to make connections between that power and domestic politics,
particularly when a little of the outside world seeps in. For instance, because most Americans
are unaware of their government's sponsorship of fundamentalist Islamic groups in the Middle
East throughout the Cold War, 9/11 can only ever appear to have come from nowhere, or because
Muslims hate our way of life.
This "how did we get here?" attitude replicates itself at every level of political life
making it profoundly difficult for Americans to see the impact of their nation on the rest of
the world, and the blowback from that impact on the United States itself. Right now, the
outsized influence of American foreign policy is already encouraging the spread of coronavirus
itself as U.S. imposed sanctions on Iran severely hamper that
country's ability to respond to the virus at home and virtually
guarantee its spread throughout the region.
Closer to home, our shock at the healthcare system's inept response to the pandemic masks
the relationship between the U.S.'s imposition
of free-market totalitarianism on countries throughout the
Global South and the impact of free-market totalitarianism on our own welfare state .
Likewise, it is more than karmic comeuppance that the President of the United States now
resembles the self-serving authoritarians the U.S. forced on so many formerly colonized
nations. The modes of militarized policing American security experts exported to those
authoritarian regimes also contributed , on a
policy level, to both the rise of militarized policing in American cities and the rise of mass
incarceration in the 1980s and 90s. Both of these phenomena played a significant role in
radicalizing Trump's white nationalist base and decreasing their tolerance for democracy.
Most importantly, because the U.S. is blind to its power abroad, it cannot help but turn
that blindness on itself. This means that even during a pandemic when America's exceptionalism
– our lack of national healthcare – has profoundly negative consequences on the
population, the idea of looking to the rest of the world for solutions remains unthinkable.
Senator Bernie Sanders' reasonable suggestion that the U.S., like Denmark, should
nationalize its healthcare system is dismissed as the fanciful pipe dream of an aging socialist
rather than an obvious solution to a human problem embraced by nearly every other nation in the
world. The Seattle healthcare professional who expressed shock that even "Third World
countries" are "better equipped" than we are to confront COVID-19 betrays a stunning ignorance
of the diversity of healthcare systems within developing countries. Cuba, for instance,
has responded
to this crisis with an efficiency and humanity that puts the U.S. to shame.
Indeed, the U.S. is only beginning to feel the full impact of COVID-19's explosive
confrontation with our exceptionalism: if the unemployment rate really does reach 32 percent,
as has been predicted,
millions of people will not only lose their jobs but their health insurance as well. In the
middle of a pandemic.
Over 150 years apart, political commentators Edmund Burke and Aimé Césaire
referred to this blindness as the byproduct of imperialism. Both used the exact same language
to describe it; as a "gangrene" that "poisons" the colonizing body politic. From their
different historical perspectives, Burke and Césaire observed how colonization
boomerangs back on colonial society itself, causing irreversible damage to nations that
consider themselves humane and enlightened, drawing them deeper into denial and
self-delusion.
Perhaps right now there is a chance that COVID-19 – an actual, not metaphorical
contagion – can have the opposite effect on the U.S. by opening our eyes to the things
that go unseen. Perhaps the shock of recognizing the U.S. itself is less developed than our
imagined "Third World" might prompt Americans to tear our eyes away from ourselves and look
toward the actual world outside our borders for examples of the kinds of political, economic,
and social solidarity necessary to fight the spread of Coronavirus. And perhaps moving beyond
shock and incredulity to genuine recognition and empathy with people whose economies and
democracies have been decimated by American hegemony might begin the process of reckoning with
the costs of that hegemony, not just in "faraway lands" but at home. In our country.
After the warlord period of the 15th century, Japan was united by a few families then by a
shogun family. The period is called the Edo period. They disarmed civilians and established a
mild caste system.
The country was closed except for a few ports controlled by the central government, travel
restrictions were put in place and certain technological developments were prohibited.
The period also had an interesting feature called sankinkoutai .
It forced regional leaders to march across the country in formal costumes along with their
armies in order to alternate their residences between their home regions and the capital of the
feudal Japan, Edo. It also forced leaders' wives and family members to remain in Edo at all
time. It was an elaborate system to keep the hierarchical structure intact.
The reign lasted a few centuries with no conflicts within the land until the US forced to
open Japan in order to use its ports for whaling business. I've been suspecting that the aim of
some people among the ruling class circle is to establish such a closed hierarchical system
which can function in a "sustainable" manner. But of course it is not exactly a system of
equality and sharing as it would be advertised.
The notion of "sustainable" is also very much questionable as we see blatant lies hidden
behind carbon trade schemes, nuclear energy, "humanitarian" colonialism rampant in Africa and
other areas and so on.
I mentioned about the special feature, sankinkoutai , since I see an interesting
parallel between it and "representative democracy" within the capitalist West today. Of course,
we don't have such an obvious requirement among us, but similar dynamics occur within our
capitalist framework. Our thoughts and activities are always subservient to the moneyed
transactions guided by the economic networks.
Our economic restrictions can force us to make decisions to do away with our needs -- we
might abandon our skills, interests, friendships, life styles, philosophies, ideologies,
community obligations and so on.
In fact, some of us are forced to live on streets, die of treatable illness, suffer under
heavy debt and so on as we struggle. In a way, we surrender our basic needs as hostages to the
system just as the Japanese regional leaders had to leave their family members under the watch
of the Shogun family. Moreover, the more our thoughts differ from that of neoliberal capitalist
framework, the more we must put our efforts in adjusting to it. Some of us might be labeled as
"dissidents", and such a label can create obstacles in our social activities.
This functions similar to the fact that Japanese feudal regional leaders who were further
away from the capital geographically had to put more efforts in marching across the country,
requiring them to expend more resources. In a capitalist system, this occurs economically as
well -- those who are already oppressed by the economic strife must spend more resources to
conform to the draconian measures to survive.
Now, one might wonder why regional leaders had subjected themselves to such an inhumane
scheme. The march across the country was considered as a show of strength and authority -- it
was a proud moment to put on their costume to show off. The populations across the country were
forced to respect this process with reverence and awe. There were strict regulations regarding
how to treat such marches.
This situation can be compared to our political process -- Presidential election in
particular, in which our powers and interests are put in the corporate political framework to
be shaped, tweaked and distorted. Sanctioned by capitalist mandates and agendas, political
candidates march across the nation while people proudly cheer their favorite ones. The more
complacent to the capitalist framework the candidates are, the more lavish the marches. This
forces the contents of political discourse to remain within the capitalist framework while
excluding candidates and their supporters whose ideas are not subservient to it.
"Representative democracy" within a capitalist framework can be one of the most
strong ways to install values, beliefs and norms of the ruling class into minds of the people
whose interests can be significantly curtailed by those ideas. All this can be achieved in the
name of "democracy", "free election" and so on.
Since people's minds and their collective mode of operations are deeply indoctrinated to be
a part of the capitalist structure, any crisis would strengthen the fundamental integrity of
the structure. I heard a Trump supporter saying that "people should be shaking up a
little" . That's actually a very appropriate description. You shake their ground, people
try to hold onto whatever they think is a solid structure. Some of us might, however, try to
hold onto a Marxist perspective for example.
That, of course, provokes triggering reactions by those who go along with the capitalist
framework, because they are particularly threatened, sensing that their entire belief system
might fall. Examination of facts and contexts during the time of crisis can generate divisions
and opportunities to control and moderate opposing views.
Capitalist institutions are dominated by this mentality which might explain the extremely
quick mobilization of the draconian restrictions and the demand for more restrictions during
the time of "crisis". Economic incentives, as well as self-preservation within the system,
force people to engage actively in unquestioning manner.
For example, we have observed concerted efforts in mobilizing media, government agencies,
legal system and so on to "combat" "drug issues", "inner-city violence" and so on which has led
to mass incarceration, police killings and "gentrification" of primarily minority
communities.
Needless to say, 9/11 has created enormous momentum of colonial wars against middle eastern
countries. No major media outlets or politicians questioned blatant lies surrounding WMD claim
against Iraq for example. As a result, many countries were destroyed while one out of a hundred
people on the planet became refugees. Draconian regulations became normal, racism and
xenophobia among people intensified and the term "global surveillance" became a household
term.
This situation requires further examination since there are a few layers which must be
identified.
First, we must recognize that there is an industry that commodifies "dissenting voices". The
people who engage in this have no intention of examining the exploitive mechanism of capitalist
hierarchy. Some of them typically chose topics of government wrongdoings in contexts of fascist
ideologies (jews are taking over the world, for example), space aliens and so on. The angles
are calibrated to keep serious inquiries away but they nonetheless garner major followings.
When certain topics fall into their hands, discussing them can become tediously unproductive
as it prompts a label "conspiracy". It also contributes in herding dissidents toward fascist
ideology while keeping them away from understanding actual social structure.
The second point is related to the first, when the topic enters the realm of "conspiracy",
and when we lose means to confirm facts, many of us experience cognitive dissonance. The
unspoken fear of the system becomes bigger than any of the topics at hand, and some of us shut
down our thought process. As a result, we are left with hopelessness, cynicism and complacency.
This is a major tool of the system of extortion. It makes some of us say "if there is a
President who tries to overthrow capitalism, he or she will be assassinated".
Such a statement illustrates the fact that understanding of the violent system, fear and
complacency can firmly exist in people's minds without openly admitting to it.
Third, aside from the unspoken fear toward the destructive system, there is also unspoken
recognition that the system is inherently unsustainable to itself and to its environment. The
cultish faith in capitalist framework is upheld by myths of white supremacy, American
exceptionalism and most of all by our structural participation to it.
Any cult with an unsustainable trajectory eventually faces its doomsday phase. It desires a
demise of everything, which allows cultists to avoid facing the nature of the cult. It allows
them to fantasize a rebirth. This, in turn, allows the system to utilize a catastrophic crisis
as a springboard to shift its course while implementing draconian measures to prop itself up.
"The time of survival" normalizes the atrocity of structural violence in reinforcing the
hierarchical order, while those with relative social privilege secretly rejoice the arrival of
"the end".
Any of those three dynamics can be actively utilized by those who are determined to
manipulate and control the population.
Now, there is another interesting coincidence with the Japanese history. The title Shogun
had been a figurehead status given by the imperial family of Japan long before the Edo period.
Shogun is a short version of Seiitaishogun, which can be translated as Commander-in-Chief of
the Expeditionary Force Against the Barbarians. The title indicates the nature of the
trajectory more bluntly than the US presidency which is also Commander in Chief–which has
engaged in numerous colonial expeditions over the generations.
But as I mentioned above, the Edo period was not a time of fighting "barbarians", it was a
time of a closed feudal system and its hierarchy was strictly controlled by its customs and
regulations. The current trajectory of our time prompts one to suspect that the inevitable path
to be a similar one.
Our thoughts and ideas have been already controlled by capitalist framework for generations.
We knowingly and unknowingly participate in this hostage taking extortion structure. While
shaken by crisis after crisis, we have gone through waves of changes, which have implemented
rigid social restrictions against our ability to see through lies and rise above the feudal
order of money and violence.
I must say that I do understand that above discussion is very much generalized. One can
certainly argue against validity of the parallel based on historical facts and contexts. Some
might also argue that Edo period to be far more humane on some regards, in terms of how people
related to their natural surroundings, or the system being actually sustainable, for instance.
But I believe that my main points still stand as valid and worthy of serious
considerations.
Also, it is not my intention to label, demean and demonize policy makers of our time in
cynical manner. My intention is to put the matter as a topic of discussion among those who are
concerned in a constructive manner. The comparison was used as a device for us to step back
from our time and space in evaluating our species' path today.
Doctortrinate ,
there's no doubt -- the game has many strings to its bow, not helped by the peoples alacrity
of contribution -- notably, when called to Vote.
Generations through generation, used and abused, oppressed and distressed, and still they
returned to the spiders labyrinth to sustain the fabric of its future slaves to it's design,
expanding the web, sanctioning Its cause all the while, to a degeneration of theirs.
Example after example of the corruption, deviance, distortions and exploitation, and again
they return, depersonalized by repetition saturation, caught in a Stockholm syndrome victim
captor beguilement of slavery Is freedom -- and what of this latest attack, the warring virus
-- will the mass of unhinged automotons view it as another rescue -- condemning us "all" to a
big tech digitally enslaved end.
Or, will they finally, Wake Up and see the light ?
Charlotte Russe ,
"The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimate there's been over 30
million cases of influenza during America's flu season, which began in September 2019, with a
death toll exceeding 20,000." It must be noted, that in 2018 45 million were infected with
the flu in the US, and there were 80,000 deaths. As of this moment, the World-O-Meter cites
338,999 cases of Covid-19 in the US with 9,687 deaths. This mortality rate indicates the
deaths resulting from COVID-19 could be much "lower" than those resulting from the 2018 flu
where the touted vaccine did NOT work.
I think it's safe to say, we'll trully never know the source of Covid-19. We can only
speculate. It could have been transmitted from bats in a Wuhan wet market, or it could have
leaked out of a military lab. What can be definitely said, is that the panic associated with
the pandemic benefitted the rulers of ALL major capitalist dictatorships.
Fascist nation-states like China and Russia are grasping for a chance to make new friends
in high places as a way to replace the numero-uno superpower. And while China and Russia are
attempting to build new alliances the infighting persists within the EU. In the end, it makes
no difference which member of this sinister trio becomes the "big macher"– the
working-class, middle-class, and the working-poor will remain victims of exploitative
leeches.
Simply put, a landlord might sell his property to a new owner, but the occupying tenant
will still be required to pay rent, and might actually see an increase in their monthly fee.
It's like jumping from the frying pan into the fire.
Worldwide every country is "infected" with a bunch of crumb-bum leaders. A crisis
intensifies their lechery. This is especially the case for those who have very little. We see
this constantly, every time there's an ecological disaster whether it's a flood, hurricane,
earthquake, typhoon, etc Disasters always wipeout the most vulnerable. These populations
possess fewer resources, hence fewer options. This has been the case for time and immemorial.
We're just more cognizant every time a disaster occurs because of surveillance technology and
globalization.
The real question which needs to be explored is why does the human species remain so
flawed. Human nature has not evolved in thousands of years. The same brutish sociopathic
tendencies which existed 10,000 years ago exist today. Perhaps Homo sapiens, are in an
evolutionary quagmire where only the "dung and malarkey" are allowed to rise to the top.
Whatever the case may be, billions are organized by various forms of "muck authority" who
yield significantly more power than 15th Century Edo feudal lords. In addition, if the entire
worldwide capitalist system collapsed 90 percent of the world's population would perish. The
sustenance of billions are too intertwined within the capitalist resource system.
Interestingly enough, primitive societies (if any are left) and survivalists might be the
small remainders of a civilization which became too big for its breaches.
So what are the options you might be thinking, since many of us never bothered to hone
those imperative life saving survival skills. The only answer is "reform." Groups with shared
interests need to organize and mobilize. Peaceful, but tenaciously protests could force
concessions without alienating the remaining population. This could be done. It happened in
the 1930's and the outcome of mass demonstrations lead to the New Deal. It's something to
think about, once the world stops self-isolating. The options are limited -- the path either
leads to neo-feudalism or barbarism. Unless of course, someone can figure out how to
eliminate the sociopathic gene within the human species.
Rhys Jaggar ,
I think I can answer this question: the fact is that when a leader rules by fear, power and
crushing dissent, only those displaying similar characteristics will thrive under them.
Back when the human condition was rather tenuous and being eaten by big predators a
significant possibility, the traits selected for were ruthless killing, hunting and, in the
case of males, winning the right to breed. There were no 11 pluses for selecting breeders,
rather punch ups, elimination of rivals and the like. The females were selected for
childbearing capabilities, since giving birth was one of the most hazardous activities a
female would undertake. They were not selected for religious evolution, nor for philosophical
insight.
As a result, the hierarchies of human society grew around those more primitive traits and,
by and large, remain there, albeit diluted down somewhat.
But thuggery, chicaneries, spying and lying are still the traits most valued in a
dog-eat-dog world. Insight can be stolen, bled dry and then dumped.
Who needs a brain when you can steal someone else's ey?
Charlotte Ruse ,
To put it simply, deviant ruthless behavior is baked into the cake.
"... " T he operational dilemmas faced by Indo-Pacific Command demand urgent attention. In order to make American investments in advanced fighters, attack submarines, or breakthroughs in military technology meaningful (in other words, to deter or win a conflict), there must be urgent investment in runways, fuel and munitions storage, theater missile defenses, and command and control architecture to enable U.S. forces in a fight across the Pacific's vast exterior lines. " ..."
'Number one priority' is a $1.5 billion, 360-degree persistent and integrated air defense
ring around Guam.
... ... ...
Arguing in favor of the PDI i n a recent
op-ed , former Pacific policy official for the DoD Randall Schriver
and Eric Sayers, former special assistant to the commander of INDOPACOM,
wrote:
" T he operational dilemmas faced by Indo-Pacific Command demand urgent
attention. In order to make American investments in advanced fighters, attack submarines, or
breakthroughs in military technology meaningful (in other words, to deter or win a conflict),
there must be urgent investment in runways, fuel and munitions storage, theater missile
defenses, and command and control architecture to enable U.S. forces in a fight across the
Pacific's vast exterior lines. "
Well the Pentagon sees that the checkbooks are open, Look if those pencil necked doctors
can get 2trillion for a case of the sniffles, we ought to be able to get 2 billion to face
down the Chicoms!
Re: Pompeo and his West Point clique and their associates, I have not spent much time on
it, didn't seem like a useful or entertaining thing to do, but my impression is they have
lots of plans and very little grasp of what is required to carry them out. (One thinks of
Modi here.) This has been ongoing since the Iranians shot our fancy drone down there last
year. The first shot across the bow. We are now withdrawing from Syria, Iraq &
Afghanistan, however haltingly, as it has dawned on the commanders on the ground there how
exposed they really are to Iranian fire, and that of their allies. Israel seems to be
struggling with the same problem, how to continue to bully when the bullied can very
effectively shoot back?
Many unseemly things being said about Crozier and the Teddy R. situation too. Lot's of
heat, very little light. Trump says there is light at the end of the tunnel, I seem to
remember that from somewhere in the past. I think that's about where we are again.
"... Modernizing our strategic nuclear forces is a top priority for the @DeptofDefense and the @POTUS to protect the American people and our allies. ..."
"... As a pandemic ravages the nation, a sad illustration of wildly misplaced priorities ..."
US sidestepped OWN SANCTIONS against Russia to save American lives from Covid-19... If only it cared as much about Iranian
lives
Scott Ritter
is a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer. 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 is a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer.
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.
When it comes to saving American lives, sanctions are not an
obstacle to the provision of life-saving medical equipment. Ramping up sanctions on struggling Iran is okay however – which goes
to show the US price tag on human life. It was a sight that warmed the heart of even the most cynical American opponent of Vladimir
Putin's Russia -- a giant An-124 aircraft, loaded with boxes of desperately needed medical supplies, being offloaded at JFK Airport.
When President Trump spoke on the phone with his Russian counterpart on March 31, he mentioned America's need for life-saving medical
supplies, including ventilators and personal protective equipment. Two days later the AN-124 arrived in New York.
As the aircraft was being unloaded, however, it became clear that at least some of the equipment being offloaded had been delivered
in violation of existing US sanctions. Boxes clearly marked as containing Aventa-M ventilators, produced by the Ural Instrument Engineering
Plant (UPZ), could be seen. For weeks now President Trump has made an issue about the need for ventilators in the US to provide life-saving
care for stricken Americans.
There was just one problem -- the manufacturer of the Aventa-M, UPZ, is a subsidiary of Concern Radio-Electronic Technologies
(KRET) which, along with its parent holding company ROSTEC, has been under US sanctions since 2014. Complicating matters further
is the fact that the shipment of medical supplies was paid in part by the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), a Russian sovereign
wealth fund which, like ROSTEC, was placed on the US lending blacklist in 2014 following Russia's intervention in Crimea. Half of
the Russian aid shipment was paid for by the US State Department, and the other half by RDIF.
According to a State Department spokesperson, the sanctions against RDIF do not apply to purchases of medical equipment. KRET,
however, is in the strictest SDN (Specially Designated Persons) sanctions
list , which means US citizens and permanent residents
are prohibited from doing business with it. So while the letter of the sanctions may not have been violated, the spirit certainly
has been.
One only need talk to the embattled Governor of New York State, Andrew Cuomo, to understand the difficulty in trying to purchase
much-needed medical equipment during a global pandemic where everyone else is trying to do the same. New York has been competing
with several other states to purchase much-needed ventilators from China. "It's like being on eBay" , Cuomo recently told
the press, with 50 states bidding against one another, driving the price up. The issue became even more complicated when the Federal
Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, entered the bidding war. "They big-footed us" , Cuomo said, driving the price per ventilator
up to $25,000. "We're going broke."
Cuomo estimates that New York will need upwards of 40,000 ventilators to be able to handle the influx of stricken patients when
the outbreak hits its peak. At the moment, New York has 17,000 ventilators available -- including 2,500 on order from China -- and
Cuomo doesn't expect any more. "We're on our own." Plans are in place to begin imposing a triage system to prioritize ventilator
availability if and when the current stockpile is exhausted. These plans include the issuance of an emergency waiver that permits
health care providers to take a patient off a ventilator to make it available for another patient deemed to be more "viable"
-- that is, who has a greater expectation of surviving the disease.
Cuomo's predicament is being played out around the world, in places like Italy, Spain -- and Iran, where the outbreak of coronavirus
has hit particularly hard. The difference, however, is that while the US, Italy and Spain are able to scour the global market in
search of life-saving medical supplies, Iran is not. US sanctions targeting the Iranian financial system, ostensibly imposed to prevent
"money laundering" by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Command, which has been heavily sanctioned by the US over the years,
have made it virtually impossible for Iran to pay for humanitarian supplies needed to fight the coronavirus outbreak.
As bad as it is for Governor Cuomo, at least he can enter a bidding war for medical supplies. Iran can't even get its foot in
the door, and it is costing lives. Making matters worse, at a time when the international community is pleading for the US to ease
sanctions so Iran can better cope with an outbreak that is taking a life every ten minutes, the US instead doubled down, further
tightening its death grip on the Iranian economy.
The global coronavirus pandemic will eventually end, and when it does there will be an accounting for how nations behaved. Nations
like Russia and China have been repeatedly vilified in the US media for any number of reasons -- even the Russian aid shipment containing
the sanctioned ventilators has been dismissed as a "propaganda ploy." What, then, do you call the US' blatant disregard
for select human lives?
The callous indifference displayed by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and other officials to the suffering of the Iranian people
by increasing sanctions at a time when the situation cries out for them to be lifted in order to save lives, when contrasted to the
ease in which US sanctions on Russia are ignored when life-saving medical equipment is needed, drives home the point that, as far
as the US is concerned, human life only matters when it is an American one. That might play well among American voters (it shouldn't),
but for the rest of the world it is a clear sign that hypocrisy, not humanitarianism, is the word that will define the US going forward.
EDITOR'S NOTE: A previous version of this article erroneously stated that entering a financial relationship with RDIF is prosecutable
under the US sanctions regime. In reality, RDIF is under sectoral sanctions that only apply to certain interactions, which, according
to a State Department spokesperson, do not include purchases of medical equipment. The article has been changed accordingly.
Think your friends would be interested? Share this story!
Can anyone think what our society might have spent
six and a half trillion dollars on instead of 20 years of war in the Middle East for
nothing? How about the
trillion dollars per year we keep spending on the military on top of that?
Invading, dominating and remaking the Arab world to serve the interests of the American empire and
the state of
Greater Israel sounds downright quaint at this point. Iraq War II, as Senator Bernie
Sanders said in the debate a few weeks ago, while letting Joe Biden, one of its primary
proponents , off the hook for it, was "a long time ago." Actually, Senator, we still have
troops there fighting
Iraq War III 1/2 against what's left of the ISIS insurgency, and our current government
continues to threaten the launch of Iraq War IV against the very
parties we fought the last two wars for
. This would
almost certainly then lead to war with Iran.
The U.S.A. still has soldiers, marines and CIA spies in Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia, Libya,
Mali, Tunisia, Niger, Nigeria, Chad and only God and
Nick Turse know where else.
Worst of all , America under President Donald Trump is still "leading from behind" in the
war in
Yemen Barack Obama started in conspiracy with Saudi then-Deputy Crown Prince
Mohammed bin Salman back in 2015. This war is nothing less than a deliberate
genocide .
As Senator Rand Paul once explained to Neil Cavuto on Fox News back before he decided to
become virtually silent on the matter, if the U.S.-Saudi-UAE alliance were to succeed in
driving the Houthi regime from power in the capital city, they could end up being replaced by
AQAP or the local Muslim Brotherhood group, al-Islah. There is zero
chance that the stated goal of the war, the re-installation of former dictator Mansur
Hadi on the throne, could ever succeed. And yet the war rages on. President Trump says he's
doing it
for the money .
That's right . And he's just recently sent the
Marines to intervene in the war on behalf of our enemy-allies too.
We still have troops in Germany in the name of keeping Russia out 30 years after the end of
the Cold War and dissolution of the Soviet Empire, even though Germany is clearly not
afraid of Russia at all, and are instead
more worried that the U.S. and its newer allies are going to get them into a fight they do
not want. The Germans prefer to "get along with Russia," and buy natural gas from them, while
Trump's government does everything in its power to
prevent it .
America has
expanded our NATO military alliance right up to Russia's western border and continues to
threaten to include Ukraine and former-Soviet Georgia in the pact right up to the present day.
As the world's worst hawks and Russiagate Hoax
accusers have
admitted , Trump has been by far the
worst anti-Russia president since the end of the last Cold War.
Obama may have hired a bunch of
Hitler-loving Nazis to overthrow the government of Ukraine for him back in 2014, but at
least he was too afraid to send them weapons, something
Trump has done
enthusiastically , even though he was actually impeached by
the Democrats for moving a little too slowly on one of the shipments.
We still have troops in South Korea to protect against the North, even though in economic
and conventional terms the South overmatches the North by
orders of magnitude . Communism really
doesn't work . And the only reason the North even decided to make nukes is because George
W. Bush put a gun to their head and essentially made
them do it . But as Cato's
Doug Bandow says , we don't even need a new deal. The U.S. could just forget about North
Korea and it wouldn't make any difference to our security at all.
And now China. Does anyone outside of the
U.S. Navy and
Marine Corps really care whether the entire Pacific Ocean is an American lake or only
95% of it ? The "threat" of Chinese dominance in their own part of the world exists only in
the heads of hawkish American policy wonks and the Taiwanese, who should have been told a long
time ago that they are
on their own and that there's no way in the world the American people or government are
willing to trade Los Angeles and San Francisco for Taipei.
Perhaps without the U.S. superpower standing behind them, Taiwanese leaders would be more
inclined to seek a peaceful settlement with Beijing. If not, that's their problem. Not one
American in a million is willing to sacrifice their own home town in a nuclear war with China
over an island that means nothing to them. Nor should they. Nor should our government even
dream they have the authority to hand out such dangerous war guarantees to any other country in
such a reckless fashion.
And that's it. There are no other powers anywhere in the world. Certainly there are none who
threaten the American people. Our government claims they are keeping the peace, but there are
approximately two million Arabs and
Pashtuns who would disagree except that they've already been killed in our recent wars and so
are unavailable for comment.
The George W. Bush and Barack Obama eras are long over. We near the end, or half-way
point , of the Trump years, and yet our former leaders' wars rage on
.
Enough already. It is time to end the war on terrorism and end the rest of the American
empire as well . As our dear recently departed friend
Jon Basil Utley learned from his professor Carroll Quigley ,
World Empire is the last stage of a civilization before it dies . That is the tragedy. The hope
is that we can learn from history and preserve what's left of our republic and the freedom that
made it great in the first place, by abandoning our overseas "commitments" and husbanding our
resources so that we may pass down a legacy of liberty to our children.
The danger to humanity represented by the Coronavirus plague has, by stark relief, exposed
just how unnecessary and therefore criminal this entire imperial project has been . We could
have quit the empire 30 years
ago when the Cold War ended, if not long before.
We could have a perfectly normal and peaceful relationship with Iraq, Iran, Syria, Korea,
Russia, China, Yemen and any of the other nations our government likes to pretend threaten us.
And when it comes to our differences, we would then be in the position to kill
them with kindness and generosity, leading the world to liberty the only way we truly can,
voluntarily, on the global free market of ideas and results
.
That is what the world needs and the legacy the American people deserve.
I realise few will since amerikans are 100% exceptionalist right up to their last breath but
please read the best article by far on masks & respirators cleaning issues esp such ones
as 'steam' cleaning are on this link I posted earlier.
It is written by Dr John Campbell who has been writing on this virus for several months.
My brother the retired journo recommended him to me in early February, so naturally I have
been assiduous in ignoring the bloke for that reason, combined with the fact Campbell is an
englander, but he has put together an excellent piece on masks & respirators, one which
uses y'know those pesky fact things to support his statements about assorted items efficacy,
longevity and ability to be cleaned. With respirators 95% & above he recommends having
several and rotating them so that they cop 4-5 days down time which should be enough time for
the virus to kark it of its own accord.
I don't believe for a moment that will stop the continual spouting of uninformed claptrap,
but I tried.
Given some time and currency, I guess Morocco would offer more value for money if you want
some exotic customs and landscapes. If you have more money, you could spend them on a
carbon-free cruise with stunning vistas and off-the-beaten route: North Pole on board of
nuclear-powered ice breaker! It is wise to have swimming costume (a pool is on board, heated,
I presume) and sensible apparel -- enough for normal winter (in Moscow). The number of places
is below 150, with a little hospital on board too. In the latest ads I read about discounts,
but the deal was that you can pay in rubbles with prices below the rubble plunged by 25%,
still, for 27 k USD you can see John Bolton's relatives in natural environment (like mommy
walrus taking care of youngsters), polar bears, seals, and landscapes of Franz Josef Land.
Helicopter rides included. You can also take a plunge into the arctic water -- with safety
precautions .
I think you have the main danger (some nitwit using a "small nuke") to try to make a point
about right.
Other than that, the impression I get from Pompeo and his ilk is that the main thing is
having someone to threaten and abuse to show "leadership" and "manhood", at least one shitty
little country we can still throw up against the wall and slap around to show we mean
business. Dangerous times for Nicaragua.
Neither he nor his other West Point friends seems to have much clue about military affairs
either, which is strange. I mean we've always had our George Armstrong Custers, but they
didn't run things. Now they seem to have some sort of cult mentality. One is reminded of the
French before WWI: "De L'audace, Encore De L'audace, Et Toujours De L'audace ..." and we know
how that worked out.
With a disgusted look on his face, President Trump replied: "You should have let us
know."
Military Exercise meaning (from Wikipedia): "A military exercise or war game
is the employment of military resources in training for military operations, either exploring
the effects of warfare or testing strategies without actual combat. This also serves the
purpose of ensuring the combat readiness of garrisoned or deployable forces prior to deployment
from a home base."
What is actually going on here? Does the White House care to explain?
*Note to readers: please click the share buttons above or below. Forward this article to your
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The essence of Trump's psychology is that he likes to dominate people. He accomplishes this
by hiring incompetent psychopaths who make him legitimately look good by comparison. This is
why he's constantly overruling their worst plans. But once every so often, his incompetent
underlings convince him to do something exceptionally stupid. This is because occasionally
going along with them allows him to feel like a wise, discerning ruler who occasionally
follows his advisors' guidance and occasionally overrules them.
@37
Yesterday I went to Home Depot to buy some water tubing for my ice-maker.
I noticed all doors were blocked with a tape, except one with at least 25 people waiting
to get in and a female employee holding a sign "the line starts here".
I ask the lady what was all about and she said because of the virus etc.
I said to her "You must be kidding" and I start going back to my car.
Some old lady from the line waiting to get in she scream to me something about "we protect
ourselves" and similar nonsense.
I turn around and I said to her: Quit watching TV you idiot. They rob your money on broad
daylight and send your kids to die fighting israels enemies.
The overreaction to the virus makes no sense. Is something being hidden from us? The freak
out over this virus – to the tune of $trillions – is all out of proportion.
2.8 million Americans die every year. Why the obsession with this one virus which may kill
in the thousands?
Something is off. But Trump should have known early if there was some other hidden danger.
If there is some hidden suspicion by the people obsessing over this, please share it!
"... The more I watch these moves by Pompeo the more sympathetic I become to the most sinister theories about COVID-19, its origins and its launch around the world. Read Pepe Escobar's latest to get an idea of how dark and twisted this tale could be . ..."
There are few things in this life that make me more sick to my stomach than watching
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo talking. He truly is one of the evilest men I've ever had the
displeasure of covering.
Into the insanity of the over-reaction to the COVID-19 outbreak, Pompeo wasted no time
ramping up sanctions on firms doing any business with Iran, one of the countries worse-hit by
this virus to date.
It's a seemingly endless refrain, everyday,
more sanctions on Chinese, Swiss and South African firms for having the temerity in these
deflating times to buy oil from someone Pompeo and his gang of heartless psychopaths disapprove
of.
This goes far beyond just the oil industry. Even though I'm well aware that Russia's
crashing the price of oil was itself a hybrid war attack on US capital markets. One that has
had, to date, devastating effect.
While Pompeo mouths the words publicly that humanitarian aid is exempted from sanctions on
Iran, the US is pursuing immense
pressure on companies to not do so anyway while the State Dept. bureaucracy takes its sweet
time processing waiver applications.
Pompeo and his ilk only think in terms of civilizational warfare. They have become so
subsumed by their big war for the moral high ground to prove American exceptionalism that they
have lost any shred of humanity they may have ever had.
Because for Pompeo in times like these to stick to his talking points and for his office to
continue excising Iran from the global economy when we're supposed to be coming together to
fight a global pandemic is the height of soullessness.
And it speaks to the much bigger problem that infects all of our political thinking. There
comes a moment when politics and gaining political advantage have to take a back seat to doing
the right thing.
I've actually seen moments of that impulse from the Democratic leadership in the US Will
wonders never cease?!
Thinking only in Manichean terms of good vs. evil and dehumanizing your opponents is
actually costlier than reversing course right now. Because honey is always better at attracting
flies than vinegar.
But, unfortunately, that is not the character of the Trump administration.
It can only think in terms of direct leverage and opportunity to hold onto what they think
they've achieved. So, until President Trump is no longer consumed with coordinating efforts to
control COVID-19 Pompeo and Secretary of Defense Mark Esper are in charge of foreign policy.
They will continue the playbook that has been well established.
Maximum pressure on Iran, hurt China any way they can, hold onto what they have in Syria,
stay in Iraq.
To that end Iraqi President Barham Salei nominated Pompeo's best choice to replace Prime
Minister Adil Abdel Mahdi to throw Iraq's future into complete turmoil. According to Elijah
Magnier,
Adnan al-Zarfi is a US asset through and through .
And this looks like Pompeo's Hail Mary to retain US legal presence in Iraq after the Iraqi
parliament adopted a measure to demand withdrawal of US troops from the country. Airstrikes
against US bases in Iraq continue on a near daily basis and there have been reports of US base
closures and redeployments at the same time.
This move looks like desperation by Pompeo et.al. to finally separate the Hashd al-Shaabi
from Iraq's official military. So that airstrikes against them can be carried out under the
definition of 'fighting Iranian terrorism.'
As Magnier points out in the article above if al-Zarfi puts a government together the war in
Iraq will expand just as the US is losing further control in Syria after Turkish President
Erdogan's disastrous attempt to remake the front in Idlib. That ended with his effective
surrender to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
It is sad that, to me, I see no reason to doubt Pompeo and his ilk in the US government
wouldn't do something like that to spark political and social upheaval in those places most
targeted by US hybrid war tactics.
But, at the same time, I can see the other side of it, a vicious strike back by China
against its tormentors. And China's government does itself, in my mind, no favors threatening
to withhold drug precursors and having officials run their mouths giving Americans the excuse
they need to validate Trump and Pompeo's divisive rhetoric.
Remaining on the fence about this issue isn't my normal style. But everyone is dirty here
and the reality may well be this is a natural event terrible people on both sides are
exploiting.
And I can only go by what people do rather than what they say to assess the situation. Trump
tries to buy exclusive right to a potential COVID-19 vaccine from a German firm and his
administration slow-walks aid to Iran.
China sends aid to Iran and Italy by the container full. Is that to salve their conscience
over its initial suppression of information about the virus? Good question. But no one covers
themselves in glory by using the confusion and distraction to attempt further regime change and
step up war-footing during a public health crisis, manufactured or otherwise.
While Pompeo unctuously talks the talk of compassion and charity, he cannot bring himself to
actually walk the walk. Because he is a despicable, bile-filled man of uncommon depravity. His
prosecuting a hybrid war during a public health crisis speaks to no other conclusion about
him.
It's clear to me that nothing has changed at the top of Trump's administration. I expect
COVID-19 will not be a disaster for Trump and the US. It can handle this. But the lack of
humanity shown by its diplomatic corps ensures that in the long run the US will be left to fend
for itself when the next crisis hits.
This weaponizing of random indignation is a classic tool of the Western propaganda. In
Romania, we heard for a decade how the national-populists masquerading as socialists are to
blame for the lack of highways. It's been a few years since idiot Romanians gather in random
cities to complain that their city is not yet hooked to the Austro-Hungarian highway system,
despite the lack of traffic between their city and Austro-Hungary.
It is my understanding that, once highway construction will start, there will be protests
about natural or archeological treasures presumably endangered by the construction. It has
been decently working in Russia, with that Khimki forest.
Anything that can be thrown at a government threatening to leave the NWO will be used.
It's even worse for governments that are already one foot out, like Russia / China, or
completely out, like Iran / North Korea. Putin will be blamed for epidemics, earthquakes,
tsunamis, and even eclipses. If an earthquake would kill only a few, we will hear about
"failure to respond". If the earthquake doesn't kill anybody. we will be told that Putin
exploited it for propaganda.
One of the ways that CIA and Soros use, in order to weaponize Romania's presumed lack of
highways, is to pay some useful idiots, who call themselves "The Association for the
Betterment of Highways", "The Pro-Infrastructura Brigade", and so on. Most of these NGOs
consist of a single person, who posts videos of them ranting next to a construction site.
Using the model that BoJo used for the upcoming marriage (three men and one dog), the more
Soros/CIA-resistant types call them "The One-Incel-And-His-Drone Association".
By that same standard, I suspect we call this Doctors' Alliance
"Vasilievna-and-her-thermometer Association". Whatever she says about Moscow hospitals is
probably informed by her thermometer anyway. I doubt you can tell how things are in a
10-million city, especially if you are a marginal clown.
Is she an ophthalmologist, like The Part-Time Virologist Martyr of Wuhan? Dentist,
perhaps?
When reading any article concerning current events (ie. Ukraine, Syria, Iran, Venezuela, or Coronavirus) consider how the The
Seven Principles of Propaganda may apply. (repost):
Avoid abstract ideas - appeal to the emotions. When we think emotionally, we are more prone to be irrational and
less critical in our thinking. I can remember several instances where this has been employed by the US to prepare the public
with a justification of their actions. Here are four examples:
The Invasion of Grenada during the Reagan administration was said to be necessary to rescue American students being held
hostage by Grenadian coup authorities after a coup that overthrew the government. I had a friend in the 82nd airborne division
that participated in the rescue. He told me the students said they were hiding in the school to avoid the fighting by the US
military, and had never been threatened by any Grenadian authority and were only hiding in the school to avoid all the fighting.
Film of the actual rescue broadcast on the mainstream media was taken out of context; the students were never in danger.
The invasion of Panama in the late 80's was supposedly to capture the dictator Manual Noriega for international crimes related
to drugs and weapons. I remember a headline covered by all the media where a Navy lieutenant and his wife were detained by
the police. His wife was sexually assaulted while in custody, according to the story. Unfortunately, it never happened. It
was intended to get the public emotionally involved to support the action.
The invasion of Iraq in the early 90's was preceded by a speech by a girl describing the Iraqi army throwing babies out
of incubators so the equipment could be transferred to Iraq. It turns out the girl was the daughter of one of the Kuwait's
ruling sheiks and the event never occurred. However, it served its purpose by getting the American public involved emotionally
supporting the war.
During the build up to the bombing campaign by NATO against Libya, a woman entered a hotel where reporters were staying
claiming she was raped by several police officers of the Gaddafi security services. The report was carried by most media outlets
as representative of the brutality of the Gaddafi regime. I was not able to verify if this story was true or not, but it fits
the usual method employed to gain public support through propaganda for military interventions.
The greatest emotion in us is fear and fear is used extensively to make us think irrationally. I remember growing up during
the cold war having the fear of nuclear war or 'The Russians are coming!' After the cold war without an obvious enemy, it was
Al Qaeda even before 911, so we had 'Al Qaeda is coming!' Now we have 'ISIS is coming!' with media blasting us with terrorist
fears. Whenever I hear a government promoting an emotional issue or fear mongering, I ignore them knowing there is a hidden
Truth behind the issue.
Constantly repeat just a few ideas. Use stereotyped phrases. This could be stated more plainly as 'Keep it simple,
stupid!' The most notorious use of this technique recently was the Bush administration. Everyone can remember 'We must fight
them over there rather than over here' or my favourite 'They hate us for our freedoms'. Neither of these phrases made any rational
sense despite 911. The last thing Muslims in the Middle East care about is American's freedoms, maybe it was all the bombs
the US was dropping on them.
Give only one side of the argument and obscure history. Watching mainstream media in the US,
you can see all the news is biased to the American view as an example. This is prevalent within Australian commercial media
and newspapers giving only a western view, but fortunately, we have the SBS and the ABC that are very good, certainly not perfect,
at providing both sides of a story. In addition, any historical perspective is ignored keeping the citizenry focused on the
here and now. Can any of you remember any news organisation giving an in depth history of Ukraine or Palestine? I cannot.
Demonize the enemy or pick out one special "enemy" for special vilification. This is obvious in politics where politicians
continuously criticise their opponents. Of course, demonization is more productively applied to international figures or nations
such as Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, Gaddafi in Libya, Assad in Syria, the Taliban and just recently Vladimir Putin over
the Ukraine, Crimea and Syria. It establishes a negative emotional view of either a nation (i.e. Iran) or a known figure (i.e.
Putin) making us again think emotionally, rather than rationally, making it easier to promote evil acts upon a nation or a
known figure. Certainly some of these groups or individuals were less than benign, but not necessarily demons as depicted in
the west.
Appear humanitarian in work and motivations. The US has used this technique often to validate foreign interventions
or ongoing conflicts where the term 'Right to Protect' is used for justification. Everyone should remember the many stories
about the abuse of women in Afghanistan or Saddam Hussein's supposed brutality toward his people. The recent attack on Syria
by the US, UK, and France was depicted as an Humanitarian intervention by the UK Government, which was far from the truth.
One thing that always amazes me is when the US sends humanitarian aid to a country it is accompanied by the US military. In
Haiti some years back, the US sent troops with no other country doing so. The recent Ebola outbreak in Africa saw US troops
sent to the area. How are troops going to fight a medical outbreak? No doubt, they are there for other reasons.
Obscure one's economic interests. Who believes the invasion of Iraq was for weapons of mass destruction? Or the
constant threats against Iran are for their nuclear program? Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction and no one has presented
firm evidence Iran intends to produce nuclear weapons. The West has been interfering in the Middle East since the British in
the late 19th century. It is all about oil and the control over the resources. In fact, if one researches the cause of wars
over the last hundred years, you will always find economics was a major component driving the rush to war for most of them.
Monopolize the flow of information. This is the most important principle and mainly entails setting the narrative
by which all subsequent events can be based upon or interpreted in such a way as to reinforce the narrative. The narrative
does not need to be true; in fact, it can be anything that suits the monopoliser as long as it is based loosely on some event.
It is critical to have at least majority control of media and the ability to control the message so the flow of information
is consistent with the narrative. This has been played out on mainstream media concerning the Ukrainian conflict, Syrian conflict,
and the Skirpal affair. Just over the last couple of years, we have all been subjected to propaganda in one form or another.
Remember the US wanting to bomb Syria because of the sarin gas attack, it was later determined to be false (see Seymour Hersh
'Whose Sarin'). The shoot down of MH17 was immediately blamed on Russia by the west without any convincing proof (setting the
narrative). It amazes me just how fast the story died after the initial saturation in the media. When I awoke that morning
in July, I heard on the news PM Tony Abbot blaming Russia for the incident only hours afterward. How could he know Russia shot
down the plane? The investigation into the incident had not even begun, so I suspect he was singing from the West's hymnbook
in a standard setting the narrative scenario.
"... the Iranian population is the world's most lung-weakest. Almost all men over the age of sixty suffer from the after-effects of the US combat gases used by the Iraqi army during the First Gulf War (1980-88), as did the Germans and the French after the First World War. Any traveller to Iran has been struck by the number of serious lung ailments. ..."
"... The Diamond Princess is an Israeli-American ship, owned by Micky Arison, brother of Shari Arison, the richest woman in Israel. The Arisons are turning this incident into a public relations operation. The Trump administration and several other countries airlifted their nationals to be quarantined at home. The international press devoted its headlines to this story. Referring to the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918-1919, it asserts that the epidemic could spread throughout the world and potentially threaten the human species with extinction [ 2 ]. This apocalyptic hypothesis, not based on any facts, will nevertheless become the word of the Gospel. ..."
"... It is not known at this time whether tycoons deliberately spread panic about Covid-19, making this vulgar epidemic seem like the "end of the world". However, one distortion after another, governments have become involved. Of course, it is no longer a question of selling advertising screens by frightening people, but of dominating populations by exploiting this fear. ..."
"... Let us remember that never in history has the confinement of a healthy population been used to fight a disease. Above all, let us remember that this epidemic will have no significant consequences in terms of mortality. ..."
"... The two governments panic their populations by distributing unnecessary instructions disavowed by infectious diseases doctors: they encourage people to wear gloves and masks in all circumstances and to keep at least one metre away from any other human being. ..."
"... It is too early to say what real goal the Conte and Macron governments are pursuing. The only thing that is certain is that it is not a question of fighting Covid-19. ..."
Returning to the Covid-19 epidemic and the way governments are reacting to it, Thierry
Meyssan stresses that the authoritarian decisions of Italy and France have no medical
justification. They contradict the observations of the best infectiologists and the
instructions of the World Health Organization.
The Chinese Prime Minister, Li Keqiang, came to lead the operations in Wuhan and restore
the "celestial mandate" on January 27, 2020.
On November 17, 2019, the first case of a person infected with Covid-19 was diagnosed in
Hubei Province, China. Initially, doctors tried to communicate the seriousness of the disease,
but clashed with regional authorities. It was only when the number of cases increased and the
population saw the seriousness of the disease that the central government intervened.
This epidemic is not statistically significant. It kills very few people, although those it
does kill experience terrible respiratory distress.
Since ancient times, in Chinese culture, Heaven has given a mandate to the Emperor to govern
his subjects [ 1 ]. When he withdraws it, a disaster
strikes the country: epidemic, earthquake, etc. Although we are in modern times, President XI
felt threatened by the mismanagement of the Hubei regional government. The Council of State
therefore took matters into its own hands. It forced the population of Hubei's capital, Wuhan,
to remain confined to their homes. Within days, it built hospitals; sent teams to each house to
take the temperature of each inhabitant; took all potentially infected people to hospitals for
testing; treated those infected with chloroquine phosphate and sent others home; and treated
the critically ill with recombinant interferon Alfa 2B (IFNrec) for resuscitation. This vast
operation had no public health necessity, other than to prove that the Communist Party still
has the heavenly mandate.
During a press conference on Covid-19, the Iranian Deputy Minister of Health, Iraj
Harirchi, appeared contaminated.
Propagation in Iran
The epidemic spreads from China to Iran in mid-February 2020. These two countries have been
closely linked since ancient times. They share many common cultural elements. However, the
Iranian population is the world's most lung-weakest. Almost all men over the age of sixty
suffer from the after-effects of the US combat gases used by the Iraqi army during the First
Gulf War (1980-88), as did the Germans and the French after the First World War. Any traveller
to Iran has been struck by the number of serious lung ailments.
When air pollution in Tehran increased beyond what they could bear, schools and government
offices were closed and half of the families moved to the countryside with their grandparents.
This has been happening several times a year for thirty-five years and seems normal.
The government and parliament are almost exclusively composed of veterans of the Iraq-Iran
war, that is, people who are extremely fragile in relation to Covid-19. So when these groups
were infected, many personalities developed the disease.
In view of the US sanctions, no Western bank covers the transport of medicines. Iran found
itself unable to treat the infected and care for the sick until the UAE broke the embargo and
sent two planes of medical equipment.
People who would not suffer in the other country died from the first coughs due to the
wounds in their lungs. As usual, the government closed schools. In addition, it deprogrammed
several cultural and sporting events, but did not ban pilgrimages. Some areas have closed
hotels to prevent the movement of sick people who can no longer find hospitals close to their
homes.
Quarantine in Japan
On February 4, 2020, a passenger on the US cruise ship Diamond Princess was diagnosed ill
from the Covid-19 and ten passengers were infected. The Japanese Minister of Health, Katsunobu
Kato, then imposed a two-week quarantine on the ship in Yokohama in order to prevent the
contagion from spreading to his country. In the end, out of the 3,711 people on board, the vast
majority of whom are over 70 years old, there would be 7 deaths.
The Diamond Princess is an Israeli-American ship, owned by Micky Arison, brother of Shari
Arison, the richest woman in Israel. The Arisons are turning this incident into a public
relations operation. The Trump administration and several other countries airlifted their
nationals to be quarantined at home. The international press devoted its headlines to this
story. Referring to the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918-1919, it asserts that the epidemic could
spread throughout the world and potentially threaten the human species with extinction [
2 ]. This
apocalyptic hypothesis, not based on any facts, will nevertheless become the word of the
Gospel.
We remember that in 1898, William Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer, in order to increase the sales
of their daily newspapers, published false information in order to deliberately provoke a war
between the United States and the Spanish colony of Cuba. This was the beginning of "yellow
journalism" (publishing anything to make money). Today it is called "fake news".
It is not known at this time whether tycoons deliberately spread panic about Covid-19,
making this vulgar epidemic seem like the "end of the world". However, one distortion after
another, governments have become involved. Of course, it is no longer a question of selling
advertising screens by frightening people, but of dominating populations by exploiting this
fear.
For the WHO Director, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, China and South Korea have set an
example by generalising screening tests; a way of saying that the Italian and French methods
are medical nonsense.
WHO intervention
The World Health Organization (WHO), which monitored the entire operation, noted the spread
of the disease outside China. On February 11th and 12th, it organized a global forum on
research and innovation on the epidemic in Geneva. At the forum, WHO Director-General Dr Tedros
Adhanom Ghebreyesus called in very measured terms for global collaboration [ 3 ].
In all of its messages, the WHO stressed : the low demographic impact of the epidemic; the
futility of border closures; the ineffectiveness of wearing gloves, masks (except for health
care workers) and certain "barrier measures" (for example, the distance of one metre only makes
sense with infected people, but not with healthy people); the need to raise the level of
hygiene, including hand washing, water disinfection and increased ventilation of confined
spaces. Finally, use disposable tissues or, failing that, sneeze into your elbow.
However, the WHO is not a medical organization, but a United Nations agency dealing with
health issues. Its officials, even if they are doctors, are also and above all politicians. It
cannot therefore denounce the abuses of certain states. Furthermore, since the controversy over
the H1N1 epidemic, the WHO must publicly justify all its recommendations. In 2009, it was
accused of having let itself be swayed by the interests of big pharmaceutical companies and of
having hastily sounded the alarm in a disproportionate manner [ 4 ]. This time it used the word
"pandemic" only as a last resort, on March 12th, four months later.
At the Franco-Italian summit in Naples on February 27, the French and Italian presidents,
Giuseppe Conte and Emmanuel Macron, announced that they would react together to the
pandemic.
Instrumentation in Italy and France
Modern propaganda should not be limited to the publication of false news as the United
Kingdom did to convince its people to enter the First World War, but should also be used in the
same way as Germany did to convince its people to fight in the Second World War. The recipe is
always the same: to exert psychological pressure to induce subjects to voluntarily practice
acts that they know are useless, but which will lead them to lie [ 5 ]. For example, in 2001, it was
common knowledge that those accused of hijacking planes on 9/11 were not on the passenger
boarding lists. Yet, in shock, most accepted without question the inane accusations made by FBI
Director Robert Muller against "19 hijackers". Or, as is well known, President Hussein's Iraq
had only old Soviet Scud launchers with a range of up to 700 kilometers, but many Americans
caulked the windows and doors of their homes to protect themselves from the deadly gases with
which the evil dictator was going to attack America. This time, in the case of the Covid-19, it
is the voluntary confinement in the home that forces the person who accepts it to convince
himself of the veracity of the threat.
Let us remember that never in history has the confinement of a healthy population been
used to fight a disease. Above all, let us remember that this epidemic will have no significant
consequences in terms of mortality.
In Italy, the first step was to isolate the contaminated regions according to the principle
of quarantine, and then to isolate all citizens from each other, which follows a different
logic.
According to the President of the Italian Council, Giuseppe Conte, and the French President,
Emmanuel Macron, the aim of confining the entire population at home is not to overcome the
epidemic, but to spread it out over time so that the sick do not arrive at the same time in
hospitals and saturate them. In other words, it is not a medical measure, but an exclusively
administrative one. It will not reduce the number of infected people, but will postpone it in
time.
In order to convince the Italians and the French of the merits of their decision, Presidents
Conte and Macron first enlisted the support of committees of scientific experts. While these
committees had no objection to people staying at home, they had no objection to people going
about their business. Then Chairs Conte and Macron made it mandatory to have an official form
to go for a walk. This document on the letterheads of the respective ministries of the interior
is drawn up on honour and is not subject to any checks or sanctions.
The two governments panic their populations by distributing unnecessary instructions
disavowed by infectious diseases doctors: they encourage people to wear gloves and masks in all
circumstances and to keep at least one metre away from any other human being.
The French "reference daily" (sic) Le Monde, Facebook France and the French Ministry of
Health undertook to censor a video of Professor Didier Raoult, one of the world's most renowned
infectiologists, because by announcing the existence of a proven drug in China against
Covid-19, he highlighted the lack of a medical basis for the measures taken by President Macron
[ 6 ].
It is too early to say what real goal the Conte and Macron governments are pursuing. The
only thing that is certain is that it is not a question of fighting
Covid-19.
@SBaker "It's beyond dispute that the novel coronavirus officially known as
COVID-19originated in Wuhan, China."
No, it's being disputed every day. That "beyond dispute" phrase is what retards like Mike
Pompeo use to try to shut down a discussion in which he's getting his fat ass kicked.
... that USA and the West were unprepared because China withheld information about the
virus.
Posted by: Jackrabbit | Mar 19 2020 18:20 utc | 106
The "Report of the WHO-China Joint Mission on COVID-19" states that China transparently
reported the identification of virus to the WHO and the international community on January
3rd, and a WHO investigative team was invited to Wuhan a week after that.
From January 3rd, 2020, information on COVID-19 cases has been reported to WHO daily.
On January 7th, full genome sequences of the new virus were shared with WHO and the
international community immediately after the pathogen was identified.
On January 10th, an expert group involving Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwanese technical
experts and a World Health Organization team was invited to visit Wuhan.
I don't mean Argentina vs China, or anything like that.
I mean where both sides have a lot of money, or power, or both.
Today's coronavirus black swan, like 9/11, has all the characteristics of a trauma-based
mass-mind-control op.
Not only do I agree, but I think it's so obvious that it's exasperating that, after all
we've been through, it even needs to be pointed out. But it does.
It has already been used to demonize China in the same way 9/11 was used to demonize
Islam: Just as we were supposed to hate the crazy suicidal Muslims yearning for harems of
afterlife virgins, we are now supposed to feel disgust for Chinese slurpers of bat soup.
Here I respectfully disagree.
What Jewish Supremacy Inc. did after September 11th was,
1. Blame Islam
2. Shame Americans* for Blaming Islam
A better example of control through crazy-making would be impossible to imagine.
And it's exactly what they're doing now.
1. Blame China
2. Shame Americans for Blaming China
*or anyone else who refused or refuses to bow before the alter of Politically Correct
Identity Politics (two tools essential to Full Spectrum Dominance).
As we have already seen, the consequences are immense.
Because if that kind of crazy-making is effective it's totally demoralizing. As learned
helplessness sets in people won't even defend themselves. As happened in Italy, and not just
Italy.
But there are other discernible patterns well worth pointing out.
1. Destroy The Evidence
2. Control The Narrative
3. Enforce The Law (on anyone looking for evidence to question the narrative)
Victimize – Blame Victim – Play Victim
Demonize Dissent and Pathologize Opposition
And all ending in what I've come to call the Supremacist Waltz
What makes a supremacist is not just making claims ("Our Superiority Is Absolute", or "We
are the Chosen") or demands. No. It's that they have the power to effectuate the demands that
support their claims.
And what are the demands they have the power to effectuate?
1. to be placed above criticism
2. loved unconditionally
3. blindly obeyed
It's The Rule of Man over The Rule of Law
It's a Culture of Blind Obedience over a Culture of Individual Conscience
It's Tyranny over Freedom
Hence The Great Replacement, accompanied by chants and taunts like "We Will Replace
You!"
In other words, Full Spectrum Dominance.
But, there's a snake in this garden.
The kind of power they're interested in is fundamentally destablizing.
All top down authoritarian power destablizes social-institutions.
From the point of view of cultural history this is exactly why cultures emerged in the
Western world that promoted democratic forms of governance. Because authoritarians cultures are
ultimately so extraordinarily destructive and unsustainable. Like this one is. Isn't it
obvious?
And, from the point of view of the bottom line, prolonged and profound social instability
disrupts and even halts economic activity.
When that happens there's no alternative.
This is why civilization itself was created. Because any civilization's primary objective is
and must be the circumnavigation of the use of force.
This is why what we're really witnessing is nothing less than
The Pyrrhic Victory of Jewish Supremacy Inc.
Because JSI's rise to power has been in direct proportion to the collapse of the very
social-institutions that power controls. Pride Before The Fall, indeed.
And the reason is easy to see and devoid of any complexity or glamour.
JSI is no good at social-management.
And make no mistake about it, social-management is at its core an adaptational strategy, as
are our social-institutions.
So, if we blow this, we're in no position to laugh at the dinosaurs for getting themselves
extinct.
After all, they lasted a lot longer than we have so far.
Assuming the human race has a chance (in itself rather doubtful) perhaps its time to turn
their words against them and say,
Treason Against Jewish Supremacy Inc. Is Loyalty To Humanity
Do we really need to ask them for permission to care about our children's future?
R ussia and Saudi Arabia are engaged in an oil price war that has sent shockwaves around
the world, causing the price of oil to tumble and threatening the financial stability, and even
viability, of major international oil companies.
On the surface, this conflict appears to be a fight between two of the world's largest
producers of oil over market share. This may, in fact, be the motive driving Saudi Arabia,
which reacted to Russia's refusal to reduce its level of oil production by slashing the price
it charged per barrel of oil and threatening to increase its oil production, thereby flooding
the global market with cheap oil in an effort to attract customers away from competitors.
Russia's motives appear to be far different -- its target isn't Saudi Arabia, but rather
American shale oil. After absorbing American sanctions that targeted the Russian energy sector,
and working with global partners (including Saudi Arabia) to keep oil prices stable by reducing
oil production even as the United States increased the amount of shale oil it sold on the world
market, Russia had had enough. The advent of the Coronavirus global pandemic had significantly
reduced the demand for oil around the world, stressing the American shale producers.
Russia had been preparing for the eventuality of oil-based economic warfare with the United
States. With U.S. shale producers knocked back on their heels, Russia viewed the time as being
ripe to strike back. Russia's goal is simple: to make American shale oil producers "
share the pain ".
The United States has been slapping sanctions on Russia for more
than six years, ever since Russia took control (and later annexed) the Crimean Peninsula and
threw its weight behind Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine. The first sanctions were issued
on March 6, 2014, through Executive
Order 13660 , targeting "persons who have asserted governmental authority in the Crimean
region without the authorization of the Government of Ukraine that undermine democratic
processes and institutions in Ukraine; threaten its peace, security, stability, sovereignty,
and territorial integrity; and contribute to the misappropriation of its assets."
The most
recent round of sanctions was announced by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on February 18,
2020, by sanctioning Rosneft Trading S.A., a Swiss-incorporated, Russian-owned oil brokerage
firm, for operating in Venezuela's oil sector. The U.S. also recently targeted the Russian
Nord Stream 2
and
Turk Stream gas pipeline projects.
Russia had been signaling its displeasure over U.S. sanctions from the very beginning. In
July 2014, Russian President Vladimir
Putin warned that U.S. sanctions were "driving into a corner" relations between the two
countries, threatening the "the long-term national interests of the U.S. government and
people." Russia opted to ride out U.S. sanctions, in hopes that there might be a change of
administrations following the 2016 U.S. Presidential elections. Russian President Vladimir
Putin made it clear that he hoped the U.S. might elect someone whose policies would be more
friendly toward Russia, and that once the field of candidates narrowed down to a choice between
Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, Putin favored
Trump .
"Yes, I did," Putin remarked after the election, during a joint press conference with
President Trump following a summit in Helsinki in July 2018. "Yes, I did. Because he talked
about bringing the U.S.-Russia relationship back to normal."
Putin's comments only reinforced the opinions of those who embraced allegations of Russian
interference in the 2016 U.S. Presidential election as fact and concluded that Putin had some
sort of hold over Trump. Trump's continuous praise of Putin's leadership style only reinforced
these concerns.
Even before he was inaugurated, Trump singled out Putin's refusal to respond in kind to
President Obama's levying of sanctions based upon the assessment of the U.S. intelligence
community that Russia had interfered in the election. "Great move on delay (by V. Putin)
– I always knew he was very smart!"
Trump Tweeted . Trump viewed the Obama sanctions as an effort
to sabotage any chance of a Trump administration repairing relations with Russia, and
interpreted Putin's refusal to engage, despite being pressured to do so by the Russian
Parliament and Foreign Ministry, as a recognition of the same.
This sense of providing political space in the face of domestic pressure worked both ways.
In January 2018, Putin tried to shield his relationship with President Trump by calling the
release of a list containing some 200 names of persons close to the Russian government by the
U.S. Treasury Department as a hostile and "stupid"
move .
"Ordinary Russian citizens, employees and entire industries are behind each of those people
and companies," Putin remarked. "So all 146 million people have essentially been put on this
list. What is the point of this? I don't understand."
From the Russian perspective, the list highlighted the reality that the U.S. viewed the
entire Russian government as an enemy and is a byproduct of the "political paranoia" on the
part of U.S. lawmakers. The consequences of this, senior Russian officials warned, "will be
toxic and undermine prospects for cooperation for years ahead."
While President Trump entered office fully intending to "
get along with Russia ," including the possibility of
relaxing the Obama-era sanctions , the reality of U.S.-Russian relations, especially as
viewed from Congress, has been the strengthening of the Obama sanctions regime. These
sanctions, strengthened over time by new measures signed off by Trump, have had a negative
impact on the Russian economy,
slowing growth and
driving away foreign investment .
While Putin continued to show constraint in the face of these mounting sanctions, the recent
targeting of Russia's energy sector represented a bridge too far. When Saudi pressure to cut
oil production rates coincided with a global reduction in the demand for oil brought on by the
Coronavirus crisis, Russia struck.
The timing of the Russian action is curious, especially given the amount of speculation that
there was some sort of personal relationship between Trump and Putin that the Russian leader
sought to preserve and carry over into a potential second term. But Putin had, for some
time now, been signaling that his patience with Trump had run its course. When speaking to
the press in June 2019 about the state of U.S.-Russian relations, Putin noted that "They
(our relations) are going downhill, they are getting worse and worse," adding that "The current
[i.e., Trump] administration has approved, in my opinion, several dozen decisions on sanctions
against Russia in recent years."
By launching an oil price war on the eve of the American Presidential campaign season, Putin
has sent as strong a signal as possible that he no longer views Trump as an asset, if in fact
he ever did. Putin had hoped Trump could usher in positive change in the trajectory of
relations between the two nations; this clearly had not happened. Instead, in the words of
close Putin ally Igor Sechin , the chief executive of Russian oil giant Rosneft, the U.S.
was using its considerable energy resources as a political weapon, ushering in an era of "power
colonialism" that sought to expand U.S. oil production and market share at the expense of other
nations.
From Russia's perspective, the growth in U.S. oil production -- which doubled in output from
2011 until 2019 -- and the emergence of the U.S. as a net exporter of oil, was directly linked
to the suppression of oil export capability in nations such as Venezuela and Iran through the
imposition of sanctions. While this could be tolerated when the target was a third party, once
the U.S. set its sanctioning practices on Russian energy, the die was cast.
If the goal of the Russian-driven price war is to make U.S. shale companies "share the
pain," they have already succeeded. A similar price war, initiated by Saudi Arabia in 2014 for
the express purpose of suppressing U.S. shale oil production, failed, but only because
investors were willing to prop up the stricken shale producers with massive loans and infusion
of capital. For shale oil producers, who use an expensive methodology of extraction known as
"fracking," to be economically viable, the breakeven price of oil
per barrel needs to be between $40 and $60 dollars. This was the price range the Saudi's
were hoping to sustain when they proposed the cuts in oil production that Russia rejected.
The U.S. shale oil producers, saddled by massive debt and high operational expenses, will
suffer greatly in any sustained oil price war. Already, with the price of oil down to below $35
per barrel,
there is talk of bankruptcy and massive job layoffs -- none of which bode well for Trump in
the coming election.
It's clear that Russia has no intention of backing off anytime soon. According to
the Russian Finance Ministry , said on Russia could weather oil prices of $25-30 per barrel
for between six and ten years. One thing is for certain -- U.S. shale oil companies cannot.
In a sign that the Trump administration might be waking up to the reality of the predicament
it faces, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin quietly met with Russia's Ambassador to the U.S.,
Anatoly Antonov. According to a read out from the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
the two discussed economic sanctions, the Venezuelan economy, and the potential for "trade
and investment." Mnuchin, the Russians noted, emphasized the "importance of orderly energy
markets."
Russia is unlikely to fold anytime soon. As Admiral Josh Painter, a character in Tom
Clancy's "The Hunt for Red October," famously said , "Russians don't take a dump without
a plan."
Russia didn't enter its current course of action on a whim. Its goals are clearly stated --
to defeat U.S. shale oil -- and the costs of this effort, both economically and politically (up
to and including having Trump lose the 2020 Presidential election) have all been calculated and
considered in advance. The Russian Bear can only be toyed with for so long without generating a
response. We now know what that response is; when the Empire strikes back, it hits hard.
Scott Ritter is a former Marine Corps intelligence officer who served in the former
Soviet Union implementing arms control treaties, in the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert
Storm, and in Iraq overseeing the disarmament of WMD. He is the author of several books,
including his forthcoming, Scorpion King:
America's Embrace of Nuclear Weapons From FDR to Trump (2020).
The neocons trying to control Trump are going to have a hard time this year because of the
election. Trump knows his people voted for him because of his promises to get the troops back
home. Of course the neocons want to build up more and more troops in Iraq or even split Iraq
into 3 different countries. The Iraqi and Iranian leaders with the Syrians to a lesser degree
will try to take advantage of Trump's dilemma. The Kurds are involved also. This is all
explored by Pam Ho
How Much Do You Suck (To lose a popularity contest with Saddam Hussein)
- The US knows it "influence" is waning and tries to "carve out" a sunni "rump state" in
North-West Iraq. First the US fights ISIS in that same area/region from the year 2014 onwards
and now they are supposed to fight in FAVOUR of the sunnis/ISIS ?
"US seeking to carve out Sunni state as its influence in Iraq wanes"
"If Iraqis were there and if Iraqi military forces were there, I would say it's probably
not a good idea to position yourself with Kataib Hezbollah in the wake of a strike that
killed Americans and coalition members," he told a Pentagon news briefing."
Despite Trump the Iraq policy transcends his administration and will continue in some form in
the future. There will be a continued presence in some form and in some part of the country.
Our beloved ally in the region demands our presence.
They smartly keep the presence small with no draft remembering that is what took them out
of Nam. An angry draft worthy populace, a counter culture disillusioned with the murder of
their liberal anti war leadership by the state, and ample media coverage of the war
carnage.
All of that is long gone, and even with the age of internet reporting the populace has
been bought off with entertainment, amazon, porn, and bullshit.
Parallel is IMO very interesting, Wehrmacht occupying Ukraine and US occupying Iraq. In
both cases there was minority that welcomed occupier with open arms, wanting to oppress
majority of own country folks due to earlier grievances. In both cases, invader didn't want
to bother with using that minority to own goals, as they saw them all as inferior race. And
invader was in both cases more interested in conquering more powerful neighbor to the
east.
Irony is that, if Nazi Germany/US didn't look at Ukraine/Iraq people as inferior race they
could use them for own goal to fight Russia/Iran. But, dumb as they are, they stuck all those
Ukrainians into camps(lot of them sympathizers to Germany/rabidly against Russia)/ disbanding
ex. Saddam's army and made kernel of future anti US force into region, not to mention Kurdish
question.
"Later on January 9, former Iraqi prime minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi called on the United
States to dispatch a delegation to Baghdad tasked with formulating a mechanism for the
move.
According to a statement released by his office at the time, Abdul-Mahdi "requested that
delegates be sent to Iraq to set the mechanisms to implement the parliament's decision for
the secure withdrawal of (foreign) forces from Iraq" in a phone call with US Secretary of
State Mike Pompeo."
US in response moved to a few bases they intended to occupy and give the two finger salute
to Iraq. Trump threatened sanctions and theft of Iraq's oil money which is in the US.
Pentagon now moving patriots in.
Question to b @53: ... it was a non-binding resolution.
It's "non-binding" on USA only because the Prime Minister conducts foreign policy and
there's no current written basing agreement between Iraq and USA that can be terminated. The
resolution demands that the Prime Minister arrange for the departure of US troops.
The resolution is binding on the Prime Minister because it was a valid vote in
accordance with Iraqi Parliamentary procedure.
USA refused to discuss leaving Iraq and claimed that the Parliamentary vote was
"non-binding" because it was unrepresentative (USA got their Sunni and Kurd sympathizers to
boycott the vote). But Parliament still had a quorum, so the vote is legal and binding.
<> <> <> <> <> <>
Is it enforceable?
USA/NATO are very unlikely to leaving willingly. We are seeing the start of a civil war in
Iraq because most Sunnis and Kurds support USA/NATO remaining while Shia want USA/NATO to
leave.
just start with the first lie and go from their... usa / uk lied the world into going to war
on iraq... and from their the lies just keep on getting stacked.. if you can't acknowledge
the first lie, you probably are incapable of recognizing all the other lies that have been
thrown on the same bullshit pile... one big pile of lies and bullshite - a specialty of the
exceptional country..
@ 63 question.. you like this usa style bullshit that buys politicians in iraq and when that
doesn't work, they go on to the next attempt at installing a politician willing to agree to
their bullshite? interesting bullshit concept of democracy if you ask me... everything has a
price tag and honour is something you can pick up at the grocery store... right..
Recently, I was watching the old Looney Tunes Cartoons with my Grandchild and we were
watching, "Duck Dodges in the 21st and a Half Century"
I don't know if you've watched this cartoon starring Daffy Duck. You can view it here https://vimeo.com/76668594
This cartoon was made in 1953 and like many Looney Tune cartoon's, they are an extreme
parody of life. But while watching this cartoon, it dawned on me that this cartoon is an
almost perfect description of US Military policy and action.
I could write an article on this but I think we'll leave it as a note with a snide laugh to
be had by all.
"Perhaps this will finally burst the out-of-control asset price bubble and drop-kick the
Outlaw US Empire's economy into the sewer as the much lower price will rapidly slow the
recycling of what remains of the petrodollar. Looks like Trump's reelection push just fell
into a massive sinkhole as the economy will tank."
Posted by: karlof1 | Mar 9 2020 1:29 utc | 49
....
Call me crazy- but this Virus provides great cover as to why the economy plummets, the
Murikan sheeple will eat it up. Prepare for the double media blitz on the virus AND the
economy tanking as its result.
Don't worry...just continue to go shopping and take those selfies.
It will be hard for the American people to swallow that one. From day 1 I've read a lot of
"articles" and "papers" from know-it-all Western doctors and researchers from commenters here
in this blog, all of them claiming to have very precise and definitive data on what was
happening. A lot of bombastic conclusions I've read here (including one that claimed R0 was
through the roof - it's funny how the R0 is being played down after it begun to infect the
West; suddenly, it's all just a stronger cold...).
And that's just here, in MoA's comment section. Imagine what was being published in the
Western MSM. I wouldn't be surprised there was a lot of rednecks popping their beers
celebrating the fall of China already.
Since China allegedly had a lot of idle industrial capacity - that is, if we take the
Western MSM theories seriously (including the fabled "ghost towns" stories) - then boosting
production wouldn't be a problem to China.
Disclaimer: it's normal for any kind of economy - socialist or capitalist - to have a
certain percentage of idle capacity. That's necessary in order to insure the economy against
unexpected oscillations in demand and to give space of maneuvre for future technological
progress. Indeed, that was one of the USSR's mistakes with its economy: they instinctly
thought unemployment should be zero, and waste should also be zero, so they planned in a way
all the factories always sought to operate at 100% capacity. That became a problem when
better machines and better methods were invented, since the factory manager wouldn't want to
stop production so that his factory would fall behind the other factories in the five-year
plan's goals. So, yes, China indeed has idle capacity - but it is mainly proposital, not a
failure of its socialist planning.
By the latest count, in addition to yuan loans worth 113 billion U.S. dollars granted by
financial institutions and more than 70 billion U.S. dollars paid out by insurance companies,
the Chinese government has allocated about 13 billion U.S. dollars to counter fallout from
the outbreak.
The numbers could look abstract. However, breaking the data down reveals how the money is
being carefully targeted. The government is allocating the money based on a thorough
evaluation of the system's strengths.
...
Local governments are equipped with more local knowledge that allows them to surgically
support key manufacturers or producers that are struggling.
Together, they have borne the bulk of the financial responsibility with an allocation of
equivalently more than nine billion U.S. dollars. It is carefully targeted, divided into
hundreds of thousands of individual grants that are tailor-made by and for each county, town,
city and business.
This is the mark of a socialist system.
The affected capitalist countries will simply use monetary devices (so the private sector
can offset the losses) and burn their own reserves with non-profitable palliatives such as
masks, tests, other quarantine infrastructure etc.
Sounds like US socialism. Basically corporate socialism. Loans are just dollars created out
of thin air, same as in US. Insurance payouts come from premiums, nothing socialist about
that, pure capitalism. Government hand outs to provinces, cities, state owned
corporations,well all of these are run by the party elite, its called pork. US handed out a
lot of pork during the last financial crisis. None of it trickled down to the little people.
I doubt it does in China either.
All crisis are opportunities for the elite to get richer. Those Biolake firms in Wuhan
will make out like bandits. Chinese firms will double the price of API's sold to India and
US. China will knock out the small farmer in the wake of concurrent chicken and swine flu so
the big enterprises take over, a mimicry of the US practice over the last century. China tech
firms will double up on surveillance apps, censoring tools, surveillance and toughen up
social credit restrictions. 5G will allow China to experiment with nanobots to monitor
citizens health from afar (thanks to Harvards Dr Leiber).
Oh yes, socialism with Chinese characteristics is a technocratic capitalists dream. Thats
why the West has never imposed sanctions on China since welcoming them to the global elites
club. Sanctions are reserved for those with true socialism, especially those who preach
equality and god forbid, democracy.
Call me crazy- but this Virus provides great cover as to why the economy plummets, the
Murikan sheeple will eat it up. Prepare for the double media blitz on the virus AND the
economy tanking as its result.
Don't forget the Russians.. They have to be to blame. See they just kept the price of oil low
so now the rest of the world gets gas cheaper than the USA. The USA motorist now has to bail
out the dopey frackers and shale oil ponzis.
Global envy will eat murica. Maybe they will just pull out all their troops and go home.
;)
Well they signed the agreement with the Taliban and two days later the DOD was bombing
them again so who knows what happens there.
Trump has declared all sorts of deals that ultimately turned into puffs of smoke -- the
non-deal with North Korea comes to mind. I consider pulling out of the TPP and tariffs
against China more indicative of bucking the consensus, but those can be reversed by Trump or
any other president whenever they feel like it.
Contrary to the depiction in Western media, the Syria war is not a civil war. This is because
the initiators, financiers and a large part of the anti-government fighters come from
abroad.
Nor is the Syria war a religious war, for Syria was and still is one of the most
secular countries in the region, and the Syrian army, like its direct opponents,
is itself mainly composed of Sunnis.
But the Syria war is also not a pipeline war, as some critics suspected, because
the allegedly competing gas pipeline projects never existed to begin with, as even the
Syrian president confirmed.
Instead, the Syria war is a war of conquest and regime change, which developed
into a geopolitical proxy war between NATO states on one side – especially the
US, Great Britain and France – and Russia, Iran, and China on the other side.
Contrary to the depiction in Western media, the Syria war is not a civil war. This is because the initiators, financiers and
a large part of the anti-government fighters
come from abroad .
Nor is the Syria war a religious war, for Syria was and still is one of the most
secular countries in the region, and the Syrian army – like its direct opponents – is itself mainly composed of Sunnis.
But the Syria war is also not a pipeline war, as some critics suspected,
because the allegedly
competing gas pipeline projects
never
existed to begin with, as even the Syrian president
confirmed .
Instead, the Syria war is a war of conquest and regime change
, which developed into a geopolitical proxy war between NATO states on one side – especially the US, Great Britain and France – and
Russia, Iran, and China on the other side.
In fact, already since the 1940s the US has repeatedly
attempted to install a pro-Western government
in Syria, such as in 1949, 1956, 1957, after 1980 and after 2003, but without success so far. This makes Syria – since the fall of
Libya – the last Mediterranean country independent
of NATO.
Thus, in the course of the „Arab Spring" of 2011, NATO and its allies, especially Israel and the Gulf States,
decided to try again. To this end, politically and economically motivated protests in Syria were used and were quickly
escalated into an armed conflict.
NATO's original strategy of 2011 was based on the Afghanistan
war of the 1980s and aimed at conquering Syria mainly through positively portrayed Islamist militias (so-called „rebels").
This did not succeed, however, because the militias lacked an air force and anti-aircraft missiles.
Hence from 2013 onwards,
various poison gas
attacks were
staged in order to be able to deploy the NATO air force as part of a „humanitarian intervention" similar to the earlier wars
against Libya and Yugoslavia. But this did not succeed either, mainly because Russia and China blocked a UN mandate.
As of 2014, therefore, additional but negatively portrayed Islamist militias („terrorists") were covertly
established in Syria
and Iraq via NATO partners Turkey and Jordan, secretly
supplied
with weapons and vehicles
and indirectly
financed
by oil exports via the Turkish Ceyhan terminal.
ISIS: Supply and export routes through NATO partners Turkey and Jordan (ISW / Atlantic, 2015)
Media-effective
atrocity propaganda and mysterious „terrorist attacks" in Europe and the US then offered the opportunity to intervene in Syria
using the NATO air force even without a UN mandate – ostensibly to fight the „terrorists", but
in reality still to conquer Syria and topple
its government.
This plan failed again, however, as Russia also used the presence of the „terrorists" in autumn 2015 as a justification
for direct military
intervention and was now able to attack both the „terrorists" and parts of NATO's „rebels" while simultaneously securing
the Syrian airspace to a large extent.
By the end of 2016, the Syrian army thus succeeded in
recapturing the city of Aleppo.
From 2016 onwards, NATO therefore switched back to positively portrayed but now Kurdish-ledmilitias (the SDF) in order to still have unassailable
ground forces available and to conquer the Syrian territory held by the previously established „terrorists" before Syria and Russia
could do so themselves.
This led to a kind of
„race"
to conquer cities such as Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor in 2017 and to a temporary division of Syria along the Euphrates river into a (largely)
Syrian-controlled West and a Kurdish (or rather American) controlled East (see map below).
This move, however, brought NATO into
conflict
with its key member Turkey, because Turkey did not accept a Kurdish-controlled territory on its southern border. As a result, the
NATO alliance became increasingly divided from 2018 onwards.
Turkey now fought the Kurds in
northern Syria and at the same time supported the remaining Islamists in the north-western province of Idlib against the Syrian army,
while the Americans eventually
withdrew
to the eastern Syrian oil fields in order to retain a political bargaining chip.
While Turkey supported Islamists in northern Syria, Israel more or less covertly
supplied Islamists in southern Syria and at the same time fought Iranian and Lebanese (Hezbollah) units with air strikes, though
without lasting success: the militias in southern Syria had to surrender in 2018.
Ultimately, some NATO members
tried to use a confrontation between the Turkish and Syrian armies in the province of Idlib as a last option to escalate the
war. In addition to the situation in Idlib, the issues of the occupied territories in the north and east of Syria remain to be resolved,
too.
Russia, for its part, has tried to draw Turkey out of the NATO alliance and onto its own side as far as possible. Modern Turkey,
however, is pursuing a rather far-reaching geopolitical
strategy of its own, which is also increasingly clashing with Russian interests in the Middle East and Central Asia.
As part of this geopolitical strategy, Turkey in 2015 and 2020 even used the so-called
"weapon of mass migration" , which may serve to destabilize
both Syria (so-called strategic depopulation
) and Europe, as well as to extort financial, political or military support from the European Union.
Syria: The situation in February 2020
What role did the Western media play in this war?
The task of NATO-compliant media was to portray
the war against Syria as a „civil war", the Islamist „rebels" positively, the Islamist „terrorists" and the Syrian government negatively,
the alleged „poison gas attacks" credibly and the NATO intervention consequently as legitimate.
Since 2019, NATO-compliant media moreover had to conceal or discredit various leaks and whistleblowers that began to prove the
covert Western arms deliveries
to the Islamist „rebels" and „terrorists" as well as the staged
„poison gas attacks"
.
But if even the „terrorists" in Syria were demonstrably established and equipped by NATO states, what role then did the mysterious
„caliph of terror" Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi play? He possibly played a similar role as his direct
predecessor , Omar al-Baghdadi – who was a
phantom .
Thanks to new communication technologies and on-site sources, the Syria war was also the first war about which
independent media could report almost in real-time and thus for
the first time significantly influenced the public perception of events – a potentially historic change.
*
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site, internet forums. etc.
All images in this article are from SPR
Order Mark Taliano's Book "Voices from Syria"
directly from Global Research.
Mark Taliano combines years of research with on-the-ground observations to present an informed and well-documented analysis
that refutes the mainstream media narratives on Syria.
The article is mostly junk. But it contains some important insights into the rise of Trympism (aka "national neoliberalism") --
nationalist oligarchy. Including the following " the governments that have emerged from the new populist moment are, to date, not
actually pursuing policies that are economically populist."
The real threat to liberal democracy isn't authoritarianism -- it's nationalist oligarchy. Here's how American foreign policy should
change. The real threat to liberal democracy isn't authoritarianism -- it's nationalist oligarchy. Here's how American foreign policy
should change.
Notable quotes:
"... Fascism: A Warning ..."
"... Can it Happen Here? Authoritarianism in America ..."
"... the governments that have emerged from the new populist moment are, to date, not actually pursuing policies that are economically populist. ..."
"... The better and more useful way to view these regimes -- and the threat to democracy emerging at home and abroad because of them -- is as nationalist oligarchies. Oligarchy means rule by a small number of rich people. In an oligarchy, wealthy elites seek to preserve and extend their wealth and power. In his definitive book titled Oligarchy ..."
"... Oligarchies remain in power through two strategies: first, using divide-and-conquer tactics to ensure that a majority doesn't coalesce, and second, by rigging the political system to make it harder for any emerging majority to overthrow them. ..."
"... Rigging the system is, in some ways, a more obvious tactic. It means changing the legal rules of the game or shaping the political marketplace to preserve power. Voting restrictions and suppression, gerrymandering, and manipulation of the media are examples. The common theme is that they insulate the minority in power from democracy; they prevent the population from kicking the rulers out through ordinary political means. ..."
"... Classical Greek Oligarchy ..."
"... Framing today's threat as nationalist oligarchy not only clarifies the challenge but also makes clear how democracy is different -- and what democracy requires. Democracy means more than elections, an independent judiciary, a free press, and various constitutional norms. For democracy to persist, there must also be relative economic equality. If society is deeply unequal economically, the wealthy will dominate politics and transform democracy into an oligarchy. And there must be some degree of social solidarity because, as Lincoln put it, "A house divided against itself cannot stand." ..."
"... We see a number of disturbing signs the United States is breaking down along these dimensions. ..."
"... The view that money is speech under the First Amendment has unleashed wealthy individuals and corporations to spend as much as they want to influence politics. The "doom loop of oligarchy," as Ezra Klein has called it, is an obvious consequence: The wealthy use their money to influence politics and rig policy to increase their wealth, which in turn increases their capacity to influence politics. Meanwhile, we're increasingly divided into like-minded enclaves, and the result is an ever-more toxic degree of partisanship. ..."
"... The Counterinsurgent's Constitution: Law in the Age of Small Wars ..."
"... The Crisis of the Middle-Class Constitution: Why Economic Inequality Threatens our Republic ..."
Ever since the 2016 election, foreign policy commentators and practitioners have been engaged in a series of soul-searching exercises
to understand the great transformations taking place in the world -- and to articulate a framework appropriate to the challenges
of our time. Some have looked backwards, arguing that the liberal international order is collapsing, while others question whether
it ever existed. Another group seems to hope the current messiness is simply a blip and that foreign policy will return to normalcy
after it passes. Perhaps the most prominent group has identified today's great threat as the rise of authoritarianism, autocracy,
and illiberal democracy. They fear that constitutional democracy is receding as norms are broken and institutions are under siege.
Unfortunately, this approach misunderstands the nature of the current crisis. The challenge we face today is not one of authoritarianism,
as so many seem inclined to believe, but of nationalist oligarchy. This form of government feeds populism to the people, delivers
special privileges to the rich and well-connected, and rigs politics to sustain its regime.
... ... ..
Authoritarianism or What?
Across the political spectrum, commentators and scholars have identified -- and warned of -- the global rise of autocracies and
authoritarian governments. They cite Russia, Hungary, the Philippines, and Turkey, among others. Distinguished commentators are increasingly
worried. Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright recently published a book called Fascism: A Warning . Cass Sunstein
gathered a variety of scholars for a collection titled, Can it Happen Here? Authoritarianism in America .
The authoritarian lens is familiar from the heroic narrative of democracy defeating autocracies in the twentieth century. But
as a framework for understanding today's central geopolitical challenges, it is far too narrow. This is mainly because those who
are worried about the rise of authoritarianism and the crisis of democracy are insufficiently focused on economics. Their emphasis
is almost exclusively political and constitutional -- free speech, voting rights, equal treatment for minorities, independent courts,
and the like. But politics and economics cannot be dissociated from each other, and neither are autonomous from social and cultural
factors. Statesmen and philosophers used to call this "political economy." Political economy looks at economic and political relationships
in concert, and it is attentive to how power is exercised. If authoritarianism is the future, there must be a story of its political
economy -- how it uses politics and economics to gain and hold power. Yet the rise-of-authoritarianism theorists have less to say
about these dynamics.
To be sure, many commentators have discussed populist movements throughout Europe and America, and there has been no shortage
of debate on the extent to which a generation of widening economic inequality has been a contributing factor in their rise. But whatever
the causes of popular discontent, the policy preferences of the people, and the bloviating rhetoric of leaders, the governments
that have emerged from the new populist moment are, to date, not actually pursuing policies that are economically populist.
The better and more useful way to view these regimes -- and the threat to democracy emerging at home and abroad because of
them -- is as nationalist oligarchies. Oligarchy means rule by a small number of rich people. In an oligarchy, wealthy elites seek
to preserve and extend their wealth and power. In his definitive book titled Oligarchy , Jeffrey Winters calls it "wealth
defense." Elites engage in "property defense," protecting what they already have, and "income defense," preserving and extending
their ability to hoard more. Importantly, oligarchy as a governing strategy accounts for both politics and economics. Oligarchs use
economic power to gain and hold political power and, in turn, use politics to expand their economic power.
Those who worry about the rise of authoritarianism and fear the crisis of democracy are insufficiently focused on economics.
The trouble for oligarchs is that their regime involves rule by a small number of wealthy elites. In even a nominally
democratic society, and most countries around the world today are at least that, it should be possible for the much larger majority
to overthrow the oligarchy with either the ballot or the bullet. So how can oligarchy persist? This is where both nationalism and
authoritarianism come into play. Oligarchies remain in power through two strategies: first, using divide-and-conquer tactics
to ensure that a majority doesn't coalesce, and second, by rigging the political system to make it harder for any emerging majority
to overthrow them.
The divide-and-conquer strategy is an old one, and it works through a combination of coercion and co-optation. Nationalism --
whether statist, ethnic, religious, or racial -- serves both functions. It aligns a portion of ordinary people with the ruling oligarchy,
mobilizing them to support the regime and sacrifice for it. At the same time, it divides society, ensuring that the nationalism-inspired
will not join forces with everyone else to overthrow the oligarchs. We thus see fearmongering about minorities and immigrants, and
claims that the country belongs only to its "true" people, whom the leaders represent. Activating these emotional, cultural, and
political identities makes it harder for citizens in the country to unite across these divides and challenge the regime.
Rigging the system is, in some ways, a more obvious tactic. It means changing the legal rules of the game or shaping the political
marketplace to preserve power. Voting restrictions and suppression, gerrymandering, and manipulation of the media are examples. The
common theme is that they insulate the minority in power from democracy; they prevent the population from kicking the rulers out
through ordinary political means. Tactics like these are not new. They have existed, as Matthew Simonton shows in his book
Classical Greek Oligarchy , since at least the time of Pericles and Plato. The consequence, then as now, is that nationalist
oligarchies can continue to deliver economic policies to benefit the wealthy and well-connected.
It is worth noting that even the generation that waged war against fascism in Europe understood that the challenge to democracy
in their time was not just political, but economic and social as well. They believed that the rise of Nazism was tied to the concentration
of economic power in Germany, and that cartels and monopolies not only cooperated with and served the Nazi state, but helped its
rise and later sustained it. As New York Congressman Emanuel Celler, one of the authors of the Anti-Merger Act of 1950, said, quoting
a report filed by Secretary of War Kenneth Royall, "Germany under the Nazi set-up built up a great series of industrial monopolies
in steel, rubber, coal and other materials. The monopolies soon got control of Germany, brought Hitler to power, and forced virtually
the whole world into war." After World War II, Marshall Plan experts not only rebuilt Europe but also exported aggressive American
antitrust and competition laws to the continent because they believed political democracy was impossible without economic democracy.
Framing today's threat as nationalist oligarchy not only clarifies the challenge but also makes clear how democracy is different
-- and what democracy requires. Democracy means more than elections, an independent judiciary, a free press, and various constitutional
norms. For democracy to persist, there must also be relative economic equality. If society is deeply unequal economically, the wealthy
will dominate politics and transform democracy into an oligarchy. And there must be some degree of social solidarity because, as
Lincoln put it, "A house divided against itself cannot stand."
We see a number of disturbing signs the United States is breaking down along these dimensions. Electoral losers in places
like North Carolina seek to entrench their power rather than accept defeat. The view that money is speech under the First Amendment
has unleashed wealthy individuals and corporations to spend as much as they want to influence politics. The "doom loop of oligarchy,"
as Ezra Klein has called it, is an obvious consequence: The wealthy use their money to influence politics and rig policy to increase
their wealth, which in turn increases their capacity to influence politics. Meanwhile, we're increasingly divided into like-minded
enclaves, and the result is an ever-more toxic degree of partisanship.
Addressing our domestic economic and social crises is critical to defending democracy, and a grand strategy for America's future
must incorporate both domestic and foreign policy. But while many have recognized that reviving America's middle class and re-stitching
our social fabric are essential to saving democracy, less attention has been paid to how American foreign policy should be reformed
in order to defend democracy from the threat of nationalist oligarchy.
The Varieties of Nationalist Oligarchy
Just as there are many variations on liberal democracy -- the Swedish model, the French model, the American model -- there
are many varieties of nationalist oligarchy. The story is different in every country, but the elements of nationalist oligarchy
are trending all over the world.
... ... ...
... the European Union funds Hungary's oligarchy, as Orbán draws on EU money to fund about 60 percent of the state projects
that support "the new Fidesz-linked business elite." Nor do Orbán and his allies do much to hide the country's crony capitalist
model. András Lánczi, president of a Fidesz-affiliated think tank, has boldly stated that "if something is done in the national
interest, then it is not corruption." "The new capitalist ruling class," one Hungarian banker comments, "make their money from
the government."
The commentator Jan-Werner Müller captures Orbán's Hungary this way: "Power is secured through wide-ranging control of the
judiciary and the media; behind much talk of protecting hard-pressed families from multinational corporations, there is crony
capitalism, in which one has to be on the right side politically to get ahead economically."
Crony capitalism, coupled with resurgent nationalism and central government control, is also an issue in China. While some
commentators have emphasized "state capitalism" -- when government has a significant ownership stake in companies -- this phenomenon
is not to be confused with crony capitalism. Some countries with state capitalism, like Norway, are widely seen as extremely non-corrupt
and, indeed, are often held up as models of democracy. State capitalism itself is thus not necessarily a problem. Crony capitalism,
in contrast, is an "instrumental union between capitalists and politicians designed to allow the former to acquire wealth, legally
or otherwise, and the latter to seek and retain power." This is the key difference between state capitalism and oligarchy.
... ... ...
Ganesh Sitaraman is a professor of law
and Chancellor's faculty fellow at Vanderbilt Law School, and the author of The Counterinsurgent's Constitution: Law in the
Age of Small Wars and The Crisis of the Middle-Class Constitution: Why Economic Inequality Threatens our Republic
.
"... The Democrats did not want Adam Schiff to have to answer questions about the whistleblower, and they don't want the whistleblower's identity to be officially revealed. Such things do not contribute to the greatest cause of our time, the destruction of Donald Trump. ..."
"... The whole point of having the House impeachment investigation proceed from the House Intelligence Committee, headed by Adam Schiff, was to send the signal that Trump is unacceptable to the nefarious powers that make up the Deep State, especially the intelligence agencies, especially the CIA. ..."
"... What a world, then, when OP Democrats are cheering on John Bolton, hoping again for a savior to their sacred resistance cause, and meanwhile they aren't too excited about Rand Paul's intervention. For sure, it is a sign that a "resistance" isn't real when it needs a savior; it's not as if the French Resistance sat back waiting for Gen. de Gaulle. In any case, in the procession of horrible reactionary figures that Democrats have embraced, Bolton is probably the worst, and that's saying quite a lot. ..."
"... People are even talking about "getting used to accepting the help of the CIA with the impeachment," and the like. (I realize I'm being repetitious here, but this stuff blows my mind, it is so disturbing.) At least they are recognizing the reality -- at least partially; that's something. But then what they do with this recognition is something that requires epic levels of TDS -- and, somehow, a great deal of the Left is going down this path. ..."
"... The USA Deep State is a Five Eyes partner and as such Trump must be given the proverbial boot for being an uneducated boor lacking political gravitas & business gravitas with his narcissistic Smoot-Hawley II 2019 trade wars. Screw the confidence man-in-chief. He is a liability for the USA and global business. Trump is not an asset. ..."
"... Almost as a by product of his 2016 victory, Trump showed up the MSM hacks for what they were, lying, partisan shills utterly lacking in any integrity and credibility. The same applies to the intrigues and corruption of the Dirty Cops and Spookocracy. They had to come out from behind the curtain and reveal themselves as the dirty, lying, seditious, treasonous, rabid criminal scum they are. The true nature of the State standing in the spotlight for all the world to see. This cannot be undone. ..."
First , the whistleblower was ruled out as a possible witness -- this was
essentially done behind the scenes, and in reality can be called a Deep State operation, though
one exposed to some extent by Rand Paul. This has nothing to do with protecting the
whistleblower or upholding the whistleblower statute, but instead with the fact that the
whistleblower was a CIA plant in the White House.
That the whistleblower works for the CIA is a matter of public record, not some conspiracy
theory. Furthermore, for some time before the impeachment proceedings began, the whistleblower
had been coordinating his efforts to undermine Trump with the head of the House Intelligence
Committee, who happens to be Adam Schiff. It is possible that the connections with Schiff go
even further or deeper. Obviously the Democrats do not want these things exposed.
... ... ...
In this regard, there was a very special moment on January 29, when Chief Justice John
Roberts refused to allow the reading of a question from Sen. Rand Paul that identified the
alleged whistleblower. Paul then held a press conference in which he read his question.
The question was directed at Adam Schiff, who claims not to have communicated with the
whistleblower, despite much evidence to the contrary. (Further details can be read at
here
.) A propos of what I was just saying, Paul is described in the Politico article as
"a longtime antagonist of Republican leaders." Excellent, good on you, Rand Paul.
Whether this was a case of unintended consequences or not, one could say that this episode
fed into the case against calling witnesses -- certainly the Democrats should not have been
allowed to call witnesses if the Republicans could not call the whistleblower. But clearly this
point is completely lost on those working in terms of the moving line of bullshit.
One would think that Democrats would be happy with a Republican Senator who antagonizes
leaders of his own party, but of course Rand Paul's effort only led to further "outrage" on the
part of Democratic leaders in the House and Senate.
The Democrats did not want Adam Schiff to have to answer questions about the whistleblower,
and they don't want the whistleblower's identity to be officially revealed. Such things do not
contribute to the greatest cause of our time, the destruction of Donald Trump.
However, you see, there is a complementary purpose at work here, too. The whole point of
having the House impeachment investigation proceed from the House Intelligence Committee,
headed by Adam Schiff, was to send the signal that Trump is unacceptable to the nefarious
powers that make up the Deep State, especially the intelligence agencies, especially the
CIA.
The only way these machinations can be combatted is to pull the curtain back further -- but
the Republicans do not want this any more than the Democrats do, with a few possible exceptions
such as Rand Paul. (As the Politico article states, Paul was chastised publicly by McConnell
for submitting his question in the first place, and for criticizing Roberts in the press
conference.)
What a world, then, when OP Democrats are cheering on John Bolton, hoping again for a
savior to their sacred resistance cause, and meanwhile they aren't too excited about Rand
Paul's intervention. For sure, it is a sign that a "resistance" isn't real when it needs a
savior; it's not as if the French Resistance sat back waiting for Gen. de Gaulle. In any case,
in the procession of horrible reactionary figures that Democrats have embraced, Bolton is
probably the worst, and that's saying quite a lot.
... ... ...
Now we are at a moment when "the Left" is recognizing the role that the CIA and the rest of
the "intelligence community" is played in the impeachment nonsense. This "Left" was already on
board for the "impeachment process" itself, perhaps at moments with caveats about "not leaving
everything up to the Democrats," "not just relying on the Democrats," but still accepting their
assigned role as cheerleaders and self-important internet commentators. (And, sure, maybe
that's all I am, too -- but the inability to distinguish form from content is one of the main
problems of the existing Left.)
Now, though, people on the Left are trying to get comfortable with, and trying to explain to
themselves how they can get comfortable with, the obvious role of the "intelligence community"
(with, in my view, the CIA in the leading role, but of course I'm not privy to the inner
workings of this scene) in the impeachment process and other efforts to take down Trump's
presidency.
People are even talking about "getting used to accepting the help of the CIA with the
impeachment," and the like. (I realize I'm being repetitious here, but this stuff blows my
mind, it is so disturbing.) At least they are recognizing the reality -- at least partially;
that's something. But then what they do with this recognition is something that requires epic
levels of TDS -- and, somehow, a great deal of the Left is going down this path.
They might think about the "help" that the CIA gave to the military in Bolivia to remove Evo
Morales from office. They might think about the picture of Donald Trump that they find
necessary to paint to justify what they are willing to swallow to remove him from office. They
might think about the fact that ordinary Democrats are fine with this role for the CIA, and
that Adam Schiff and others routinely offer the criticism/condemnation of Donald Trump that he
doesn't accept the findings of the CIA or the rest of the intelligence agencies at face
value.
The moment for the Left, what calls itself and thinks of itself as that, to break with this
lunacy has passed some time ago, but let us take this moment, of "accepting the help of the
CIA, because Trump," as truly marking a point of no return.
MASTER OF UNIVE ,
The USA Deep State is a Five Eyes partner and as such Trump must be given the proverbial boot
for being an uneducated boor lacking political gravitas & business gravitas with his
narcissistic Smoot-Hawley II 2019 trade wars. Screw the confidence man-in-chief. He is a liability for the USA and global business. Trump is not an asset.
paul ,
Trump, Sanders and Corbyn were all in their own way agents of creative destruction.
Trump tapped into the popular discontent of millions of Americans who realised that the
system no longer even pretended to work in their interests, and were not prepared to be
diverted down the Identity Politics Rabbit Hole.
The Deep State was outraged that he had disrupted their programme by stealing Clinton's seat
in the game of Musical Chairs. Being the most corrupt, dishonest and mendacious political
candidate in all US history (despite some pretty stiff opposition) was supposed to be
outweighed by her having a vagina. The Deplorables failed to sign up for the programme.
Almost as a by product of his 2016 victory, Trump showed up the MSM hacks for what they were,
lying, partisan shills utterly lacking in any integrity and credibility. The same applies to
the intrigues and corruption of the Dirty Cops and Spookocracy. They had to come out from
behind the curtain and reveal themselves as the dirty, lying, seditious, treasonous, rabid
criminal scum they are. The true nature of the State standing in the spotlight for all the
world to see. This cannot be undone.
For all his pandering to Adelson and the Zionist Mafia, for all his Gives to Netanyahu, Trump
has failed to deliver on the Big Ticket Items. Syria was supposed to have been invaded by
now, with Hillary cackling demonically over Assad's death as she did over Gaddafi, and
rapidly moving on to the main event with Iran. They will not forgive him for this.
They realise they are under severe time pressure. It took them a century to gain their
stranglehold over America, and this is a wasting asset. America is in terminal decline, and
may soon be unable to fulfil its ordained role as dumb goy muscle serving Zionist interests.
And the parasite will find it difficult to find a replacement host.
George Mc ,
Haven't you just agreed with him here?
He thinks the left died in the 1960s, over a half century ago. It's pretty simple to
identify a leftist: anti-imperialist/ anti-capitalist. The Democrats are imperialists.
People who vote for the Democrats and Republicans are imperialists. This article is a
confused mess, that's my whole point;)
If the Democrats and Republicans (and those who vote for them) are imperialists (which they are) then the left are indeed
dead – at least as far as political representation goes.
Koba ,
He's sent more troops to Iraq and Afghanistan he staged several coups in Latin America and
wanted to take out the dprk and thier nukes and wants to bomb Iran! Winding down?!
sharon marlowe ,
First, an attempted assassination-by-drone on President Maduro of Venezuela happened. Then
Trump dropped the largest conventional bomb on Afghanistan, with a mile-wide radius. Then
Trump named Juan Guido as the new President of Venezuela in an overt coup. Then he bombed
Syria over a fake chemical weapons claim. He bombed it before even an investigation was
launched. Then the Trump regime orchestrated a military coup in Bolivia. Then he claimed that
he was pulling out of Syria, but instead sent U.S. troops to take over Syrian oil fields.
trump then assassinated Gen. Solemeni. Then he claimed that he will leave Iraq at the request
of the Iraqi government, the Iraqi government asked the U.S. to leave, and Trump rejected the
request. The Trump regime has tried orchestrating a coup in Iran, and a coup in Hong Kong. He
expelled Russian diplomats en masse for the Skripal incident in England, before an
investigation. He has sanctioned Russia, Iran, North Korea, China, and Venezuela. He has
bombed Yemen, Syria, Libya, Somalia, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Those are the things I'm
aware of, but what else Trump has done in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, and South America you
can research if you wish. And now, the claim of leaving Afghanistan is as ridiculous as when
he claimed to be leaving Syria and Iraq.
Dungroanin ,
Yeah yeah and 'he' gave Maduro 7 days to let their kid takeover in Venezuela! And built a
wall. And got rid of obamacare and started a nuke war with Rocketman and and and ...
sharon marlowe ,
There were at least nine people killed when Trump bombed Douma.
Only a psychopath would kill people because one of its spy drones was shot down. You don't
get points for considering killing people for it and then changing your mind.
People should get over Hillary and pay attention to what Trump has been doing. Why even
mention what Hillary would have done in Syria, then proceed to be an apologist for what Trump
has done around the world in just three years? Trump has been quite a prolific imperialist in
such a short time. A second term could well put him above Bush and Obama as the 21st
century's most horrible leaders on earth.
Dungroanin ,
...If you think that the potus is the omnipotent ruler of everything he certainly seems to be
having some problems with his minions in the CIA, NSA, FBI..State Dept etc.
Savorywill ,
Yes, what you say is right. However, he did warn both the Syrian and Russian military of the
attack in the first instance, so no casualties, and in the second attack, he announced that
the missiles had been launched before they hit the target, again resulting in no casualties.
When the US drone was shot down by an Iranian missile, he considered retaliation. But, when
advised of likely casualties, he called it off saying that human lives are more valuable than
the cost of the drone. Yes, he did authorize the assassination of the Iranian general, and
that was very bad. His claims that the general had organized the placement of roadside bombs
that had killed US soldiers rings rather hollow, considering those shouldn't have been in
Iraq in the first place.
I am definitely not stating that he is perfect and doesn't do objectionable things. And he
has authorized US forces to control the oil wells, which is against international law, but at
least US soldiers are not actively engaged in fighting the Syrian government, something
Hillary set in motion. However, the military does comprise a huge percentage of the US
economy and there have to be reasons, and enemies, to justify its existence, so his situation
as president must be very difficult, not a job I would want, that is for sure.
The potus is best described (by Assad actually) as a CEO of a board of directors appointed
by the shareholders who collectively determine their OWN interests.
Your gaslighting ain't succeeding round here – Regime! So desperate, so so sad
🤣
"... the American-led takedown of the post-World War II international system has shattered long-standing rules and norms of behavior. ..."
"... The combination of disorder at home and abroad is spawning changes that are increasingly disadvantageous to the United States. With Congress having essentially walked off the job, there is a need for America's universities to provide the information and analysis of international best practices that the political system does not. ..."
I think this would be very informative for anybody seriously interested in the USA foreign
policy. Listening to him is so sad to realize that instead of person of his caliber we have
Pompous Pompeo, who forever is frozen on the level of a tank repair mechanical engineer, as
the Secretary of State.
Published on Feb 24, 2020
In the United States and other democracies, political and economic systems still work in
theory, but not in practice. Meanwhile, the American-led takedown of the post-World War II
international system has shattered long-standing rules and norms of behavior.
The combination of disorder at home and abroad is spawning changes that are increasingly
disadvantageous to the United States. With Congress having essentially walked off the job,
there is a need for America's universities to provide the information and analysis of
international best practices that the political system does not.
Ambassador Chas W. Freeman, Jr. is a senior fellow at Brown University's Watson
Institute for International and Public Affairs, a former U.S. Assistant Secretary of
Defense, ambassador to Saudi Arabia (during operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm),
acting Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, and Chargé d'affaires at
both Bangkok and Beijing. He began his diplomatic career in India but specialized in
Chinese affairs. (He was the principal American interpreter during President Nixon's visit
to Beijing in 1972.)
Ambassador Freeman is a much sought-after public speaker (see http://chasfreeman.net ) and the author of several
well-received books on statecraft and diplomacy. His most recent book, America's Continuing
Misadventures in the Middle East was published in May 2016. Interesting Times: China,
America, and the Shifting Balance of Prestige, appeared in March 2013. America's
Misadventures in the Middle East came out in 2010, as did the most recent revision of The
Diplomat's Dictionary, the companion volume to Arts of Power: Statecraft and Diplomacy. He
was the editor of the Encyclopedia Britannica entry on "diplomacy."
Chas Freeman studied at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and in
Taiwan, and earned an AB magna cum laude from Yale University as well as a JD from the
Harvard Law School.
He chairs Projects International, Inc., a Washington-based firm that for more than three
decades has helped its American and foreign clients create ventures across borders,
facilitating their establishment of new businesses through the design, negotiation,
capitalization, and implementation of greenfield investments, mergers and acquisitions,
joint ventures, franchises, one-off transactions, sales and agencies in other
countries.
He is the author of several books including the most recent
Interesting times: China, America, and the shifting balance of prestige
(2013)
"... "Bolton is a longtime member of the failed Washington elite that Trump vowed to oppose, hell-bent on repeating virtually every foreign policy mistake the U.S. has made in the last 15 years - particularly those Trump promised to avoid as president," ..."
"... "It's important that someone who was an unrepentant advocate for the Iraq War, who didn't learn the lessons of the Iraq War, shouldn't be the secretary of state for a president who says Iraq was ..."
Senator Rand Paul said Tuesday in an
op-ed for Rare
that he would oppose President-elect Donald Trump's rumored selection of former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton as Secretary of State.
"Bolton is a longtime member of the failed Washington elite that Trump vowed to oppose, hell-bent on repeating virtually
every foreign policy mistake the U.S. has made in the last 15 years - particularly those Trump promised to avoid as president,"
Paul wrote citing U.S. interventions in Iraq and Libya that Trump has criticized but that Bolton strongly advocated.
Reports since have indicated that former New York City mayor and loyal Trump ally, Rudy Giuliani is being considered for the post.
The Washington Post's David Weigel
reports , "Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), a newly reelected member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said this morning that
he was inclined to oppose either former U.N. ambassador John Bolton or former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani if they were nominated
for secretary of state."
"It's important that someone who was an unrepentant advocate for the Iraq War, who didn't learn the lessons of the Iraq
War, shouldn't be the secretary of state for a president who says Iraq was a big lesson," Paul told the Post. "Trump
said that a thousand times. It would be a huge mistake for him to give over his foreign policy to someone who [supported the war].
I mean, you could not find more unrepentant advocates of regime change."
"... Thus, it should be no surprise to anyone in the world at this point in history, that the CIA holds no allegiance to any country. And it can be hardly expected that a President, who is actively under attack from all sides within his own country, is in a position to hold the CIA accountable for its past and future crimes ..."
"There is a kind of character in thy life, That to the observer doth thy history, fully unfold."
– William Shakespeare
Once again we find ourselves in a situation of crisis, where the entire world holds its breath all at once and can only wait to
see whether this volatile black cloud floating amongst us will breakout into a thunderstorm of nuclear war or harmlessly pass us
by. The majority in the world seem to have the impression that this destructive fate totters back and forth at the whim of one man.
It is only normal then, that during such times of crisis, we find ourselves trying to analyze and predict the thoughts and motives
of just this one person. The assassination of Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani, a true hero for his fellow countrymen and undeniably an
essential key figure in combating terrorism in Southwest Asia, was a terrible crime, an abhorrently repugnant provocation. It was
meant to cause an apoplectic fervour, it was meant to make us who desire peace, lose our minds in indignation. And therefore, that
is exactly what we should not do.
In order to assess such situations, we cannot lose sight of the whole picture, and righteous indignation unfortunately causes
the opposite to occur. Our focus becomes narrower and narrower to the point where we can only see or react moment to moment with
what is right in front of our face. We are reduced to an obsession of twitter feeds, news blips and the doublespeak of 'official
government statements'.
Thus, before we may find firm ground to stand on regarding the situation of today, we must first have an understanding as to what
caused the United States to enter into an endless campaign of regime-change warfare after WWII, or as former Chief of Special Operations
for the Joint Chiefs of Staff Col. Prouty stated, three decades of the Indochina war.
An Internal Shifting of Chess Pieces in the Shadows
It is interesting timing that on Sept 2, 1945, the very day that WWII ended, Ho Chi Minh would announce the independence of Indochina.
That on the very day that one of the most destructive wars to ever occur in history ended, another long war was declared at its doorstep.
Churchill would announce his "Iron Curtain" against communism on March 5th, 1946, and there was no turning back at that point. The
world had a mere 6 months to recover before it would be embroiled in another terrible war, except for the French, who would go to
war against the Viet Minh opponents in French Indochina only days after WWII was over.
In a previous paper I wrote titled
"On Churchill's Sinews
of Peace" , I went over a major re-organisation of the American government and its foreign intelligence bureau on the onset of
Truman's de facto presidency. Recall that there was an attempted military coup d'état, which was
exposed by General Butler in a public address in 1933,
against the Presidency of FDR who was only inaugurated that year. One could say that there was a very marked disapproval from shadowy
corners for how Roosevelt would organise the government.
One key element to this reorganisation under Truman was the dismantling of the previously existing foreign intelligence bureau
that was formed by FDR, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) on Sept 20, 1945 only two weeks after WWII was officially declared
over. The OSS would be replaced by the CIA officially on Sept 18, 1947, with two years of an American intelligence purge and the
internal shifting of chess pieces in the shadows. In addition, de-facto President Truman would also found the United States National
Security Council on Sept 18, 1947, the same day he founded the CIA. The NSC was a council whose intended function was to serve as
the President's principal arm for coordinating national security, foreign policies and policies among various government agencies.
" In 1955, I was designated to establish an office of special operations in compliance with National Security Council (NSC)
Directive #5412 of March 15, 1954. This NSC Directive for the first time in the history of the United States defined covert operations
and assigned that role to the Central Intelligence Agency to perform such missions , provided they had been directed to do so
by the NSC, and further ordered active-duty Armed Forces personnel to avoid such operations. At the same time, the Armed Forces
were directed to "provide the military support of the clandestine operations of the CIA" as an official function . "
What this meant, was that there was to be an intermarriage of the foreign intelligence bureau with the military, and that the
foreign intelligence bureau would act as top dog in the relationship, only taking orders from the NSC. Though the NSC includes the
President, as we will see, the President is very far from being in the position of determining the NSC's policies.
An Inheritance of Secret Wars
" There is no instance of a nation benefitting from prolonged warfare. "
– Sun Tzu
On January 20th, 1961, John F. Kennedy was inaugurated as President of the United States. Along with inheriting the responsibility
of the welfare of the country and its people, he was to also inherit a secret war with communist Cuba run by the CIA.
JFK was disliked from the onset by the CIA and certain corridors of the Pentagon, they knew where he stood on foreign matters
and that it would be in direct conflict for what they had been working towards for nearly 15 years. Kennedy would inherit the CIA
secret operation against Cuba, which Prouty confirms in his book, was quietly upgraded by the CIA from the Eisenhower administration's
March 1960 approval of a modest Cuban-exile support program (which included small air drop and over-the-beach operations) to a 3,000
man invasion brigade just before Kennedy entered office.
This was a massive change in plans that was determined by neither President Eisenhower, who warned at the end of his term of the
military industrial complex as a loose cannon, nor President Kennedy, but rather the foreign intelligence bureau who has never been
subject to election or judgement by the people. It shows the level of hostility that Kennedy encountered as soon as he entered office,
and the limitations of a President's power when he does not hold support from these intelligence and military quarters.
Within three months into JFK's term, Operation Bay of Pigs (April 17th to 20th 1961) was scheduled. As the popular revisionist
history goes; JFK refused to provide air cover for the exiled Cuban brigade and the land invasion was a calamitous failure and a
decisive victory for Castro's Cuba. It was indeed an embarrassment for President Kennedy who had to take public responsibility for
the failure, however, it was not an embarrassment because of his questionable competence as a leader. It was an embarrassment because,
had he not taken public responsibility, he would have had to explain the real reason why it failed. That the CIA and military were
against him and that he did not have control over them. If Kennedy were to admit such a thing, he would have lost all credibility
as a President in his own country and internationally, and would have put the people of the United States in immediate danger amidst
a Cold War.
What really occurred was that there was a cancellation of the essential pre-dawn airstrike, by the Cuban Exile Brigade bombers
from Nicaragua, to destroy Castro's last three combat jets. This airstrike was ordered by Kennedy himself. Kennedy was always against
an American invasion of Cuba, and striking Castro's last jets by the Cuban Exile Brigade would have limited Castro's threat, without
the U.S. directly supporting a regime change operation within Cuba. This went fully against the CIA's plan for Cuba.
Kennedy's order for the airstrike on Castro's jets would be cancelled by Special Assistant for National Security Affairs McGeorge
Bundy, four hours before the Exile Brigade's B-26s were to take off from Nicaragua, Kennedy was not brought into this decision. In
addition, the Director of Central Intelligence Allen Dulles, the man in charge of the Bay of Pigs operation was unbelievably out
of the country on the day of the landings.
Col. Prouty, who was Chief of Special Operations during this time, elaborates on this situation:
" Everyone connected with the planning of the Bay of Pigs invasion knew that the policy dictated by NSC 5412, positively prohibited
the utilization of active-duty military personnel in covert operations. At no time was an "air cover" position written into the
official invasion plan The "air cover" story that has been created is incorrect. "
As a result, JFK who well understood the source of this fiasco, set up a Cuban Study Group the day after and charged it with the
responsibility of determining the cause for the failure of the operation. The study group, consisting of Allen Dulles, Gen. Maxwell
Taylor, Adm. Arleigh Burke and Attorney General Robert Kennedy (the only member JFK could trust), concluded that the failure was
due to Bundy's telephone call to General Cabell (who was also CIA Deputy Director) that cancelled the President's air strike order.
Kennedy had them.
Humiliatingly, CIA Director Allen Dulles was part of formulating the conclusion that the Bay of Pigs op was a failure because
of the CIA's intervention into the President's orders. This allowed for Kennedy to issue the National Security Action Memorandum
#55 on June 28th, 1961, which began the process of changing the responsibility from the CIA to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. As Prouty
states,
" When fully implemented, as Kennedy had planned, after his reelection in 1964, it would have taken the CIA out of the covert
operation business. This proved to be one of the first nails in John F. Kennedy's coffin. "
If this was not enough of a slap in the face to the CIA, Kennedy forced the resignation of CIA Director Allen Dulles, CIA Deputy
Director for Plans Richard M. Bissell Jr. and CIA Deputy Director Charles Cabell.
In Oct 1962, Kennedy was informed that Cuba had offensive Soviet missiles 90 miles from American shores. Soviet ships with more
missiles were on their way towards Cuba but ended up turning around last minute. Rumours started to abound that JFK had cut a secret
deal with Russian Premier Khrushchev, which was that the U.S. would not invade Cuba if the Soviets withdrew their missiles. Criticisms
of JFK being soft on communism began to stir.
NSAM #263, closely overseen by Kennedy, was released on Oct 11th, 1963, and outlined a policy decision " to withdraw 1,000
military personnel [from Vietnam] by the end of 1963 " and further stated that " It should be possible to withdraw the bulk of
U.S. personnel [including the CIA and military] by 1965. " The Armed Forces newspaper Stars and Stripes had the headline U.S.
TROOPS SEEN OUT OF VIET BY '65. Kennedy was winning the game and the American people.
This was to be the final nail in Kennedy's coffin.
Kennedy was brutally shot down only one month later, on Nov, 22nd 1963. His death should not just be seen as a tragic loss but,
more importantly, it should be recognised for the successful military coup d'état that it was and is . The CIA showed what lengths
it was ready to go to if a President stood in its way. (For more information on this coup refer to District Attorney of New Orleans
at the time, Jim Garrison's
book . And the excellently
researched Oliver Stone movie "JFK")
Through the Looking Glass
On Nov. 26th 1963, a full four days after Kennedy's murder, de facto President Johnson signed NSAM #273 to begin the change of
Kennedy's policy under #263. And on March 4th, 1964, Johnson signed NSAM #288 that marked the full escalation of the Vietnam War
and involved 2,709,918 Americans directly serving in Vietnam, with 9,087,000 serving with the U.S. Armed Forces during this period.
The Vietnam War, or more accurately the Indochina War, would continue for another 12 years after Kennedy's death, lasting a total
of 20 years for Americans.
Scattered black ops wars continued, but the next large scale-never ending war that would involve the world would begin full force
on Sept 11, 2001 under the laughable title War on Terror, which is basically another Iron Curtain, a continuation of a 74 year Cold
War. A war that is not meant to end until the ultimate regime changes are accomplished and the world sees the toppling of Russia
and China. Iraq was destined for invasion long before the vague Gulf War of 1990 and even before Saddam Hussein was being backed
by the Americans in the Iraq-Iran war in the 1980s. Iran already suffered a CIA backed regime change in 1979.
It had been understood far in advance by the CIA and US military that the toppling of sovereignty in Iraq, Libya, Syria and Iran
needed to occur before Russia and China could be taken over. Such war tactics were formulaic after 3 decades of counterinsurgency
against the CIA fueled "communist-insurgency" of Indochina. This is how today's terrorist-inspired insurgency functions, as a perfect
CIA formula for an endless bloodbath.
Former CIA Deputy Director (2010-2013) Michael Morell, who was supporting Hillary Clinton during the presidential election campaign
and vehemently against the election of Trump, whom he claimed was being manipulated by Putin, said in a 2016 interview with Charlie
Rose that Russians and Iranians in Syria should be killed covertly
to 'pay the price' .
Therefore, when a drone stroke occurs assassinating an Iranian Maj. Gen., even if the U.S. President takes onus on it, I would
not be so quick as to believe that that is necessarily the case, or the full story. Just as I would not take the statements of President
Rouhani accepting responsibility for the Iranian military shooting down 'by accident' the Boeing 737-800 plane which contained 176
civilians, who were mostly Iranian, as something that can be relegated to criminal negligence, but rather that there is very likely
something else going on here.
I would also not be quick to dismiss the timely release, or better described as leaked, draft letter from the US Command in Baghdad
to the Iraqi government that suggests a removal of American forces from the country. Its timing certainly puts the President in a
compromised situation. Though the decision to keep the American forces within Iraq or not is hardly a simple matter that the President
alone can determine. In fact there is no reason why, after reviewing the case of JFK, we should think such a thing.
One could speculate that the President was set up, with the official designation of the IRGC as "terrorist" occurring in April
2019 by the US State Department, a decision that was strongly supported by both Bolton and Pompeo, who were both members of the NSC
at the time. This made it legal for a US military drone strike to occur against Soleimani under the 2001 AUMF, where the US military
can attack any armed group deemed to be a terrorist threat. Both Bolton and Pompeo made no secret that they were overjoyed by Soleimani's
assassination and Bolton went so far as to tweet "Hope this is the first step to regime change in Tehran." Bolton has also made it
no secret that he is eager to testify against Trump in his possible impeachment trial.
Former CIA Director Mike Pompeo was recorded at an unknown
conference recently, but judging from the gross laughter of the audience it consists of wannabe CIA agents, where he admits that
though West Points' cadet motto is "You will not lie, cheat, or steal, or tolerate those who do.", his training under the CIA was
the very opposite, stating " I was the CIA Director. We lied, we cheated, we stole. It was like we had entire training courses. (long
pause) It reminds you of the glory of the American experiment. "
Thus, it should be no surprise to anyone in the world at this point in history, that the CIA holds no allegiance to any country.
And it can be hardly expected that a President, who is actively under attack from all sides within his own country, is in a position
to hold the CIA accountable for its past and future crimes .
". . . the CIA holds no allegiance to any country." But they sure kiss the *** of the financial sociopaths who write their
paychecks and finance the black ops.
Fletcher Prouty's book The Secret Team is a must read... he was on the inside and watched the formation of the permanent team
established in the late 50s that assumed the power of the president.
Look at who the OSS recruited - Ivy League Skull and Bones types from rich families that made their fortunes in often questionable
ventures.
If you're the patriarch of some super wealthy family wouldn't you be thrilled to have younger family members working for the
nation's intelligence agencies? Sort of the ultimate in 'inside information'. Plus these families had experience in things like
drug smuggling, human trafficking and anything else you can imagine..... While the Brits started the opium trade with China, Americans
jumped right in bringing opium from Turkey.
Didn't take long before the now CIA became owned by the families whose members staffed it.
One major aspect pertaining American involvment in Veitnam was something like 90% of the rubber produced Globally came from
the region.
It is more diverse now, being 3rd, with the association revealing that in 2017, Vietnam earned US$2.3 billion from export of
1.4 million tonnes of natural rubber, up 36% in value and 11.4% in volume year on year.
Rockfellers formed the OSS then the CIA which is the brute force for the CFR which they also run and own. The bankers run y
our country and bought and blackmailed all your politicians... Only buttplug and pedo's get to be in charge now folks.... and
some 9th circle witches of course...
The USA is an imperial country. And wars is how empire is sustained and expanded. Bacevich does not even mention this
fact.
Notable quotes:
"... While perfunctory congressional hearings may yet occur, a meaningful response -- one that would demand accountability, for example -- is about as likely as a bipartisan resolution to the impeachment crisis. ..."
"... This implicit willingness to write off a costly, unwinnable, and arguably unnecessary war should itself prompt sober reflection. What we have here is a demonstration of how pervasive and deeply rooted American militarism has become. ..."
"... we have become a nation given to misusing military power, abusing American soldiers, and averting our gaze from the results. ..."
"... The impeachment hearings were probably the reason the WaPo published when it did. After all, the article tells us little that any semi-sentient observer hasn't known for over a decade now. ..."
"... Then, today, we have another American trooper killed in Afghanistan, with many Afghans. Then, we have Trump, jutting his jaw out, as usual, to show how tough he is and...by golly, how tough America is. How patriotic! Damn it! Rah rah. He pardons and receives a war criminal at the white house, one of those Seals that murdered Afghans. ..."
"... By military standards, there is supposed to be rules of engagement and punishment for outright breaking of such rules. But no, Trump is one ignorant, cold dude and the misery in numerous US invaded nations means nothing to this bum with a title and money ..."
"... Were our senior government leaders more familiar with military service, especially as front line soldiers, they might have been less inclined to dawdle in these matters, agree with obfuscated results for political reasons, and waste so much effort. ..."
The Afghanistan Papers could have been the start of redemption, but it's all been subsumed
by impeachment and an uninterested public.
....
While perfunctory congressional hearings may yet occur, a meaningful response -- one
that would demand accountability, for example -- is about as likely as a bipartisan resolution
to the impeachment crisis.
This implicit willingness to write off a costly, unwinnable, and arguably unnecessary war
should itself prompt sober reflection. What we have here is a demonstration of how pervasive
and deeply rooted American militarism has become.
Take seriously the speechifying heard on the floor of the House of Representatives in recent
days and you'll be reassured that the United States remains a nation of laws, with Democrats
and Republicans alike affirming their determination to defend our democracy and preserve the
Constitution, even while disagreeing on what that might require at present.
Take seriously the contents of the Afghanistan Papers and you'll reach a different
conclusion: we have become a nation given to misusing military power, abusing American
soldiers, and averting our gaze from the results. U.S. military expenditures and the Pentagon's
array of foreign bases far exceed those of any other nation on the planet. In our willingness
to use force, we (along with Israel) lead the pack. Putative adversaries such as China and
Russia are models of self-restraint by comparison. And when it comes to cumulative body count,
the United States is in a league of its own.
Yet since the end of the Cold War and especially since 9/11, U.S. forces have rarely
accomplished the purposes for which they are committed, the Pentagon concealing failure by
downsizing its purposes. Afghanistan offers a good example. What began as Operation Enduring
Freedom has become in all but name Operation Decent Interval, the aim being to disengage in a
manner that will appear responsible, if only for a few years until the bottom falls out.
So the real significance of the Post 's Afghanistan Papers is this: t hey invite
Americans to contemplate a particularly vivid example what our misplaced infatuation with
military power produces. Sadly, it appears evident that we will refuse the invitation. Don't
blame Trump for this particular example of Washington's egregious irresponsibility.
Andrew Bacevich is president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. His new
book, The Age of Illusions: How America Squandered Its Cold War Victory ,will
be published next month.
The impeachment hearings were probably the reason the WaPo published when it did. After all,
the article tells us little that any semi-sentient observer hasn't known for over a decade
now.
Anyway, nobody likes a bipartisan fiasco that cannot be neatly blamed on Team R (or Team
D).
Then, today, we have another American trooper killed in Afghanistan, with many Afghans.
Then, we have Trump, jutting his jaw out, as usual, to show how tough he is and...by golly,
how tough America is. How patriotic! Damn it! Rah rah.
He pardons and receives a war criminal at the white house, one of those Seals that murdered
Afghans.
By military standards, there is supposed to be rules of engagement and punishment for
outright breaking of such rules. But no, Trump is one ignorant, cold dude and the misery in
numerous US invaded nations means nothing to this bum with a title and money. What a joke
this nations foreign policy is and the ignorant, don't care American people have become. Like
never before. There were years when people actually talked about subjects. Not now, if you
mention the weather they cower and look pained. The old days really were better.
One example aside from the above: compare President Kennedy to Trump. What a riot...
Well, these documents are highly unsurprising. Everybody has known the facts for a long time.
Everybody also knows that the US "government" will not change its ways. Its sole purpose and
mission is to obliterate everything except Israel, and these documents are evidence of
massive SUCCESS in its mission, not evidence of failure.
Were our senior government leaders more familiar with military service, especially as front
line soldiers, they might have been less inclined to dawdle in these matters, agree with
obfuscated results for political reasons, and waste so much effort.
This is also to say that misleading documents and briefings from the military about
progress in Afghanistan, while contemptible, did not cause the strategic failure.
Contemporary reports from the press and other agencies indicated the effort was not working
out plainly to anyone who wanted to pay attention. Our political leaders chose to ignore the
truth for political gain.
A more realistic temperament chastened by experience would have been more inclined to
criticize and make corrections, and summon the courage to cut our losses rather than crow
ignominiously about "cutting and running." Few such temperaments, it seems at least, make it
to the top thee days.
Pompeo has just four terms in the House of Representives befor getting postions of Director of CIA (whichsuggests previous involvement
with CIA) and then paradoxically the head of the State Department, He retired from the alry in the rank of comptain and never participated
in any battles. He serves only in Germany, and this can be classified as a chickenhawk. He never performed any dyplomatic duries in
hs life and a large part of his adult life (1998-2006) was a greddy military contractor.
1. It mentions
that it aimed at "deterring future Iranian attack plans". This however is very vague. Future is not the same as imminent which is
the time based test required under international law. (1)
2. Overall, the statement places far greater emphasis on past activities and violations allegedly commuted by Suleimani. As such
the killing appears far more retaliatory for past acts than anticipatory for imminent self defense.
3. The notion that Suleimani was "actively developing plans" is curious both from a semantic and military standpoint. Is it sufficient
to meet the test of mecessity and proportionality?
ark Hannah
observes that a bipartisan foreign policy consensus stifles legitimate debate and that it
is antithetical to democratic politics:
In 1948, after bowing out of a bid to defeat Democratic President Harry Truman, Sen.
Arthur Vandenberg (R-Mich.) declared, "We must stop politics at the water's edge." In other
words, we should confine our disagreements to domestic policy and project unity to our
foreign friends and foes. But that unity was merely a product of the geopolitical realities
at the dawn of the Cold War. More often, an elite consensus feeds stale policy, allows bad
ideas to go unchallenged and narrows the range of new proposals welcomed as legitimate.
There's a word that describes a politically powerful person making a high-minded exhortation
to "stop politics." That word is not "democracy."
There is no tradition of -- nor enduring allegiance to -- bipartisan consensus in
America's international relations. Nor should there be.
Americans have always been divided on foreign policy questions, and it is only when there is
a sufficiently grave external threat or there is a concerted effort to impose a particular view
that those divisions recede temporarily. These divisions will always resurface because our
country is too large and too diverse for our population to reach a settled consensus for very
long. When there is a consensus among politicians and foreign policy professionals, it masks
these divisions and frequently fails to represent the views of large numbers of Americans. The
existence of such a consensus is not a case of politics "stopping at the water's edge." It is
the establishment of a particular set of assumptions about U.S. power and its role in the world
that define the boundaries of what is acceptable in foreign policy debate.
The bipartisan consensus that most of our political leaders subscribe to and reinforce is
made first in Washington and then handed down to the country. It has been and continues to be
very much a top-down process in which the public is offered a limited menu of options, and they
are then told that even most of those options are unworkable. Once they are created, consensus
views become excessively rigid, and the policies informed by them lag behind changing
circumstances. That produces inadequate and unrealistic policies because new and unconventional
ideas are discouraged or dismissed out of hand because they do not follow consensus
assumptions. Like any working set of ideas, consensus views may start out being timely and
appropriate for their circumstances, but when they settle and harden into an idol they become
an impediment to informed and effective policymaking.
For example, the goal of North Korea policy across multiple administrations was to prevent
North Korea from obtaining nuclear weapons and then to pressure North Korea into giving up the
weapons that it had obtained. Perversely, the first policy contributed directly to its own
failure by driving North Korea to leave the Non-Proliferation Treaty and to test its first
nuclear device, and then the last two administrations have tried in vain to reverse that
outcome. North Korea's denuclearization has been a consistent U.S. goal under presidents from
both parties, but repeated failure has not yet forced our leaders to adapt and try something
else. Everything else related to North Korea has been held hostage to this wild goose chase of
seeking complete denuclearization that will never happen. The bipartisan consensus doesn't just
enshrine mistaken assumptions as wisdom, but it actively fights against those that try to make
the consensus more responsive to contemporary realities.
Defenders of the bipartisan consensus discourage and penalize analysts and writers that
diverge too much from it on the assumption that the consensus is somehow integral to
maintaining U.S. security. Instead of recognizing the rigidity of the consensus as a weakness
that leads to repeated failures, defenders of the consensus see rejection of consensus
assumptions as the real danger. This is what leads to ritual denunciations of "isolationists"
and "appeasement" and "being soft" on this or that government. Adherence to consensus
assumptions also means never having to say you're sorry for any costly policy failures that
they produce. One reason why there is no real accountability in foreign policy is that
adherents of the bipartisan consensus never penalize their own for causing debacles overseas,
so that even the authors of the greatest crimes and blunders are gradually rehabilitated and
feted as wise men and women. When so many of the same people with the same assumptions are
permitted to set policy, we should expect to see one failure after another, and sure enough
that is what we have had for decades.
One of the things that many advocates of restraint have talked about in recent years is
the need to democratize U.S. foreign policy. That not only means holding the government
accountable for what it does and insisting on Congress' role in matters of war, but it also
means accepting a much wider range of views on how the U.S. should be acting in the world. It
would mean actually forging a consensus that is much more representative of what Americans want
our government to be doing in the world.
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 .
rew Holland Kinney explains
why Morales' removal from power in Bolivia was a coup, and the refusal to call it what it is
impedes our understanding of military interventions in politics:
With these historical patterns in mind, a familiar drama predictably unfolded surrounding
characterizations of last November's coup in La Paz, as opponents of Evo Morales claimed
revolutionary credit for pushing out the leader at the barrel of a gun. Nothing about these
events was unique to coup politics or Bolivia, where there have been 43 instances of regime
change since independence from Spain. Senior military officials typically lead coups during
protests, which tend to initially lack violence. A repressive wake then follows, likely when
"the incentives for restraint disappear," according to Erica De Bruin.
Despite Morales detractors' best efforts to label his ouster as a revolution, it is hard
to deny that this was a banal example of military intervention, not a unique
something-by-another-name. Unfortunately, until we reclaim civilian participation as "normal"
in coup politics, civil-military allies will continue to successfully spin their seizures of
power as revolutionary heroism. Engaging in this post-coup name-game hinders our ability to
recognize coups as such -- and to recognize that the event itself and its justifications are
conceptually distinct but normatively related.
When the military intervenes in politics, it often does so in tandem with civilian protests
and military leaders use those protests as a pretext for their intervention. The involvement of
civilians in the effort to overthrow a leader does not make it any less of a coup. That is a
common feature of many coups around the world. Kinney continues:
This was a typical example of a military coup d'état. Emblematic of military
interventions that are preceded by protests and supported by civilian elites, Morales's
opponents and international observers immediately questioned the coup label. The former
president's critics maintain there was no coup because his election was illegitimate and the
military was merely "playing peacekeeper," even as events after his departure exhibit all the
trademarks of a coup.
There were very few American politicians that correctly characterized Morales' overthrow as
a coup. Bernie Sanders happens to have been one of them, as I mentioned
last month:
Sanders criticized the way that Morales was removed from power and argued that it was a
coup, but it is quite a stretch to say that he "supported" the Bolivian leader. Whatever one
thinks about Morales, it is reasonable to characterize his removal from office as a kind of
coup, and as a general rule we should expect American politicians to disapprove of coups
against elected leaders regardless of their politics.
Sanders' willingness to call the coup in Bolivia by its right name is one of the things that
is so refreshing about his foreign policy views. There was no political advantage to be gained
in criticizing Morales' overthrow, but he said it anyway because he saw it for what it was and
objected to it on principle. Most politicians in the U.S. either shrugged at or approved of the
result of the coup, but Sanders protested because he thought it was wrong.
To appreciate how rare this is in U.S. politics, let's consider how our political leaders
usually respond to coups in other countries. The first question they usually ask is, "Did we
support the leader who was overthrown?" If the leader is perceived to be an adversary or even
non-aligned with the U.S., the coup is often touted as a great victory for democracy. If the
leader was a client ruler, it is judged to be a terrible setback for freedom and humanity. When
the Egyptian military intervened in 2013 and removed Morsi from power, this obvious coup was
spun as something else because it was useful to the post-coup government and to the U.S. to
pretend that it was not a coup. John Kerry absurdly
claimed that the military was "restoring democracy" by removing Egypt's first
democratically elected president. A little over six years later, Egypt is ruled by a
dictatorship that is far more repressive than it was even during Mubarak's dictatorship, and
U.S. support for the dictator in Cairo is as strong as ever. If the U.S. had followed our own
laws, Egypt should have been cut off from all military aid following the coup, but there was
never a complete cutoff and even the limited restrictions that were put in place were lifted
after a short interval. Our government deplores coups, provided that they are directed against
people that we like. The rest of the time, euphemisms and excuse-making are the order of the
day.
We saw this again last year in Venezuela
when the attempted coup there failed . The U.S. government and some major newspapers
clearly wanted there to be a coup, they had wished that it had succeeded, but even then they
pretended that it had not been an attempted coup at all. Coup supporters know that coups are
still considered illegitimate, and so they are careful to describe it as anything but that, but
it doesn't change the reality of what they are trying to do.
Was not the "Orange Revolution" in the Ukraine another instance of a coup? Was that coup
not aided and abetted by the the Obama Administration? How is Russia' reaction to this coup
any different than that the US when Castro over through Batista?
Well, if those people silly people didn't elect the people they wanted versus people we
don't like then we wouldn't have to support coups, would we? Until then we'll just have
wave the flag and overlook inconveniences like this:
'We came, we saw, he died' -- Hillary Clinton smirked when she said it. She had no idea how many
people that would apply to.
A fighter loyal to the Libyan internationally-recognised Government of National Accord (GNA) fires a heavy machine gun.
(MAHMUD TURKIA/AFP via Getty Images)
Libya's ongoing destruction belongs to Hillary Clinton more than anyone else. It was she who pushed President Barack Obama
to launch his splendid little war, backing the overthrow of Moammar Gaddafi in the name of protecting Libya's civilians.
When later asked about Gaddafi's death, she cackled and exclaimed: "We came, we saw, he died."
Alas, his was not the last
death in that conflict, which has flared anew, turning Libya into a real-life
Game of Thrones
. An artificial
country already suffering from deep regional divisions, Libya has been further torn apart by political and religious
differences. One commander fighting on behalf of the Government of National Accord (GNA), Salem Bin Ismail, told the BBC:
"We have had chaos since 2011."
Arrayed against the weak unity government is the former Gaddafi general, U.S. citizen, and one-time CIA adjunct Khalifa
Haftar. For years, the two sides have appeared to be in relative military balance, but a who's who of meddlesome outsiders
has turned the conflict into an international affair. The latest playbook features Egypt, France, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the
United Arab Emirates, and Russia supporting Haftar, while Italy, Qatar, and Turkey are with the unity government.
In April, Haftar launched an offensive to seize Tripoli. It faltered until Russian mercenaries made an appearance in
September, bringing Haftar to the gates of Tripoli. He apparently is also employing Sudanese mercenaries, though not with
their nation's backing. Now Turkey plans to introduce troops to bolster the official government.
Washington's position is at best confused. It officially recognizes the GNA. When Haftar started his offensive,
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued a statement urging "the immediate halt to these military operations." However,
President Donald Trump then initiated a friendly phone call to Haftar "to discuss ongoing counterterrorism efforts and the
need to achieve peace and stability in Libya," according to the White House. More incongruously, "The president recognized
Field Marshal Haftar's significant role in fighting terrorism and securing Libya's oil resources, and the two discussed a
shared vision for Libya's transition to a stable, democratic political system." The State Department recently urged both
sides to step back. However, Haftar continues to advance, and just days ago captured the coastal city of Sirte.
In recent years, Libya had been of little concern to the U.S. It was an oil producer, but Gaddafi had as much incentive
to sell the oil as did King Idris I, whom Gaddafi and other members of the "Free Officers Movement" ousted. Gaddafi
carefully balanced interests in Libya's complex tribal society and kept the military weak over fears of another coup. He
was a geopolitical troublemaker, supporting a variety of insurgent and terrorist groups. But he steadily lost influence,
alienating virtually every African and Middle Eastern government.
Of greatest concern to Washington, Libyan agents organized terrorist attacks against the U.S. -- bombing an American
airliner and a Berlin disco frequented by American soldiers -- leading to economic sanctions and military retaliation.
However, those days were long over by 2011. Eight years before, in the aftermath of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Gaddafi
repudiated terrorism and ended his missile and nuclear programs in a deal with the U.S. and Europe. He was feted in
European capitals. His government served as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council from 2008 to 2009. American
officials congratulated him for his assistance against terrorism and discussed possible assistance in return. All seemed
forgiven.
Then in 2011, the Arab Spring engulfed Libya, as people rose against Gaddafi's rule. He responded with force to
reestablish control. However, Western advocates of regime change warned that genocide was possible and pushed for
intervention under United Nations auspices. In explaining his decision to intervene, Obama stated: "We knew that if we
waited one more day, Benghazi could suffer a massacre that would have reverberated across the region and stained the
conscience of the world." Russia and China went along with a resolution authorizing "all necessary measures to prevent the
killing of civilians."
In fact, the fears were fraudulent. Gaddafi was no angel, but he hadn't targeted civilians, and his florid rhetoric,
cited by critics, only attacked those who had taken up arms. He even promised amnesty to those who abandoned their weapons.
With no civilians to protect, NATO, led by the U.S., bombed Libyan government forces and installations and backed the
insurgents' offensive. It was not a humanitarian intervention, but a lengthy, costly, low-tech, regime-change war, mostly
at Libyan expense. Obama claimed: "We had a unique ability to stop the violence." Instead his administration ensured that
the initial civil war would drag on for months -- and the larger struggle ultimately for years.
On October 20, 2011, Gaddafi was discovered hiding in a culvert in Sirte. He was beaten, sodomized with a bayonet, shot,
and killed. That essentially ended the first phase of the extended Libyan civil war. Gaddafi had done much to earn his
fate, but his death led to an entirely new set of problems.
A low level insurgency continued, led by former Gaddafi followers. Proposals either to disband militia forces or
integrate them into the National Transitional Council (NTC) military went unfulfilled, and this developed into the
conflict's second phase. Elections delivered fragmented results, as ideological, religious, and other divisions ran deep.
Militias were accused of misusing government funds, employing violence, and kidnapping and assassinating their opponents.
Islamist groups increasingly attempted to impose religious rule. Violence and insecurity worsened.
In February 2014, Haftar challenged the General National Congress (GNC). Hostilities broadly evolved between the
GNC/GNA, backed by several militias, which controlled Tripoli and much of the country's west, and the Tobruk-based House of
Representatives, which was supported by Haftar and his Libyan National Army. Multiple domestic factions, forces, and
militias also were involved. Among them was the Islamic State, which murdered Egyptian Coptic (Christian) laborers.
The African Union and the United Nations promoted various peace initiatives. However, other governments fueled
hostilities. Most notable now is the potential entry of Turkish troops.
In mid-December, Turkey's parliament approved an agreement to provide equipment, military training, technical aid, and
intelligence. (The Erdogan government also controversially set maritime boundaries with Libya that conflict with other
claims, most notably from Cyprus, Egypt, Greece, and Israel.) Ankara introduced some members of the dwindling Syrian
insurgents once aligned against the Assad regime to Libya and raised the possibility of adding its "quick reaction force"
to the fight.
At the end of last month, the Erdogan government introduced, and parliament approved, legislation to authorize the
deployment of combat forces. President Erdogan criticized nations that backed a "putschist general" and "warlord" and
promised to support the GNA "much more effectively." While noting that Turkey doesn't "go where we are not invited"
(except, apparently, Syria), Erdogan added that "since now there is an invitation [from the GNA], we will accept it."
But Haftar refused to back down. Last week, he called on "men and women, soldiers and civilians, to defend our land and
our honor." He continued: "We accept the challenge and declare jihad and a call to arms."
Turkish legislator Ismet Yilmaz supported the intervention and warned that the conflict might "spread instability to
Turkey." More likely the intervention is a grab for energy, since Ankara has devoted significant resources of late to
exploring the Eastern Mediterranean for oil and gas. Libya has oil deposits, of course, which could be exploited under a
friendly government. Perhaps most important, Ankara wants to ensure that its interests are respected in the Eastern
Mediterranean.
However, direct intervention is an extraordinarily dangerous step. It puts Turkey in the line of fire, as in Syria.
Ankara's forces could clash with those of Russia, which maintains the merest veneer of deniability over its role in Libya.
And other powers -- Egypt, perhaps, or the UAE -- might ramp up their involvement in an effort to thwart Erdogan's plans.
In response, the U.S. attempted to warn Turkey against intervening. "External military intervention threatens prospects
for resolving the conflict," said State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus with no hint of irony. Congress might go
further: some of its members have already proposed sanctioning Russia for the introduction of mercenaries, and Ankara has
few friends left on Capitol Hill. Nevertheless it is rather late for Washington to cry foul. Its claim to essentially a
monopoly on Mideast meddling can only be seen as risible by other powers.
The Arab League has also criticized "foreign interference." In a resolution passed in late December, the group expressed
"serious concern over the military escalation further aggravating the situation in Libya and which threatens the security
and stability of neighboring countries and the entire region." However, Arab League is no less hypocritical. Egypt, the
UAE, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, all deeply involved in the conflict, are members of the league. And no one would be
surprised if some or all of them decided to expand their participation in the fighting. Egyptian president Abdel Fatah
al-Sisi insisted: "We will not allow anyone to control Libya. It is a matter of Egyptian national security."
Although the fighting is less intense than in, say, Syria, combat has gone high-tech. According to the
Washington
Post
: "Eight months into Libya's worst spasm of violence in eight years, the conflict is being fought increasingly by
weaponized drones." ISIS is one of the few beneficiaries of these years of fighting. GNA-allied militias that once
cooperated with the U.S. and other states in counterterrorism are now focused on Haftar, allowing militants to revive, set
up desert camps, and organize attacks. Washington still employs drones, but they rely on accurate intelligence, best
gathered on the ground, and even then well-directed hits are no substitute for local ground operations.
The losers are the Libyan people. The fighting has resulted in thousands of deaths and tens of thousands of refugees.
Divisions, even among tribes, are growing. The future looks ever dimmer. Fathi Bashagha, the GNA interior minister,
lamented: "Every day we are burying young people who should be helping us build Libya." Absent a major change, many more
will be buried in the future.
Yet the air of unreality surrounding the conflict remains. In late December, President Trump met with al-Sisi and,
according to the White House, the two "rejected foreign exploitation and agreed that parties must take urgent steps to
resolve the conflict before Libyans lose control to foreign actors." However, the latter already happened -- nine years ago
when America first intervened.
The Obama administration did not plan to ruin Libya for a generation. But its decision to take on another people's fight
has resulted in catastrophe. Hillary Clinton's malignant gift keeps on giving. Such is the cost of America's promiscuous
war-making.
Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. He is a former special assistant to President Ronald Reagan
and the author of several books, including Foreign Follies: America's New Global Empire
.
I suspect his open-borders advocacy and Russia-bashing too are lies; these are lines of
defence against internal forces. It makes sense for him to take those positions while he
seeks the nomination. If he gets it, he can betray those positions. A serious politician has
to demonstrate a large capacity for betrayal. At the end of the day, he is a hardened
politician like the rest.
Bolton is a typical "Full Spectrum Dominance" hawk, a breed of chickenhawks that recently
proliferated in Washinton corridors of power and which are fed by MIC.
Notable quotes:
"... the way the IRGC came to be designated as an FTO is itself predicated on a lie. ..."
"... The person responsible for this lie is President Trump's former national security adviser John Bolton, who while in that position oversaw National Security Council (NSC) interagency policy coordination meetings at the White House for the purpose of formulating a unified government position on Iran. Bolton had stacked the NSC staff with hardliners who were pushing for a strong stance. But representatives from the Department of Defense often pushed back . During such meetings, the Pentagon officials argued that the IRGC was "a state entity" (albeit a "bad" one), and that if the U.S. were to designate it as a terrorist group, there was nothing to stop Iran from responding by designating U.S. military personnel or CIA officers as terrorists. ..."
"... The memoranda on these meetings, consisting of summaries of the various positions put forward, were doctored by the NSC to make it appear as if the Pentagon agreed with its proposed policy. The Defense Department complained to the NSC that the memoranda produced from these meetings were "largely incorrect and inaccurate" -- "essentially fiction," a former Pentagon official claimed. ..."
"... This was a direct result of the bureaucratic dishonesty of John Bolton. Such dishonesty led to a series of policy decisions that gave a green light to use military force against IRGC targets throughout the Middle East. ..."
President Trump's decision to assassinate Qassem Soleimani back in January took the United
States to the brink of war with Iran.
Trump and his advisors contend that Soleimani's death was necessary to protect American
lives, pointing to a continuum of events that began on December 27, when a rocket attack on an
American base in Iraq killed a civilian translator. That in turn prompted U.S. airstrikes
against a pro-Iranian militia, Khati'ab Hezbollah, which America blamed for the attack.
Khati'ab Hezbollah then stormed the U.S. embassy in Baghdad in protest. This reportedly
triggered the assassination of Soleimani and a subsequent Iranian retaliatory missile strike on
an American base in Iraq. The logic of this continuum appears consistent except for one
important fact -- it is all predicated on a lie.
On the night of December 27, a pickup truck modified
to carry a launchpad capable of firing 36 107mm Russian-made rockets was used in an attack
on a U.S. military compound located at the K-1 Airbase in Iraq's Kirkuk Province. A total of 20
rockets were loaded onto the vehicle, but only 14 were fired. Some of the rockets struck an
ammunition dump on the base, setting off a series of secondary explosions. When the smoke and
dust cleared, a civilian interpreter was dead and
several other personnel , including four American servicemen and two Iraqi military, were
wounded. The attack appeared timed to
disrupt a major Iraqi military operation targeting insurgents affiliated with ISIS.
The area around K-1 is populated by Sunni Arabs, and has long been considered a bastion of
ISIS ideology, even if the organization itself
was declared defeated inside Iraq back in 2017 by then-prime minister Haider al Abadi. The
Iraqi counterterrorism forces based at K-1 consider the area around the base an ISIS sanctuary
so dangerous that they only enter in large numbers.
For their part, the Iraqis had been warning their U.S. counterparts for more than a month
that ISIS was planning attacks on K-1. One such report, delivered on November 6, using
intelligence dating back to October, was quite specific: "ISIS terrorists have endeavored to
target K-1 base in Kirkuk district by indirect fire (Katyusha rockets)."
Another report, dated December 25, warned that ISIS was attempting to seize territory to the
northeast of K-1. The Iraqis were so concerned that on December 27, the day of the attack, they
requested that the U.S. keep functional its
tethered aerostat-based Persistent Threat Detection System (PTSD) -- a high-tech
reconnaissance balloon equipped with multi-mission sensors to provide long endurance
intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance (ISR) and communications in support of U.S. and
Iraqi forces.
Instead, the U.S. took the PTSD down for maintenance, allowing the attackers to approach
unobserved.
The Iraqi military officials at K-1 immediately suspected ISIS as the culprit behind the
attack. Their logic was twofold. First, ISIS had been engaged in nearly daily attacks in the
area for over a year, launching rockets, firing small arms, and planting roadside bombs.
Second, according
to the Iraqis , "The villages near here are Turkmen and Arab. There is sympathy with Daesh
[i.e., ISIS] there."
As transparent as the Iraqis had been with the U.S. about their belief that ISIS was behind
the attack, the U.S. was equally opaque with the Iraqis regarding whom it believed was the
culprit. The U.S. took custody of the rocket launcher, all surviving ordnance, and all warhead
fragments from the scene.
U.S. intelligence analysts viewed the attack on K-1 as part of a continuum of attacks
against U.S. bases in Iraq since early November 2019. The first attack took place on November
9,
against the joint U.S.-Iraqi base at Qayarrah , and was very similar to the one that
occurred against K-1 -- some 31 107mm rockets were fired from a pickup truck modified to carry
a rocket launchpad. As with K-1, the forces located in Qayarrah were engaged in ongoing
operations targeting ISIS, and the territory around the base was considered sympathetic to
ISIS. The Iraqi government attributed the attack to unspecified "terrorist" groups.
The U.S., however, attributed the attacks to Khati'ab Hezbollah, a Shia militia incorporated
with the Popular Mobilization Organization (PMO), a pro-Iranian umbrella organization that had
been incorporated into the Iraqi Ministry of Defense. The PMO
blamed the U.S. for a series of drone strikes against its facilities throughout the summer
of 2019.
The feeling among the American analysts was that the PMO attacked the bases as a form of
retaliation.
The U.S.
launched a series of airstrikes against Khati'ab Hezbollah bases and command posts in Iraq
and Syria on December 29, near the Iraqi city of al-Qaim. These attacks were carried out
unilaterally, without any effort to coordinate with America's Iraqi counterparts or seek
approval from the Iraqi government.
Khati'ab Hezbollah units had seized al-Qaim from ISIS in November 2017, and then crossed
into Syria, where they defeated ISIS fighters dug in around the Syrian town of al-Bukamal. They
were continuing to secure this strategic border crossing when they were bombed on December
29.
Left unsaid by the U.S. was the fact that the al-Bukamal-al Qaim border crossing was seen as
a crucial "land bridge," connecting Iran with Syria via Iraq. Throughout the summer of
2019, the U.S. had been watching as Iranian engineers, working with Khati'ab Hezbollah,
constructed a sprawling base that straddled both Iraq and Syria. It was this base, and not
Khati'ab Hezbollah per se, that was the reason for the American airstrike. The objective in
this attack was to degrade Iranian capability in the region; the K-1 attack was just an excuse,
one based on the lie that Khati'ab Hezbollah, and not ISIS, had carried it out.
The U.S. had long condemned what it called Iran's "malign intentions" when it came to its
activities in Iraq and Syria. But there is a world of difference between employing tools of
diplomacy to counter Iranian regional actions and going kinetic. One of the reasons the U.S.
has been able to justify attacking Iranian-affiliated targets, such as the al-Bukamal-al-Qaim
complex and Qassem Soleimani, is that the Iranian entity associated with both -- the Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC -- has been designated by the U.S. as a Foreign Terrorist
Organization (FTO), and as such military attacks against it are seen as an extension of the
ongoing war on terror. Yet the way the IRGC came to be designated as an FTO is itself
predicated on a lie.
The person responsible for this lie is President Trump's former national security
adviser John Bolton, who while in that position oversaw National Security Council (NSC)
interagency policy coordination meetings at the White House for the purpose of formulating a
unified government position on Iran. Bolton had stacked the NSC staff with hardliners who were
pushing for a strong stance. But
representatives from the Department of Defense often pushed back . During such meetings,
the Pentagon officials argued that the IRGC was "a state entity" (albeit a "bad" one), and that
if the U.S. were to designate it as a terrorist group, there was nothing to stop Iran from
responding by designating U.S. military personnel or CIA officers as terrorists.
The memoranda on these meetings, consisting of summaries of the various positions put
forward, were doctored by the NSC to make it appear as if the Pentagon agreed with its proposed
policy. The Defense Department complained to the NSC that the memoranda produced from these
meetings were "largely
incorrect and inaccurate" -- "essentially fiction," a former Pentagon official
claimed.
After the Pentagon "informally" requested that the NSC change the memoranda to accurately
reflect its position, and were denied, the issue was bumped up to Undersecretary of Defense
John Rood. He then formally requested that the memoranda be corrected. Such a request was
unprecedented in recent memory, a former official noted. Regardless, the NSC did not budge, and
the original memoranda remained as the official records of the meetings in question.
This was a direct result of the bureaucratic dishonesty of John Bolton. Such dishonesty
led to a series of policy decisions that gave a green light to use military force against IRGC
targets throughout the Middle East. The rocket attack against K-1 was attributed to an
Iranian proxy -- Khati'ab Hezbollah -- even though there was reason to believe the attack was
carried out by ISIS. This was a cover so IRGC-affiliated facilities in al-Bakumal and al-Qaim,
which had nothing to do with the attack, could be bombed. Everything to do with Iran's alleged
"malign intent." The U.S. embassy was then attacked. Soleimani killed. The American base at
al-Assad was bombarded by Iranian missiles. America and Iran were on the brink of war.
All because of a lie.
Scott Ritter is a former Marine Corps intelligence officer who served in the former
Soviet Union implementing arms control treaties, in the Persian Gulf during Operation Desert
Storm, and in Iraq overseeing the disarmament of WMD. He is the author of several books, most
recently, Deal of the Century: How Iran
Blocked the West's Road to War (2018).
Iran hawks never talk about diplomacy except as a way to discredit it.
Notable quotes:
"... And even if Iran were to accept and proceed comply in good faith, just as Iran complied scrupulously with the JCPOA, what's to prevent any US administration from tearing up that "new deal" and demanding more? ..."
Daniel
Larison Two Iran hawks from the Senate, Bob Menendez and Lindse Graham, are
proposing a "new deal" that is guaranteed to be a non-starter with Iran:
Essentially, their idea is that the United States would offer a new nuclear deal to both
Iran and the gulf states at the same time. The first part would be an agreement to ensure
that Iran and the gulf states have access to nuclear fuel for civilian energy purposes,
guaranteed by the international community in perpetuity. In exchange, both Iran and the gulf
states would swear off nuclear fuel enrichment inside their own countries forever.
Iran is never going to accept any agreement that requires them to give up domestic
enrichment. As far as they are concerned, they are entitled to this under the Non-Proliferation
Treaty, and they regard it as a matter of their national rights that they keep it. Insisting on
"zero enrichment" is what made it impossible to reach an agreement with Iran for the better
part of a decade, and it was only when the Obama administration understood this and compromised
to allow Iran to enrich under tight restrictions that the negotiations could move forward.
Demanding "zero enrichment" today in 2020 amounts to rejecting that compromise and returning to
a bankrupt approach that drove Iran to build tens of thousands of centrifuges. As a proposal
for negotiations, it is dead on arrival, and Menendez and Graham must know that. Iran hawks
never talk about diplomacy except as a way to discredit it. They want to make a bogus offer in
the hopes that it will be rejected so that they can use the rejection to justify more
aggressive measures.
The identity of the authors of the plan is a giveaway that the offer is not a serious
diplomatic proposal. Graham is one of the most incorrigible hard-liners on Iran, and Menendez
is probably the most hawkish Democratic senator in office today. Among other things, Menendez
has been a
booster of the Mujahideen-e Khalq (MEK), the deranged cult of Iranian exiles
that has been buying the support of American politicians and officials for years. Graham has
never seen a diplomatic agreement that he didn't want to destroy. When hard-liners talk about
making a "deal," they always mean that they want to demand the other side's surrender.
Another giveaway that this is not a serious proposal is the fact that they want this
imaginary agreement submitted as a treaty:
That final deal would be designated as a treaty, ratified by the U.S. Senate, to give Iran
confidence that a new president won't just pull out (like President Trump did on President
Barack Obama's nuclear deal).
This is silly for many reasons. The Senate doesn't ratify treaties nowadays, so any "new
deal" submitted as a treaty would never be ratified. As the current president has shown, it
doesn't matter if a treaty has been ratified by the Senate. Presidents can and do withdraw from
ratified treaties if they want to, and the fact that it is a ratified treaty doesn't prevent
them from doing this. Bush pulled out of the ABM Treaty, which was ratified
88-2 in 1972. Trump withdrew from the INF Treaty just last year. The INF Treaty had been
ratified with a
93-5 vote. The hawkish complaint that the JCPOA wasn't submitted as a treaty was, as usual,
made in bad faith. There was no chance that the JCPOA would have been ratified, and even if it
had been that ratification would not have protected it from being tossed aside by Trump.
Insisting on making any new agreement a treaty is just another way of announcing that they have
no interest in a diplomatic solution.
Menendez and Graham want to make the obstacles to diplomacy so great that negotiations
between the U.S. and Iran can't resume. It isn't a serious proposal, and it shouldn't be taken
seriously.
And even if Iran were to accept and proceed comply in good faith, just as Iran complied
scrupulously with the JCPOA, what's to prevent any US administration from tearing up that
"new deal" and demanding more?
"... Although corporations are legally a person (see history below), they are in fact an entity. The sole goal of that entity is
profit. There is no corporate conscience. ..."
"... Perhaps it would be useful to look at the nature of our global expansion. The global expanse of US military bases is well-known,
but its actual territorial empire is largely hidden. The true map of America is not taught in our schools. Abby Martin interviews history
Professor Daniel Immerwahr about his new book, ' How To Hide An Empire ,' where he documents the story of our "Greater United States."
This is worth the 40 minute watch...I learned several new things. One more long clip. However this one is fine to just listen to as
you do things. This is a wonderful interview with Noam Chomsky. The man exudes wisdom. ..."
"... The oligarchy has been with us since perhaps the tribal origins of our species, but the corporation is a newer phenomenon.
A faceless, soulless profit machine. Ironically it is the 14th amendment which is used to justify corporate person-hood. ..."
"... Corporations aren't specifically mentioned in the 14th Amendment, or anywhere else in the Constitution. But going back to the
earliest years of the republic, when the Bank of the United States brought the first corporate rights case before the Supreme Court,
U.S. corporations have sought many of the same rights guaranteed to individuals, including the rights to own property, enter into contracts,
and to sue and be sued just like individuals. ..."
"... But it wasn't until the 1886 case Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Rail Road that the Court appeared to grant a corporation
the same rights as an individual under the 14th Amendment ..."
"... The United States is home to five of the world's 10 largest defense contractors, and American companies account for 57 percent
of total arms sales by the world's 100 largest defense contractors, based on SIPRI data. Maryland-based Lockheed Martin, the largest
defense contractor in the world, is estimated to have had $44.9 billion in arms sales in 2017 through deals with governments all over
the world. The company drew public scrutiny after a bomb it sold to Saudi Arabia was dropped on a school bus in Yemen, killing 40 boys
and 11 adults. Lockheed's revenue from the U.S. government alone is well more than the total annual budgets of the IRS and the Environmental
Protection Agency, combined. ..."
"... http://news.nidokidos.org/military-spending-20-companies-profiting-the-m... For a list of the 20 companies profiting most off
war... https://themindunleashed.com/2019/03/20-companies-profiting-war.html ..."
"... Capitalism, militarism and imperialism are disastrously intertwined ..."
"... Corporations are Religions Yes they are. They have ethics, goals, and priests. They have a god who determines everything "The
Invisible Hand". They be
" Presidential Memorandum: Organization of the National Security Council and the Homeland Security Council ", by Donald Trump, Voltaire Network , 28 January 2017. And " Donald Trump winds up "the" organization of US imperialism ", by Thierry Meyssan, Translation Anoosha Boralessa, Voltaire Network , 31 January 2017.
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